Happy Easter! We hope your geocaching skills will help you to find all those Easter eggs!
From the Desk of the Chairman
Three things this month. Well three things over and above the typical pleasantaries so lets get those out of the way; hello. Hope you’re well. Hope you helped Signal escape because there isn’t much time left. Go find a geocache.
Now, onto those three things: You’ll recall that one of my personal goals for GoSA was to have a day with an event in every province. Well since 1 May is a public holiday and there’s a souvenir available for Blue Switch Day…let’s go for it. If after a week of this newsletter going out, I find provinces without events on 1 May, I’m going to start making some calls. It’s ambitious, I know but awesome at the same time. So if you’re keen on hosting an event, do it on 1 May. Make it a CITO and get another souvenir while you’re at it.
The second thing involves a whirlwind of a weekend. I’m writing this at 04h00 on a Sunday morning in Jeffrey’s Bay waiting for some sunlight so I can go caching. I only found out I’d be going on this trip 7 hours before we departed but such a cool thing happened at dinner last night. Our waitron, I’m embarrassed to admit, noticed me seeking a cache. I believe many of us know, all-too-well, the devastation of realizing you’re not as stealthy as you thought. Anyway, he told me that his colleague is very into caching. This is how I ended up meeting juangouws and though I rarely mention specific cachers in my newsletter intros, I feel I have to bring Juan up because, as it turns out, we have our own Geocaching vlogger and I had some fun watching his videos since meeting the guy. He has a whole channel.
Finally. Thanks for being awesome! I’ve actually been thinking a lot about my interactions with geocachers around the country and can’t think of any unpleasant encounter since starting. I know that they probably do occur but it’s apparent that they are few and far between. You’re really a wonderful bunch and anytime I need a reminder that it’s nice to be nice, I need look no further than the local caching community.
Have a great April and see you somewhere on the 1st of May. May this be the first of many smilies
Cache of the Month
To summarise how COTM will work: This month we will have community voting for a winner from the caches that were nominated last month. We will also be nominating caches for this month for COTM. Lastly, we will be announcing the COTM winner from 2 months back.
We have two competitions running – 1) nominate a cache for the current months COTM and you will go into a draw for a prize from GoSA 2) vote for a winner from last months COTM nominations and you will go into a draw for a prize from GoSA. The nomination competition will close in December 2023 and the voting competition will close in January 2024.
The winner of the February COTM as voted for by the caching community was Kaalvoetvrou which received 58% of the total votes cast. Some of the comments about this cache: “A little off the beaten track - but an amazing view - an interesting sculpture and a great bit of history of our country that most do not know about. Well worth a visit - so close to a main road - but so off the beaten track to make it a WOW discovery and a place you remember and want to return to.”; “A small monument in the middle of nowhere, great view and great story.” “What an incredible location for a cache. Views are amazing and the history heart breaking. Thank you for placing this cache at such a significant site.”
The theme for March COTM nominations was Mystery caches but as with all Mystery caches this theme has a twist! In celebration of Pi Day, the Mystery cache must be either math based or food based. We received 1 nomination! The nominated cache was Magnum and as it was the only cache nominated it has won the March COTM by default, and there will be no voting in April. Some of the comments about this cache “This mystery is incredibly clever, is subtle with it's hints in the listing and with patience can be solved... But it's not easy! It involves maths, pi and a whole lot more. The container itself is genuine quality and the location of it's hiding place is amazing. It really does tick all the boxes.”; “A truly epic journey. I cannot count the number of hours spent on this puzzle.”
As we are in the middle of CITO season 1 and driving CITO’s across SA, the theme for April COTM nominations is the Best CITO that you’ve attended. Please inspire us with your CITO stories – What did the CO do to make this memorable? What was the CITO activity?
When submitting your nomination please tell us what your motivation for the nomination is… Did you finally master a maths concept? Was the mystery based off a delicious sounding recipe? Did the puzzle boggle your brain and make your mouth water? Nominations need to be submitted via this google form by 20 April 2023
Because sometimes, for some people, it is about the numbers…
Here is a summary of the South African Geocaching activity for February: 710 Cachers found a total of 3,737 caches during February. 24 Cachers placed 61 new caches during February. The number of Cachers who found at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 8,345. The number of Cachers who placed at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 220. The total number of active South African caches at the end of February is 15,666.
Note: All the above statistics include all South African caches on the geocaching.com database, which doesn’t include Adventure Labs.
New Souvenirs: Wheel of Challenges
From 3 April 2023 for the next 6 months, GCQO, will spin the challenge wheel and let us know what the next month’s challenge will be to earn a souvenir. There will be 2 or 3 challenge levels available each month. Challenge start dates will be 3 April, 1 May, 5 June, 3 July, 7 August and 4 September. Keep an eye out to see what new and exiting challenge GCHQ have up their sleeves for us each month. For more details on this set of challenges visit this link.
New Souvenir: WoC#1 Seeking Smileys
This one is pretty straight forward – go caching and find LOTS of caches! From 3-30 April you have the chance to earn three new souvenirs for easy, medium, or hard levels of the challenge:
Easy: Find and log 5 caches to earn the first souvenir.
Medium: Find and log 10 caches to earn the second souvenir.
Hard: Find and log 100 caches to earn the third souvenir.
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:
They are your local go-to people, so keep their details for future reference
Eastern Cape
FireflyAfrica (Jonker Fourie)
082 889 2459
Free State
Uncle Chem (Richard Chemaly)
072 431 7131
Gauteng
Leon St (Leon Stoop)
071 330 8435
KwaZulu-Natal
M²C²D (Mark & Ceinwen Oosthuizen)
M 083 324 6176 C 083 324 2167
Limpopo
Boats007 (Willem Botha)
082 463 3700
Mpumalanga
Bouts777 (Gerhard Botha)
082 876 3572
North-West
Team Tip Top (Hansie & Zaneta Van Huyssteen)
H 082 753 8082 Z 083 258 5926
Western & Northern Cape
SKATTIE@1 (Elize Louw)
074 138 6360
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
Maintain your details
The current information we have for you is: Email: First Name: Richard Last Name: Chemaly Geocaching Name: Uncle Chem Province: Free State
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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! 
General Geocachers of SA News
