GoSA Grapevine April 2022

This month in the Grapevine – New Souvenirs, ISD thank you, Capri Cache competition and more...

From the Desk of the Chairman

Hello from The Grind in Underberg with Ceinwen looking over my shoulder reminding me to write the chairperson report. I’m only pretending to write the report to avoid getting into trouble and the report can wait until…

Hello from Jungle Monkey Backpackers in Port St Johns, the birthplace of the once notorious Capital Radio 604. This has been an incredible space to reflect on a few things, not least of which is the awesome In the Shadow of the Dragon event put on by the Natalites! A wonderful thank you to everybody who played a hand in the weekend’s festivities and formalities. I’ve written to the community through the local paper to thank them from GoSA for their hospitality. I’ll leave the review of the event to another though there are a few things in particular that have come to mind.

It’s incredibly good to see some cachers coming out of semi-retirement to enjoy the game with us. I believe that more events in local communities could inspire more of this and would encourage those cachers who find themselves in areas with limited activity to give an event a go. Certainly, one can’t expect a small community event to be in the range of 100 new published caches but there is a lot of ground between that and doing nothing that can be filled. We also turned a lot of muggles into prospective cachers so I’m going to enjoy keeping an eye on those logs from the ISD caches. Would be cool to document how much muggle conversion legacy an event may have.

What was concerning though was what I discovered in the days which followed as I was looking for caches I had previously missed. I noticed that tree branches had been broken, stones hadn’t been replaced and other miscellaneous damage in geocache locations. This was a concern that was shared to me by a few others too. It’s very easy to get overcome with the excitement of finding a cache and forgetting our commitment to the environment in the geocaching “code” so I would implore cachers to be mindful of that.

With that in mind, and since we’re done climbing all these mountains, perhaps you may want to consider setting up a CITO event in your hood. There’s even a souvenir in it for you. As the cold weather creeps in, you may find it an excuse to stop caching. I’ve learned that multi and mystery caches make for great indoor adventures. Do with that information what you will.

Until next time, may the month bring many a yellow smile.

In the Shadow of the Dragon

And that’s a wrap! From prehistoric ducks to minion’s war cries, from FTFs to prizes, In the Shadow of the Dragon caching weekend was a huge success and all that remains is for us to say thank you!

Firstly, thank you to the members of the KZN Fun Committee for putting this all together – from the geocaches to the action bound to the prizes, then thank you to all you wonderful cachers that travelled from all over SA to join in the fun – this event would not have been a success with you, thank you to Underberg Country Club for hosting our prize giving event, thank you for Paul from Mountain Echo for running a newspaper article on the ISD, thank you to GoSA for all the support and social media coverage and last but certainly not least a big thank you to those that sponsored prizes.

Our grateful thanks go to the following prize sponsors:

House at GlenGariff
Sani Window
Goxhill Trout Lodge
Pennygum Country Cottages
Sani Valley Lodge
Wild Sky Paragliding
Khotso Lodge & Horse Trails
Underberg Spar
Heritage Nursery
The Whistling Goat
Devorah
Gunslinger
Capri Cache Store
Geocachers of South Africa
Ceinwen Oosthuizen from Avon
Jill McDermid from Avon
Chris and Ingrid Larkin from chrisingy
Howard and Wynona Crouch from wacoandwinnie
Norman and Deanne Bowman from iPajero
Alwyn & Gerty Weir from Desertal
Nicole Stroebel from NinJa Speechie
Mark Sclanders from Sclanders Clan
Grant Little from Afrika Rocks

We sincerely hope that this weekend has encouraged those cachers that haven’t cached in a while and joined us to get back into the game and carry on caching! We also hope that it has inspired some of you who attended to host something similar in your area – we would love to come and visit!

Community Contributions
SA Geocaching Stats
By Adventure_T and Danie Viljoen

Because sometimes, for some people, it is about the numbers… Here is a summary of the South African Geocaching activity for February:

872 Cachers found a total of 3,903 caches during February 2022. This was a decline from February 2021, which saw 874 Cachers find 4,680 caches.
28 Cachers placed 77 new caches in February 2022. This was also a decline from February 2021, where 33 Cachers placed 108 new caches.
The number of Cachers who found at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 6,361.

The total number of active South African caches at end of February is 16,293.

It’s QUIZ TIME!
By Panthera03

Congratulations to the winners for the March 2022 Quiz from Capri Cache Store! If you don't enter, you don't have a chance. If you have entered and have not been lucky as yet, keep trying! Each month, 3 lucky winners will be drawn from the hat.

12 entries were entered for the March Quiz. The winners are as follows:

First Draw: Wikklegat - Wicus & Ansie Benade
Second Draw: Evolutionaries - Bruce Barratt
Third Draw: roadrunred - Ed Shuttleworth

Capri Cache Store will be in touch with each of you to get your prize delivered.

Look out for next month's Quiz and try your luck!

The correct answers for the March Quiz are:
1.What is the name of the neighbourhood & city of Geocaching HQ? (Names only, co-ords not required)
Fremont, Seattle

2.When was the first batch of new Virtual Rewards introduced? (Month & Year is sufficient)
August 2017

3.In geocaching, what does BYOP mean?
Bring Your Own Pen/Pencil

4.The volunteer who checks your cache listing & publishes it, goes by what name? (General term)
Reviewer

5.What was “geocaching” originally called in May 2000?
GPS Stash Hunt or Geostashing or GPS Stashing

We look forward to receiving your entries for the April Quiz! Please follow all the steps below to participate and please encourage any of your geocaching friends who are not on the GoSA Grapevine mailing list to sign up so that they too can enter the competition.

Please use the following link to subscribe: https://www.geocachingsa.com/index.php/newsletter/subscribe You will need to leave both boxes (General Geocachers of SA and Mega Event News) ticked, in order for the subscription to be valid. Please also check your spam folder for the verification email. Good Luck!

New Souvenir: The Hider 2022

Well, here is a nice change – for the first time ever you can earn a souvenir for HIDING a cache, yes that’s right – hide a cache, any cache type, between 1 March and 31 December 2022 and you will earn a souvenir when the cache is published! So, what are you waiting for – let’s get some new caches out there.

New Souvenir: Signal's Labyrinth

Signal is on the move, and you need to help him find his way out of the labyrinth and back to GCHQ. A total of twelve souvenirs are up for grabs. Earn leader board points over a two-month period to qualify for two new souvenirs per two-month period. At the end of the two months the points will reset (on the first Monday of the next two-month period) and you will be able to then start earning points toward the next two souvenirs. Escape all 6 labyrinths, earn all twelve souvenirs and you will also earn a meta souvenir.

You must earn 50 points for the first souvenir and 500 points for the second souvenir in each labyrinth. The points values for each cache type will change for each labyrinth. In every labyrinth there will be a mystery item that if found will earn you bonus points. You will not be able to search caches to see which have this mystery item in it.

For April and May, the souvenirs up for grabs are Signal’s Labyrinth: The forest and Signal’s Labyrinth: You escaped the forest. The mystery item for the Enchanted Forest Labyrinth is a glowing firefly.

Current Souvenirs

Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that you can earn, discover, and display on your profile page. They are associated with a particular location, task, find or event and may also be bound by time.

The souvenirs that are currently up for grabs are listed and pictured below:

Community Celebration – 2 May 2020 to 21 December 2022
GC8NEAT, Locationless Cache – 6 February to 31 December 2022
Perserverance Rover on Mars TB – no end date announced
CITO 2022 Season 1 – 1 March to 1 May 2022
The Hider – 1 March 2022 to 31 December 2022
Signal’s Labyrinth – 4 April 2022 to 3 April 2023

Found an awesome cache? Have some tips to share? Been on a cool geocaching adventure lately? Exciting events happening in your geocaching community? Taken a great photo? We would love to hear all about it!

Please email our newsletter editor at

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 newsletter writers.