Only 2 Months to go to Mega 2016 in Cape Town and the Mega committee has been working hard to ensure everything is running smoothly. Get the details of their most recent update here. You can also visit their website to buy your tickets for the weekend. If you want to buy any of the Mega clothing, remember orders close on 31 August. Follow the Mega Event on social media:
GoSA has set up a YouTube channel to share various geocaching related videos. The first one we created is an animation of the geocaches hidden across South Africa. There are also links to other South African geocaching videos and to Groundspeak educational videos.
Pte Curb, Afrika Rocks and ROTSIP, the three South African reviewers
We are starting our Meet the Reviewers series with Bruce Pantland, who has been a geocacher since May 2008 and a reviewer since April 2012. Bruce caches under the BruceTP profile, and reviews as Pte Curb. He started geocaching after being introduced to the game by a colleague, Dakardrix. Bruce explained to us that he chose his reviewer handle by just reversing his player handle.
When not reviewing, Bruce's day job (and night job too as he pointed out) involves supporting key banking applications to keep the lights on for the customers! Given that he also spends a minimum of 25 hours a week on his volunteer reviewer work, that keeps him pretty busy. In addition, he is the reviewer liaison for the GoSA committee.
We asked Bruce to share some advice and experience from his reviewing with our readers: GoSA: What do you enjoy about reviewing? Pte Curb: Interacting with the folk from around the country as they brainstorm new caches as well as helping newbies get started.
GoSA: What advice do you have for new geocachers? Pte Curb: Read the guidelines and then read them again before placing your first cache. Also find a few before trying to hide any.
GoSA: What advice do you have for geocachers who have placed a hide and are about to submit their listing? Pte Curb: Check that everything makes sense - Check your location on Google Earth - Is it where you hid it. If not recheck your coordinates. Patience!! Although we try and get through the queue as quickly as possible at peak time this may take a few days.
GoSA: Why don’t you go for FTF’s? Pte Curb: I have never been a great FTF hunter, but if there is a traditional which has not been found and I am in the area I shall attempt it. For example Kompasberg remained unfound for over a month and I happened to be hiking in the area and so I went and got the FTF with JPMZA and MeganZA. Mystery caches are something else because we have insider knowledge which gives us an unfair advantage. So as a matter of principle, I would not chase an FTF on a Mystery.
GoSA: Anything else interesting you think our readers would like to know about you? Pte Curb: I enjoy meeting geocachers at events and finally put names and faces to handles. I really enjoy the social side to geocaching especially the camping weekends away, the PE camp outs and Tswaing Crater events.
We are always on the lookout for photos from events or cool caches, as well as any fun, interesting, unusual or exciting geocaching stories to share with the geocaching community. If you want to share yours, send it to us by emailing it to our webmasters.
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