This month in the Grapevine: Wedding Bells, Souvenirs and More Magic
From the Desk of the Chairman
Greetings from the warm mountains of Lebanon. Don't get too jealous. 17 minutes after disembarking while waiting for my luggage (that never arrived), the power cut out and the airport went dark. I felt right at home. One cool thing that happened while caching in the ancient city of Byblos a few days back was that some young scouts just approached me and gave me a flower. I thought it somewhat strange and delightful so when I happened upon the scout leaders moments later, I asked them what this was about. The one sheepishly surrendered that he "just wanted to give the kids something to do" so he got them to "pick flowers and hand them to people."
Still, it was a way to make the world a happier place, not dissimilar from what we do as cachers sometimes. Just think CITO as well as the joy of converting a muggle. It sent me on a rabbit hole of existentialism because we all know that cachers are the coolest people but we're also so varied in what we do outside of caching. Yeah we all have different jobs. That's not what I'm on about. What's curious to me is our differing interests and how they sometimes intersect with geocaching; ham radio, scouting, pub quizzing, etc.
You know what's coming, don't you. Indeed it is another survey. But this is not just for fun. If we are better able to gauge the interests of our community, we may be able to look into bespoke events and make things more fun. So have at you and go wild on the "other" option.
While I have you here, congratulations to everybody who went streaking, especially those who went for gold and stuck it out for 28 days. Now go for those icons. More below!
INTERNATIONAL GEOCACHING DAY IN SOUTH AFRICA
It’s International Geocaching Day on 19 August and we want to see if we can get an event in every province going. We did well with 4 on Blue Switch Day but this is the big one so if you are up for it, there’s even a souvenir in it for you for hosting or attending…or just finding a cache, but it’s a Saturday and what better thing to do than get together with some cachers.
Congratulations Ernest and Chariska
We all love signing log books and if you're reading this, it's likely you've signed many but there are very few log books that are comparable to the national marriage registry. So to ernestyzel and bruinoog1 who are set to tie the knot this month, we wish you a lifetime of yellow smiles.
If anybody want to know the real way to celebrate a wedding, take it from these two and have an event.
Couples who cache together, stay together.
Maker Events Across SA
This month we're featuring maker events in the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal
We hosted at the wind farm Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape was a great success. We had fifteen caching teams attending from many places – Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Jeffreys Bay, Kenton-on-Sea and East London.
There was a long table where five gadget caches were displayed and the attendees got the opportunity to try their hand at opening them. This kept them busy for over two hours with much head scratching and clues from other geocachers. Finally, all the gadgets were cracked with everyone happy with smiling faces. Hopefully these gadget caches inspired the geocachers to go out and place some quality caches. To help them on their way there was a prize for each geocaching team. The prizes consisted of four specially crafted gadget caches and a variety of different crafted camouflaged caches. The prizes were awarded by a lucky draw where the winners could choose which cache they wanted. We hope to see these caches published shortly so geocachers can go out and find them. When placing a cache it is important to have the correct container for the hide, but just as importantly is where and how you hide the cache and maintain it after it is published. We shared some of the problems we come across when searching for caches. We highlighted important points to take note of that will make for a quality caching experience on your hide.
Ensure that the cache is water proof to enable the finder to sign the log sheet. Many logs read log sheet too wet to sign.
Place a cache in a secure place so that it will not get muggled easily. In high traffic areas use camouflage that blends in with the surroundings.
If placed in a sensitive environment place the cache in such a way that the environment will not be damaged while being searched for, e.g. ancient crumbling ruins, sensitive natural environment etc. and give a clear hint.
Place caches in places that will take the cacher to a place of interest - wall art murals, waterfall etc.
Permission to place a cache must be obtained from owners of the property and specified in the listing. It is embarrassing for a geocacher to be confronted by an angry owner while looking for a cache.
Do regular cache maintenance to maintain your cache in a good condition. Many logs read DNF, cache missing or needs maintenance.
When placing a cache always consider if it will make for an enjoyable cache find.
We trust that everyone had a good time but above all were inspired to get active and go out find and place some caches.
The Durban Maker Magic event was attended by some very experienced cachers, as well as a couple of less experienced.
To start with, we watched some inspirational videos. There are some very creative cachers internationally, willing to share their ideas!
Having absorbed fresh ideas, we moved on to discussing more on creating caches worthy of FP, including choosing great locations, and making different types of caches.
Refueling our bodies with Tjop 'n Dop was next on the itinerary!
Filled with enthusiasm, every person left with a container towards their next placement - look out for some extraordinary caches soon
Cache of the Month
The winner of the June COTM as voted for by our community is Geocaching FM 106.4 which has also gained a worthy 15 favourite points in its short 7 months in the field. Congratulations Voëlhond (and daughter for providing the VOX) and don't forget to update your now award winning listing.
The theme for July COTM nominations was Most Ridiculous Cache. The Finalists are (in no order):
To get to the cache you need to crawl up a storm water pipe for about 200m. The 3 guys who did the FTF did it in their speedos and that set the bar high for the ridiculous fun one can have doing this cache in small groups.
Knowing there was a plan "baking" did not prepare me in any way for this cache, with so many options and possible routes to take it gave the CO much joy is watching us fail to solve this cache. The container is a nice touch as well and the Cache helped close of a block on my D/T Matrix.
and you can cast your vote for any of them right here. Let's see which is most ridiculous.
The theme for August COTM nominations is best hike. We sometimes forget that one of the aims, if not the primary aim, of geocaching is to get outside and who doesn't love a good hike. We'd like to hear about the caches that took you on a wonderful walk be it fun, picturesque or challenging. Get your nominations going here before 19 July.
When submitting your nomination please tell us what your motivation for the nomination is.
Because sometimes, for some people, it is about the numbers…
Here is a summary of South African Geocaching activity for June 2023:
750 Cachers found a total of 3,612 caches during June. 32 Cachers placed 54 new caches during June. The number of Cachers who found at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 7,424. The number of Cachers who placed at least 1 SA cache in the previous 12 months is 223. The total number of active South African caches at the end of June is 15,195.
Note: All the above statistics include all South African caches on the geocaching.com database, which doesn’t include Adventure Labs.
New Souvenir: Wheel of Challenges - Iconic Cacher
Iconic Cacher! From August 7–September 3 find as many different types of geocaches as you can. As you collect different cache icons with each find, you’ll also make progress toward earning two new souvenirs!
Earn the easy souvenir for this challenge by finding and logging these three different cache types:
Traditional Cache
Adventure Location
Event Cache
Earn the hard souvenir for this challenge by finding and logging these eight different cache types:
Traditional Cache
Adventure Location
Event Cache
Virtual Cache
EarthCache
Multi-Cache
Mystery Cache
Letterbox Hybrid
All the more reason for that International Geocaching Day event you're considering
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 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 If you're reading this part, I'm really hopeful that the Huskies send us something from their trip up north. I also hope we get some awesome stories for next edition
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! 