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I attended the Sydney Geoquest Block Party to take part in the activities, catch up with friends and join in the community celebration. It would have been just as much fun if it'd been a regular Mega, and I couldn't tell you without looking it up how many different icons I have or how many I've gotten in the one day.

Probably the reason why so many people want to go to a GPS maze or Block Party. I feel like a lot of people only care about them for the rare icon.

Whilst caches in Canberra generally do get found very quickly my longest FTF was a Canberra cache at just over two years. ( GC6VKWE Perplexing Pentominoes ) Whilst I had solved the puzzle not all that long after it was published it took me the two years before I could make the trip from Western Australia to Canberra to find it and need then needed the CO to help with the required TOTT to reach it.

Some years ago I was planning a trip to the Chatham Islands, a remote island in the Pacific east of NZ, and was hoping to log two caches there which hadn't had a FTF for eight months. Someone beat me to it by two weeks. My FTFs that waited the longest for me to find, was a short power-trail waiting about a week without a FTF. Here in Canberra FTF logs happen very quickly. I did have another FTF in the Chathams though. An Earthcache was published while I was visiting. I logged my most westerly cache there: (from Prime Meridian) GC2DNHK - First to See the Sun, Chatham Islands, New Zealand (Chatham Islands, New Zealand) S 43° 57.763 W 176° 34.607 (My most eastern is: GC22PA5 - Ka Awatea Hou (Te Tairawhiti) (North Island, New Zealand) S 37° 41.344 E 178° 32.898 - I have been looking to better this.)

Around here, FTFs tend to get claimed fairly quickly but it can then be a long wait for the next finder. In August 2017, one of my friends created an EarthCache (GC7BE3Q) near Newnes in the western Blue Mountains. FTF was claimed about a month later and that's been it. Admittedly there are perhaps some reasons for that, firstly the Black Summer fires of 2019, then COVID in 2020 and 2021, then the deluges over the next few years that caused a landslip blocking the only road into the township. An alternative "road", an historic track called the Donkey Steps, was opened to traffic but it's 4WD-only.and very steep. A new road following a different alignment is planned, but it's not currently due for completion until 2031 so it may be a while longer before that cache sees its 2TF.

I see the same thing. I would expect the link to show the current AL I am working on, not a previous one.

In 2019, Geocaching New South Wales released a trackable (TB9AKVV), in the form of a red waratah flower (the state's floral emblem), whose goal was to visit all the caches that had won their Geocache of the Month award. A year earlier, one of my caches (GC6JMDK) had won the award, so at an event I was given the trackable to take out there. All went well until I poked it into the top of the cache's locomotive container to take this photo just back from the cliff edge with the picturesque waterway below: Just as I took the photo, a gust of wind lifted the TB off its perch and, as I watched in stunned helplessness, it slowly floated out over the cliff edge and disappeared. Devastated, I took stock of the situation and reasoned that it would likely have ended up at the bottom of the cliff somewhere close to the cache's coordinates, so I carefully made my way around and down. Once there, I made a fairly thorough but unsuccessful search, in the end thinking it may have been caught up in the top of a tree or blown in onto a ledge partway down the cliff. There was one such ledge that was reasonably accessible so I started making my way towards it, only to look down to find I was about to step on it. Phew! Finding that trackable was one of the happiest moments of my caching career.

If I am sending answers to a virtual or earthcache, or just want to include numbered items in my message, the message center ignores the number at the beginning. They do show on the iOS app and the Android app, but not on the website. It is the same issue whether the recipient is a PM or Basic.

That's one of my worst fears; especially if it's a thick layer of mud or peat at the bottom

As a future note, to find lists of a theme, if you can track down one that you know should be on that list, then look at the list-of-lists the cache has been added to. If you know GCBBA is Canada's oldest for instance, view the listing and see all the other lists it's in. You're guaranteed to find at least a few "Oldest geocaches in..." lists. For example.

I wonder what the oldest last-found but archived (and not removed) cache is I stopped by a cache that was DNF'd and archived years prior, but found clear remnants of the cache container where a tree had been basically destroyed by nature. Cleared up the remains and logged a find as it wasn't locked Finding archived geocaches is a challenge in and of itself. Could be another interesting stat

Message Centre notifications seem to be broken again in at least the Android version of the app. I've checked my phone settings again and all the notifications for the geocaching app are enabled. I'm using version 9.76.1 on a Samsung Galaxy A52.

I really wish Groundspeak would either properly support Wherigo or grandfather the type (no new listings). An official cache type created by Groundspeak should not require users to rely on community-maintained apps to create and play the cartridges.

A long, pretty and strenuous hike to an easily findable ammo can or a well crafted puzzle cache with an easy final or a quick but tricky gadget cache. OR, best of all (yet to find one like this), a well-crafted puzzle cache that leads me to a nice hike to an easily findable gadget cache. I've gotten 2/3 of these before but yet to get all 5!

A friend got his first iPhone not long after the official geocaching app came out. He somehow heard of geocaching and asked me if I had ever heard of it; I had at some point. He asked if I wanted to try it. I said sure. We tried it in a local park where we had already been walking and kayaking for years. Our first two Finds were a plastic screwtop and an ammo can, both in the woods, both found without much trouble. Our first DNF was a mechanical pencil refill tube hidden in the hinge of the gate for the park tennis courts.

I read about Geocaching in the Newark Star Ledger in 2004. I had a GPSr. Noticed there was a cache not far off the trail I was maintaining (Terrace Pond North) in the Newark Watershed. So, I went to look for it. Took me forever to find it. Stil geocaching 20 years later!

For me, it'd involve a decent hike, certainly qualifying for the Takes more than 1 hour and Significant hike attributes, and one that's reasonably challenging but not over the top. Good scenery along the way too, and a nice view, waterfall or something otherwise special at GZ. I'm not that fussy about the container as long as it's done its job of keeping the log dry and clean, although a container that's themed to the cache is always a plus. Going out there with a group of caching mates also makes it that much more enjoyable. Ones that I've done that tick all the boxes include The Goat House (GC5KCMB) and Lord, Howe Did This Get Here? (GC5KKQ8) on Lord Howe Island, Hawkesbury Heights #5 Suspended Splendor (GC5E7A3) that I did for my 1000th find, and a couple of Blue Mountains EarthCaches that I've done more recently, Venus Tor (GC9Q2EZ) and Grand Canyon (GCA9FJ2). Coming up in July, we have a group hike planned to The Scenic Adventurer Challenge (GC5KEY1) in the mountains north-west of Newcastle. I don't qualify yet but I'm getting close (31 of the 40 required), so I'd like to at least get my name in the logbook before I'm too old to get out there (if I'm not already ). With the rock climbing involved, It's not one I'd be comfortable doing alone but it should be awesome with a group of mates.

Don't get me wrong, but there is no such thing as a "title" in geocaching. "Most icons in a day" is a part of your personal statistics. Not less, but also not more. You cannot really compare your stats to that of other accounts in a "competitive" way (which would be implied by terms like "title" or "record"). Doing things like this in an organized tour requires zero effort by the participating cachers, except paying the money and being on time at the meeting point. If you, OTOH, planned and exexcuted your own "most icons per day" trip all on your own, that's in my view a much higher achievement even if the final icon count was less than that of the group.

Hi, could You please add Mapy.com map server to the cache listing "For online maps..." section for all geocaches? Mapy.com used to be Mapy.cz and it is already linked for Czech geocache listings. The URL scheme is the same. Mapy.com recently expanded abroad and have coverage of the whole world. They are high quality maps mainly for hiking. They are very popular with Czech geocachers and they start to be popular worldwide. Thank You and have a great day, Jonáš / Froggiewalker

By creating geo-art, you'll be supporting Groundspeak's refusal to show found mysteries at their correct location. See adjacent complaint thread.

I would use a mapping app that supports overlays. I can think of two*: Locus Map on Android (which I also use for caching), and JOSM on a big-screen PC. The latter is an editor app for OSM and is (cough!) a bit complicated to learn, but it works on a PC. If using that, don't, absolutely don't upload your doodles to the public map; this is an off-label use. Draw or download your desired shape, and load it into the map app as a semi-transparent overlay, so you see both shape and map at the same time. Stretch and drag the shape into a position that you think will work, then start dropping waypoints along the shape's outline. Pluck coords out of each. Don't forget to check for proximity. It'll be a lot of work. (* Three, now that I notice above that the Google tool does overlays too.)

That is absolutely fantastic. I don't like getting the title stripped away from me, but I don't blame them one bit. I would pay a pretty penny to get on that tour and keep my title at the top. I don't know if I'm quite enterprising to have put that tour together myself were I in their situation.

I've been into hiking and amateur radio direction-finding events since my university days. Back in the early 2000s, one of my friends bought an early GPSr and mentioned geocaching as something that could be done with it but I didn't really pay it much heed. In March 2013, I read an article in Wild magazine about it and thought it looked interesting, as it appeared to combine both those interests, so I signed up as a basic member. Looking at the map, I saw there was a cache in the sports field close to home and, using the satellite image and the hint, thought I knew where it would be so I wandered over there and made my first find. After that, I saw a local electronics shop had the Garmin GPSMAP 62S on special so I bought one. It took me a while to figure out how to use it properly, but I eventually got the hang of it and set about finding the caches in my local area. Back then, basic members could only download .loc files which were pretty limiting, containing just the cache name and coordinates, so in late April I signed up for premium membership and everything really came to life.

Back in January, I was trying to fish a cache out of a pipe using a magnet and line but didn't succeed. It was only while driving home that I realised I'd left the keeper plate on my magnet so it would have been effectively non-magnetic. It took another three attempts, though, before I finally got that one.

Was walking through a tall sea of grass heading towards the GZ. Took a step and ended up neck deep in a creek. Happened so fast all I could do was hang on to my phone and keep it out of the water. Made the find and that was the end of caching for the day, Headed home for a warm shower and change of clothes.