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From the Desk of the Chairman

Hello from my new home in Melville where we haven’t had water in 9 days. I’m embarrassed to say that it took nearly a month to go out caching since moving and when I did, it was neither near my new home nor was it initiated by caching. Our car club was meeting at a breakfast spot near Cullinan and since that ended in the morning, there was plenty of daylight to explore north eastern Gauteng.

Interesting part of the country that, but it’s not like there aren’t so many interesting parts of South Africa which makes it so exciting that we had near 100 new caches placed in the last month.

You’ll notice some things in the newsletter like our new inclusion of a reviewers corner where we’ll be asking reviewers about some interesting parts of their jobs. There’s also a specific cache highlight and we encourage you to submit some of the favourite caches you’ve found for the feature; think - this cache is so cool, other people must come see it.

Congrats too to those who got new virtual caches to place!

You’ll be missing your stats for another month though but you’ll totally understand why. Happy caching and don’t forget to drink water. You’ll never know when you’ll be without.

Sentinel View at 25:
Where South African Geocaching Begins

By Adventure_T

Let me tell you a story that starts quietly, the way the best ones often do.It was 18 January 2001. Charles and Corinne Merry were walking the last few steps of a familiar mountain path, Labrador Mica trotting excitedly alongside them. They expected one thing and got another. The day before, while scouting the spot, the sky had been crystal clear with the Sentinel standing proudly in the distance. Today, though, everything was wrapped in soft white mist. Visibility was barely ten metres. The Sentinel was there, but hidden, like it was waiting for its moment.Still, they carried on.They placed a bucket they had specially sourced from the UCT Chemistry Department, chosen for its toughness because this was an exposed mountain and it needed to last. Inside went a hard cover A5 logbook, already signed by Charles on the first page, along with a bit of SWAG. The lid was sealed carefully, the bucket tucked into a gap between rocks, and then disguised with a few well chosen stones. Sentinel View was born.

What makes the story even better is what followed.

According to geocaching.com, the first official find was logged by “netic” on 3 February 2001, sixteen days later. Their log reads like a love letter to early geocaching. A forty minute hike, a cache found a few metres off the GPS point and a spectacular view. Everything resealed and left ready for the next adventurer. Oddly, the physical logbook tells a slightly different story. Its first entry is by “WH Kilroy”, dated 16 January 2001, two days before the cache was placed! One of those little mysteries that adds to the legend.For Charles, the whole idea started even earlier with a small newspaper article in the Cape Times, likely picked up from Reuters, about a new activity taking off in America called geocaching. That was all it took. His mind started racing. He shared it with colleagues in the UCT Land Surveying Department where he was a professor, and before long, the idea turned into action.Both Charles and Corinne have PhDs and a deep love for knowledge. Corinne even co wrote a field guide on local flora, the Quick ID Guide to Wild Flowers of the Cape Peninsula. She has also helped produce an app on Peninsula flora, FloraDoc. Walking with them is not just a walk. Every so often we would stop, lean in toward a small flower, and listen as Corinne calmly unpacked Latin names, tiny details, and hidden beauty we would otherwise have walked straight past. It made us better and more attentive geocachers.

They met, fittingly, at the UCT Mountain Club. Their first date was on a mountain trail, with Charles leading the way. They have now been married for 51 years, have two children, a son in Cape Town and a daughter in Australia, and they cache under the name “cmerry”. Since joining on 22 May 2001, they have logged 43 finds and placed two hides. Quiet pioneers.Now fast forward exactly 25 years.It is 18 January 2026, and we meet Charles and Corinne in the Silvermine parking lot. They are easy to spot. They are the ones holding a geocaching sign. Seven of us set off just after eight in the morning. We suspect others may follow, but excitement gets the better of us. The group heading out includes udjopa, Discombob, MissXG, Thunder_Boy, Adventure_T, and of course Charles and Corinne.

Some of us quietly wonder if we are still mountain fit, especially with the initial steep climb. Charles, now 77, reassures us he will take it slow. We relax. Then he casually adds that they hike at least three times a week. That calm disappears. Corinne sets a steady pace at the front, chatting easily, while Charles stays back with the rest of us, unhurried and generous with stories.The weather is perfect. Cool, lightly overcast, barely any wind. We stop often, not because we have to, but because the scenery demands it. A view here. A flower there. A sip of water and a deep breath.The walk is about three and a half kilometres, and once the climb is done, it is an easy stroll.At the cache site, MissXG and Thunder_Boy step forward, phone in hand, arrow pointing, numbers ticking down. It is a quick find. The container is substantial and covered by an “Obvious Pile of Rocks”. They lift it up victoriously and pose for the photo, the Sentinel finally revealing itself behind them like a reward.We all gather around the original logbook. Charles’s handwriting is there on the first page, coordinates carefully noted from a GPS unit that would look enormous by today’s standards. We laugh at old logs, jokes about missing pens, and familiar cacher names. Charles shares stories as names come up, and we nod along, smiling when we recognise one.More people arrive. Team Ginger, a family of three proudly wearing their Mega shirts. Conflict101 with two friends, new to geocaching and clearly excited at being part of something historic.Then Charles pulls out champagne and flutes from his backpack. He and Corinne raise a toast, to a moment that has quietly shaped a whole community.Sentinel View, GC185, is the oldest active cache in South Africa. It was placed just 8 months after the very first cache in the world, back in Oregon, USA. Despite that, it has only 305 finds and an impressive favourite point ratio of 71 percent. This really should be on every South African geocacher’s bucket list. This is where it all began for us, and there could not have been a better place or a better couple to start it.So yes, the view is special. But it is the people, the history, and the generosity of Charles and Corinne that make it unforgettable. Standing there, 25 years on, felt like stepping into a living story. And being invited to share it was a genuine privilege.

New Virtuals

As time moves on, we will learn who got some new virtuals to place as part of Virtual Rewards 5.0. You’ll recall 4000 were up for grabs globally and we are already aware of two South African cachers who have received one. Where they place them, only they will know but they will make for a great FTF hunt

Interesting and Different Cache Spotlight

By Orosman

“Rather barefoot over the Drakensberg than under the British Flag”

To start our new series of articles for 2026 on interesting and different Geocaches in South

Africa. I thought I would start with one that has stuck in my mind since doing it in 2021,

notably after the RNNP Tugela Gorge Trail.

GCPC9K: Kaalvoetvrou by GlobalRat

This cache takes you to a little-known memorial which has been untouched by time and politics. It sits out on a small cliff edge like an eerier spectre watching and waiting for the British to catch up. I remember thinking “who the hell is this?” and having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as we approached the site.

The story goes that a group of 400 women who were part of the Piet Retief trek chose the lush green pastures of Natal where they wanted to anchor their roots. According to historical records, some of the Voortrekker women had an exchange of words with Henry Cloete, British Commissioner of Natal. They argued with him because they did not want to serve under British authority and that their freedom was more valuable to them than their lives. It was then that Susanna Smit uttered the famous words: “Better to walk barefoot back over the Drakensberg than to be under British control.” However, Susanna died in what was then Natal, which means that she never walked barefoot back over the Drakensberg.

The container, although not the greatest at the time, was still findable but sometimes the cache is not about the plastic thing you find hidden under the rocks but the location in which it takes you to, this one if definitely a location cache and one I recommend to anyone going to the Drakensberg area.

Two other notable caches nearby are GC19R37: Retief Klip by Wazat and GC8C4WF: Kerkenberg by AdieA

If you would like to submit suggestions for future Interesting and Different Geocaches in South Africa, please submit the information here.

We do not collect any email or personal information other than your Geocaching name (also optional) if we need to contact you for more information.

Reviewer’s Corner

Oh No. Yet Another DNF!

by Knagur Green

Today, all the stars aligned and I finally decided to tackle a trail of caches I’d had my eye on for ages. It started off brilliantly, full of optimism and fresh legs. By cache #6, though, I was already feeling disheartened. By #12, I’d completely lost the will to live, but I’d committed, so I pushed on.

Missing caches. Damaged or partial caches. Pointless little throwdowns. Logs full of DNFs, and people claiming, “I was here so I’ll log it anyway”, even though the cache is clearly gone. Why, oh why, is nothing done about this? Why don’t reviewers step in and take control to help keep this the fun activity it’s meant to be?

I know I’m not alone in this. Many of us have experienced some version of it. It’s incredibly demoralising, especially when you’ve planned your day around a cache trail and end up feeling more frustrated than fulfilled. However, it’s important to understand how the system works and where responsibility truly lies.

Reviewers play an essential role in the game, but their remit is often misunderstood. Their primary responsibility is to assess new cache submissions and ensure they meet the guidelines before publication. This includes checking locations, proximity rules, permissions, and overall compliance. Reviewers are volunteers, not local inspectors, and they do not routinely monitor caches once they are published.

Cache maintenance remains the responsibility of the cache owner. Owners are expected to monitor logs, respond to DNFs and “needs maintenance” reports, and carry out repairs or replacements when necessary. When this doesn’t happen, problems can persist for long periods, leading to exactly the kind of experience many of us find so frustrating.

Local cachers also play a vital supporting role. Accurate logging, especially DNFs and “needs maintenance” or “needs reviewer attention” logs as it helps highlight ongoing issues. Replacing a cache without the cache owner’s permission (a throwdown) often creates a drawn-out maintenance problem rather than solving anything.

When a “needs reviewer attention” request is sent, or when multiple DNFs with no cache owner response cause a cache’s health to drop below around 60% positive logs, reviewers can step in. This usually involves contacting the owner via the geocaching message system and temporarily disabling the cache. If there’s still no response, a reviewer may eventually archive the listing. This also applies when a cache has been disabled for more than 30 days, even if the cache owner was the one who disabled it.

So how do reviewers know when to act? Let’s walk through the process.

Reviewers receive a notification every time a “needs reviewer attention” alert is posted. Even if the cache owner removes the alert, it’s still visible to the reviewer. The reviewer will examine the cache listing, difficulty and terrain ratings, and the details in the note, so it’s important that the log clearly explains the issue. The cacher’s experience may also be considered, as newer cachers sometimes choose the wrong log type.

Reviewers can also carry out additional checks to assess the overall health of a listing. If a problem seems likely, a standard “canned” message is issued and the cache is disabled. This message covers the most common scenarios and gives a clear 30-day warning. Reviewers may be dealing with a large number of caches at any one time, so consistency is essential.

If the cache owner cannot resolve the issue within 30 days, they must respond clearly on the listing, including a realistic date for maintenance—not something vague like “when I’m on holiday.” If the issue is fixed within the timeframe, no extra explanation is needed, but the owner must post an Owner Maintenance log and re-enable the cache. Both steps are required; otherwise, the cache will continue to appear on reviewer problem lists.

After a minimum of 30 days, the cache may be archived. Once archived, it cannot be unarchived. Replacing the container after that point won’t help. If the owner still wants to use the area, the recommended solution is to place a brand-new cache with a new GC number something local cachers are usually delighted to see.

“But hang on,” you might say, “my buddy put a new container there and told the reviewer!” The problem is simple: the buddy isn’t the cache owner. The owner must acknowledge and accept that container by posting an Owner Maintenance log and enabling the cache within the 30 days. Without that confirmation, the reviewer has no choice but to archive the listing.

Now imagine how many caches worldwide are disabled for more than 30 days. Quite a lot. To give one example, in South Africa in January 2026 there were around 190 disabled caches and a further 270 considered to be in poor health. Each one has to be checked manually, logs reviewed, and warnings issued—often with extra time given beyond the official 30 days.

Ironically, it’s often only after a cache is archived that the owner suddenly responds, replaces the cache, and wants it back in play. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Once a cache is archived for lack of maintenance, a new listing must be created. This protects the integrity of the game, frees up space for new hides, and ensures current guidelines are properly applied.

And that, frustrating as it may feel on the trail, is why the system works the way it does.

Events to Attend

Souvenirs to Grab

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

• Cache In Trash Out® Season 1  - 1 March - 31 May 2026
• Pi-Day - 13 - 15 March 2026
• March Equinox - 20 - 23 March 2026
• Blue Switch Day Hider - 1 - 31 May 2026
• Blue Switch Day - 1 - 3 May 2026
• June Solstice - 20 - 22 June 2026

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