 International Geocaching DayGPSFrodo Virtual Rewards 2.0 Update |
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International Geocaching Day
Do you remember that tomorrow is International Geocaching Day? Earn the official International Geocaching Day 2019 souvenir by logging a geocache or attending an event on 17 August 2019. We trust you will have a great time celebrating this occasion! |
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GPSFrodo - hider of first geocache placed in SAA couple of months ago we received an email from GPSFrodo, the creator of the very first cache in South Africa placed on 14 January 2001 - GCZA01. Read more about the cache here. We caught up with him and asked him some questions about his geocaching experiences.
Left: GPSFrodo Right: How the geocaching website looked back in the beginning of 2001, when GCZA01 was placed. Also viewable here. Can you tell us a little about how you heard about geocaching? My introduction to GPS ‘games’ started with the Degree Confluence project. After logging a confluence in KZN I saw a post on usenet (yes we still used that in those days ;)) about a Stash that Dave Ulmer in the USA had placed, and published coordinates for. This sounded like an awesome idea and thus my introduction to geocaching began. We see your first intro into GPS games was with the Degree Confluence project. Can you tell us a bit about this? The Degree confluence Project was started in 1996 by Alex Jarrett. The idea behind the project is to document all the confluences accessible on land. A confluence is an intersection of a longitude and latitude, and for the purposes of the project, only integer confluences are considered. Below is a map I created in early 2001 to show the confluences:
You can find a lot more detail on the project page for South Africa here. What was your first gps? My first GPS was a Garmin Etrex. It was the original, ugly, yellow model that couldn’t load maps or do any routing. It still used a serial port connection then. See this for the older model comparisons. What made you plant GCZA01 where you did? If I knew then what I know now …. You know the old saying. At the time of placing GCZA01, there were no real rules. My main reason for placing it on a friend’s farm was that I could get permission to place it. I contacted the botanical gardens in Pretoria first to see if I could place a cache there. Well, you try to explain this “Treasure Hunt” game with GPSs to an administrative type … and yeah, you guessed the answer. Since the 1st geocache in the States was placed on private property, I thought I’d do the same. Can you describe the cache container and it’s hiding spot? Was there any significance to the things you added to the cache? The cache container was a regular Tupperware plastic box. It contained some CDRs, a novel, log book and pen, greetings letter (which I’m sorry I didn’t copy) and wrist watch. The watch was the only significant item. I worked for a Danish software company at the time (Navision Software) and they had a company branded watch, which I bought specifically to place in the cache. The reason for its inclusion was that I was pretty sure it was unique in the country and there wouldn’t be 2 like it ;) As far as I know Jors still has it. Yes, Jors kept it and made it into a trackable! There was no reviewing process, no rules. You logged the hide and that was that. We see you have reactivated your geocaching account and found a couple of geocaches this year. How did you get back into the game? A friend of mine owns a motorcycle accessories shop in Centurion. While there I saw he had a handheld GPS on the shelf that mentioned geocaching on the box. Easy sell for him ;). Did you ever think that the game would develop to what it has become – a game with over 3 million geocaches worldwide with many different cache types and geocaches suited to every type of cacher? That question actually has 2 very different answers. 1. No, and it is awesome how the game has grown. Love it!!!
2. No, but it seems to be all about micro caches and finds instead of taking you to awesome places.
To me the game started out as a treasure hunt. Some still play it that way. Too may people focus on the hide and find stats these days, but luckily everyone can play the game the way they want.
Do you have geocaches on a bucket list that you’d like to do one day? I would love to visit GCGV0P and and GC30. |
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Cache of the MonthThis month's COTM theme is for the best letterbox cache. We had some excellent nominations and it was difficult to decide on the winner. We are proud to announce that Bloemfontein Letterbox and TB Hotel is the COTM this month! A new and interesting Letterbox that impresses all its visitors!
 We are on to our last two months of focusing on the different cache types. Our September COTM will go to the best Wherigo. Send us your nominations by emailing us at .
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