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From the Desk of the Chairman

A rather frustrated hello Bloemfontein today. Why frustrated? Despite reminding everybody to log the locationless cache (GCA2025), guess who forgot to log it…meeee! Also, I’m moving to Johannesburg one week too late to join this year’s ridiculous road trip. That’s why you’re getting this at an ungodly hour; in solidarity with the 8 cachers setting of to the oldest caches in Mpumalanga (GC20F6) and (GC1341) right about when this goes out. It has absolutely nothing to do with the events of new years eve.

One thing about moving to a new city (again) is more caching opportunities and meeting new communities but you can’t do that without events. One of the things concerning me at the moment is looking at event stats. I’ll add them in the stats section but you’ll notice a significant drop in events nationally. So gear up for more events. Thanks to those communities keeping their respective series going.

Please do log all your 2025 finds ASAP because it’s nearly time for the GoSA Awards and you don’t want to be left out. To add to the suspense, stats are suspended in this newsletter.

Virtuals

69 players placed 3 or more non-event caches during 2025. Thank you and keep your emails open to see if you get a virtual reward on 3 February.

SA Geocaching Stats

Because sometimes, for some, it is about the numbers but for others it’s about the suspense so keep an eye out for our annual awards show.

The total number of active South African caches at the end of December is 13,922

Here are the event statistics over the years:

*note ~ The above 2025 stats indicating 120 events in the year excludes a further 23 Community Celebration Events which would push the number of events (excluding CITO) to 143. For comparative context, there were 160 events in 2024.

Here are how the events were broken down per month in 2025. You’ll notice most community celebrations happened in December (6) with February claiming 3.

Events to Attend

Souvenirs to Grab

Some inspiration to go out caching, here’s what’s on offer souvenir-wise

• Unboxing 2026 - 1 - 8 January (log any cache or adventure lab location)
• Cache In Trash Out, Season 1: March 1–May 31
• Pi-Day: March 13-15
• March Equinox: March 20-23
• Blue Switch Day Hider: May 1-31
• Blue Switch Day: May 2-4
• June Solstice: June 20-22
• International Geocaching Day: August 14-16
• International Geocaching Day Hider: August 1-30
• September Equinox: September 19-22
• Cache In Trash Out, Season 2: September 1-November 30
• World Postcard Day: September 27-October 3
• International EarthCache Day: October 9-11
• Adventure Day: November 25-29
• December Solstice: December 19-21
• Farewell 2026: December 24-31
• Hider 2026 - Hide a geocache in the year 2026

Cache Desperate to be Found

Over in Mpumalanga, there is a cache by the name of JohanChristel. Can you guess who the cache owner is? You’re wrong! It’s JohanChristel, though more recently, he goes by Snotx2.When was this cache placed? 2009! When was this cache last found? 2009! If you’d like to find it, the GC code is GC1KNCX.

Apparently the view is great! Let us know.

New Caches Published in December

They are your local go-to people, so keep their details for future reference

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