The Spindoctors

Posted on their website:

"used sporting and camping equipment including tents, footwear, hiking boots, golf equipment and bicycles (need to be checked to ensure they are clean and free from soil contamination)" I wouldn't chance it. My friend worked for AQIS for a number of years and they are strict. New Zealand is even tougher.

I doubt this will get through quarantine in Australia. We have strict rules on what can come in and soil is one of them. It may contain material that could become a pest in Australia. http://www.daff.gov.au/aqis/travel/enterin...ralia/cant-take The person bringing it in would have to declare it and it would have to be irradiated (about $30).

Jellyfish - I had planned to meet up with you, and any other cachers in the city tomorrow. Unfortunately my 2 year old son is quite sick and I have to stay home with him tomorrow. I have to take him back to the doctor in the morning to confirm we can still travel to Wagga for the weekend. Apologies for the late notice. I hope your trip (and others) is fun and hope to see you in Wagga (fingers crossed). Sorry once again for the late notice, but this all happened suddenly this afternoon.

As mentioned in the GCA forums, I'm meeting Jellyfish at the Dragon Tale cache in Chinatown (GCX81Q) at 12.30 pm. Any out of towners (or locals) are welcome to join for lunch and a chat. Unfortunately I have to work so I only have an hour, but can certainly help with any questions/problems you are having with local caches. Darren

I work in the city of Sydney and would be happy to meet up with you. Send me a PM and we'll see what we can organise. How are you travelling to Wagga?

Delta We're passing through on our way from Sydney to Melbourne on the 22nd of December. If they can arrange a time and place (late morning) to meet, we can collect it and drop it off in Melbourne. Send me a private message and I can engage contact details.

The search field won't accept words less than five letters. So how do I search for topics relating to Fiji? I could try the two biggest cities on the island, Nadi and Suva, but that won't work either? Any ideas?

No group as such, but best to get in touch with Marcus Vitruvius. Also visit forum.geocaching.com.au - most Australians use that site. You will need to register.

As JABs mentioned, most Australians hang out at forum.geocaching.com.au I'd love to meet up with you, but I'll be holidaying in the South Pacific. There other Sydney and Canberra cachers you should be able to meet up with though. Regarding maps - I recommend the Open Street Map series as they're free and have quite good coverage. http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php Having said that, you shoudl take a good topo paper map ($8) and compass when climbing 'Kossie'. Note the weather can change quickly, so take warm wet weather gear with you, even if it's sunny and clear when you start. Accomodation is best at Thredbo. You can stay at the village and get the chair lift to the ridge line. BTW - I've walked up to Kossie and the ridge a few times if you have any questions. It isn't demanding, but you still need to take care. Good luck Darren

The Spindoctors are coming to Fiji for a week during November. We're spending most of our time on Castaway Island and plan to log the webcam cache. Also hoping to 'find' the cache on the bigger island near Plantation Resort. We'll be staying at Novotel Nadi on the evening of the 14th. The next morning coincides with the World Wide Flash Mob VI. We would love to host an event at the restaurant (or somewhere nearby) to be at 6 am or thereabouts on the 15th. Any tips on when and where would be great - likewise would love to meet any Fijian geocachers that morning to swap stories and TBs/geocoins. Darren

You will find the listing at http://coord.info/GC1YJ5R Information is also available at http://www.rivcache.com/

GEOCACHING NSW COMMITTEE NOMINATIONS Nominations are open for the committee of Geocaching NSW. The positions are: President - represent the association at meetings and acts as first point of contact for media, land owners or other interested groups. Treasurer - monitor finances, collect monies, organise and sell geocoins. Secretary - record minutes at meeting and act as Public Officer. Membership officer - collect applications and maintain database. Event coordinator - organise speakers and geocaching information events for regular bi-monthly meetings. The committee has a phone hook-up on first Monday night of each month. You must be a financial member of Geocaching NSW to nominate for the committee. We need your assistance in moving the association forward, so please consider becoming a committee member. To nominate for the committee, email contact@geocachingnsw.asn.au with your name, position sought and contact details. Please lodge your nomination by Monday 27 July 2009.

The date for the first Annual General Meeting has been set for Sunday 2 August 2009. It will be held at the Carlingford Bowling Club, starting at 10 am. The meeting will start with reports from the President, Treasurer and Membership Officer. This will be followed by a Q&A session, culminating with the election of the committee for 2009/2010. Please consider nominating for the committee, as 'many hands make light work'. A list of positions and their job tasks will soon be on the website, along with nomination forms. The 'official' part of the meeting will be followed by a presentation (to be announced) and a series of round table workshops. These workshops will allow small groups of geocachers to sit down with a presenter who will demonstrate an aspect of geocaching. Topics put forward include paperless geocaching, GSAK and geocache construction. I will post a list of topics and presenters on the website in the next week or two. If you would like to present a workshop, please let me know. Two more meeting have been booked for the remainder of 2009 - a Geocaching 102 session on Monday 21 September at Carlingford Bowling Club and a Christmas get together on Saturday 12 December at Nurragingy Reserve, Doonside. Please put these dates in your diary.

My understanding is you have to grab the cache data from gc.com in realtime. So the answer to your question re: importing a GPX file is no. If you can take GPX data exported from GSAK and load it into your S60 phone, then you should try SmartGPX (www.smartcaching.de). I think it's better than Trimble, especially now that it works with the GPSx. The only downside is that the data you're playing with is only as current as the GPX file.

This doesn't appear to be the case, but I might be wrong. The Geocoin near Canberra can be found with the TB code and will accept a note, but cannot be grabbed or discovered. A search using its six 'digit' code comes up as unactivated - though it isn't. FYI - See http://coord.info/TB2D55J

This is the second trackable in Australia that this has occurred to this weekend. From GCA forum: While on a caching expedition and completing the 'Bega Valley Lookout Cache' we picked up a lovely geotalk geocoin (TB2D55J) I brought it home to log it and it hasn't been activated. I have posted a note for it in the log for the cache but thought I might post one here also. It had been activated and moved, but something's not working now. In fact I was able to post a note on 23 April. Is this happening else? As Groundspeak deactivated it?

Geocaching NSW welcomes all to our first Geocaching 101 session held at the Carlingford Bowling Club, Pennant Hills Road, Carlingford. Geocaching 101 is a chance for new and experienced geocachers to get together to ask advice, guidance and gather lots of great tips. If you're brand new to geocaching, it's an excellent opportunity to meet other geocachers who may have a bit more experience under their belt. For those unable to attend we are planning to record some of it and upload it to our website. As part of the meeting following motion will be voted on at the Geocaching 101 event. The association will add the following clauses to the constitution. The purpose of these clauses to highlight our non-profit status. Go to http://coord.info/GC1P3AE for more information.

Geocaching NSW recently began negotiations with NSW Parks and Wildlife Service regarding the current ban of geocaching on their managed land. Since our initial meeting in January 2009, there have been some developments. The good news is that the Executive Director of NPWS has agreed to a review of the geocaching policy, which may result in some changes. NPWS have informed us that the next step will be a meeting of the Policy Reference Group, who are responsible for any changes to NPWS policy. The timing of this is yet to be determined, but is expected to occur in the next month. At this stage, NPWS are unable to provide any indication of what possible restrictions (i.e. form of regulation) might be imposed if the ban is to be reversed, but will keep us informed. We have also received clarification of NPWS stance on virtuals, EarthCaches and waypoints for multis on NPWS managed land. Their response is: a geocaching activity that does not leave any object in the park is not geocaching as we defined it when we banned it. So, a multi-stage geocache that involved reading a sign in a park to discover a cache outside the park is not, in my opinion, an activity which is covered by the ban. Similarly, I have advised one of our field staff that a virtual cache [including EarthCache] was, in my opinion, also not covered by the ban. This would mean that geocachers may began a multi-cache in a NSW Park, as long as nothing is left, modified or damaged inside the park and the container is outside the park’s boundaries. EarthCaches still require land owner approval (as per EarthCahing guidelines), and this should be sought from the ranger of the relevant National Park. For more - go to: http://www.geocachingnsw.asn.au/index.php/...date-march-2009

If you are not already aware, NSW Parks and Wildlife Service has a draft of its Proposed National Parks and Wildlife Regulation 2009 available online at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/legislat...eRegulation.htm Of particular interest is Clause 11: Littering and damage. The development of this document is outside of the negotiations Geocaching NSW has been having with NPWS and has most likely been included to bring the regulation in line with the 2002 policy on geocaching. Having said that, we are concerned that geocaching has been highlighted and we will be putting forward a submission to ask that that reference be removed. We also ask geocachers to read through the section mentioned above and lodge their own submissions to NPWS. You may wish to include positives stories about your personal experiences with geocaching and how it has encouraged you to experience more of your natural surroundings. The closing date for submissions is 27 March 2009. Send your submission to: National Parks and Wildlife Regulation Review Manager Conservation Operations Section Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW PO Box 1967 Hurstville NSW 1481 or email info@environment.nsw.gov.au.

It WORKS! Thank you guys for the tip.

Yes, you will need to create a new account as it is separate to Groundspeak.

Has anyone got WIG running on the Omnia. It uses Windows Mobile 6.0, has .NET 3.5 installed and is starting. But it struggles to find the GPS. We switched off the Auto setting, and although it eventually found the GPS, it was not locking onto any sats. Google Maps is working fine. Anyone else? Groundspeak?

Agenda for the 8 Feb meeting is now online - http://www.geocachingnsw.asn.au/

I use it on an N80 with a Bluetooth GPSr. Quite good and very handy for off the cuff hunts in urban setting. I have a 2GB plan on my phone so using the maps isn't a problem either. Unfortunately the maps aren't great. Obviously no good if you're out of mobile reception, but as Damo points out you can enter coordinates in.