battlerat and pussycat

Let's give them a week to log their finds and then I'll look at Cape Town next week. I'm not so sure that we have sufficient cachers to see this. For instance other eventss like the Soccer world Cup so no significant upswings. Some localized caching (like the Midmar Mile) are seen annually here in KZN - but over the entire W Cape - I do not believe the Argus (wind or not) would make a significant difference? Oh, so someone has thought about this before... No point then in running a query...

I was wondering whether Geocaching benefit from major events such as the Cape Town Cycle Race(or another major event in the country)? It would be interesting to see if whether there is a meaningful change in number of caches found in around Cape Town for for last week and this week...

Seeing the post today had me thinking about this tread and the (SA) forums in general. Before FB this was the place to discuss geocaching related stuff, asks questions or give advise and support. I liked the forums as it allowed one to catch up if and the forum history is always available. Unfortunately with FB and other IM apps, the information is quickly lost and it is not possible to have any meaningful discussion... I suspect (perhaps you can collect some empirical data and present it :-)) that it only the cachers that have been around for many years that appreciate and enjoy your stats. It surely takes a lot of time to generate the stats, even though by now you probably have templates for just about every questions there is to be asked. So the question is whether it is worth it? I'll also miss the stats if it is not published anymore, but would totally understand. I don't bother reading the FB posts, but have you ever considered posting there and linking to this page? How many of the newer cachers know about these forums? Andre

Very good question! Does the price of petrol influence geocachers' number of finds? Not that a newbie has to travel far log a decent number of finds...

I generally hide my caches in a rocky area as to minimize probability of it being destroyed by the fire. Even so, the heat might still partially damage the container, but hopefully not the contents. Having said that, I've been fortunate until now that my caches where hidden in areas not affected by fires. I've disabled one cache which is in an area affected by the fires, until I can do a maintenance check, and assessed the risk to the environment and geocachers alike. Not that I can imagine anyone would want to hike there now in any case!

1. AdieA 171 DNFs, 1416 finds 2. Voëlhond 113 DNFs, 1012 finds 3. TechnoNut 112 DNFs, 994 finds 4. iPajero 91 DNFs, 1484 finds 4. Team Venter 91 DNFs, 848 finds 6. Andredj 88 DNFs, 616 finds 7. Ken.woodworm 86 DNFs, 778 finds 7. Orosman 86 DNFs, 490 finds 9. Delbadore 80 DNFs, 407 finds 10. SpiderFinder 77 DNFs, 666 finds Thanks. So it seems like even the most experienced cachers will only typically find 85-90% of caches they visit. Except iPajero, according to my quick calculation that has a find ratio of 94%.

Hi, For the DNFs could you perhaps also publish the number of finds for the cachers in question?

I think what you will find happening is people do a lot of copy paste logs with very high word counts to keep their words per log up for badgegen. For the same reason a number of cachers also have very long "signatures" in their logs.

What are lots of caches? Five? 10? I would certainly think we can recall all the caches we visited if it is a handful. Probably a different story if one finds 50+ caches in a day... I think the graph should be interpreted that the longer a cacher remains active, the more "obliged" they might feel to write up a worthy log as opposed to the number of find per day. Although there is probably a correlation between number of total find vs. average daily finds... Having said that... Some time ago we found 106 caches in one day in Bloemfontein (mostly Oom Louwtjie's caches). I took a photo of each cache & location in order to write a proper log for each find. For me the length of the log I write is a reward for the effort a cache owner has put in to create a cache. Would it be possible to graph favourite points vs. log length?

Year Cachers New caches 2001 38 72 2002 82 84 2003 165 94 2004 224 93 2005 410 360 2006 671 1070 2007 997 1104 2008 1510 1207 2009 2026 1191 2010 2559 1603 2011 3480 2423 2012 4550 1850 2013 5878 2913 The following graph shows the total number of cachers who have found at least one cache in South Africa, as well as the number of new caches, for each year: There is clearly a strong correlation between the number of cachers active during a period and the number of new caches. My interpretation of the data is that although the number of new cachers joining closely follows an exponential trend, the number of new caches published doesn't quite follow the same trend. Since there must be some average number of published hides/cacher ratio, I would expect the new hides published ratio to follow the same exponential curve closer than it actually does. I agree that geocaching is some seasonal activity, affected by weather, holidays etc., but as I said before, it does feel like we have less caches published, in the Cape Town area in any case... I suppose the Cape Town area is slowly being saturated, or at least the worthy spots have caches, which could explain or confirm my gut feel that we have less caches that are published. I've also wondered what effect the increase in petrol price the last few months have had on geocaching, clearly not that much, if I look at your stats. Or has it?

Number of new caches in the Western Cape: During the year 1 May 2013 to 30 April 2014, 550 new caches have been published in the Western Cape; an average of 1.5 per day. This is 32% more than for the previous year where the number was 417. The number of new caches per month, for the past year: Thanks Danie. I asked the question since it it felt to me like over the last few months there has been a gradual decline in the number of new caches published in the 80km radius around Cape Town. For the whole of SA, from your graph, it appears as if there has been a gradual decline in the number of caches published since July/August last year. This seems to be the case in the Western Cape too, except for December/January - we had some very active hiders. Very interesting. Can it be said that it's only because of the "find a cache a day" challenge August last year that also more caches were published, thereby pushing up the daily average? Is it meaningful to plot the number of active geocachers over the number of new hides?

Hi Danie, can you do the breakdown for the Western Cape province?

Hi, Must echo Hesamati's sentiments - I always enjoy reading this thread.

Have you searched the internet for instructions to make your own cable? It can be done although it might not look as pretty as a Garmin cable. If you're desperate enough, then surely, a home-made cable is better than no cable?

Much appreciated! :D

Hi, My Garmin's USB connector seems to be damaged and I'm unable to load new data. Is there anyone that has a broken/damaged Garmin 450 that he/she is willing to donate/sell it for a good cause (I'm just interested in the copper/orange piece of plastic - the USB connector is attached to it). I'm looking for an excuse to upgrade to a Montana, but would hate to add to the electronic waste dump unless absolutely necessary.

How can I *NOT* be there?

Would like to join. Can do 15/16 December.

8/9 December or 15/16 December. (??) Any weekend is good for us - except 2/12/12 15/16 please if one can hold out that long

I think there are a number of reasons for this "phenomena" to chase numbers, badges, belts etc. First of all, it's human nature to be competitive. Whether it be to compete against others or even just against ourselves. We see this in all aspects of life. Whether it be to have the best grades in school, employee of the month, having the most expensive, exclusive car or whatever. In some cases it's for the status, or because there's an incentive to be the best. Even sport is about competing against other people. If not competing against others, it's about competing against ourselves. Athletes always try to achieve a personal best for a given race, for example. Same goes for geocaching; this activity is no different to anything else. So geocachers will compete against others to see who can have the most finds, finds in a day, hide the most caches, fill the matrix, find a cache-a-day or whatever. Due to the nature of geocaching, as an activity, it lends itself exactly to these sort of competitive challenges. If I cannot compete against others in a certain category, I can create my own challenge. I might not be able to have the most FTF's in the WC (is that a 'recognised' achievement), but I could be the geocacher with the most finds in a sq. km from my home coordinates! Stupid example, but you get the idea. tallglenn also touched on this point in her comment. In a capitalistic society, this implies that one can use/exploit this human trait for financial gain. Just turn it into a reality show and you can make money. So there will always be people that play geocaching competitively. When they've run out of challenges, they create new ones to be able to keep on being competitive. Secondly, it's about people that cannot or will not do something repetitively. In 2005, when I started geocaching, there were few geocaches around Cape Town, all worthy of a favourite point. Geocaching wasn't a boring activity, as there was always a new town, hiking route or wine farm to visit. Even heading up the West Coast or along the South Coast was an adventure. However, as the number of geocachers and caches grew, it became a bit repetitive. Another cache down the road, on the mountain, even on the same wine farm. That's when it started becoming repetitive and in my mind, to keep geocaching and the excitement going, geocachers started creating all the challenges and variations on the original idea, which was to go new places with the aid of a GPS receiver, to have fun, to write great logs as a reward to the geocachers that have made the effort to hide quality caches. Thirdly, it's about financial gain. Groundspeak obviously gain from us being premium members, so it's in their interest that we are competitive and create variations on the original idea. Also there are all the achievement geocoins etc., so geocaching has created an industry where once there was none. Many people benefit financially from geocaching. I'm sure many Garmins are sold only for geocaching. What if geocaching was the same as way back when in 2005? I might have gotten bored and moved on to do something else and more fun. Who knows? One of the things that drew me to geocaching (and how I still explain geocaching to interested people) is that what makes geocaching so unique is that there are so few rules and that geocaching is so informal. I can choose to go geocaching six times a year or every weekend. I can play it day or night, in miserable rainy weather or on sunny days. Geocaching is for everyone. In a way, it's a negative - this causes the proliferation of stupid, low quality caches for example, or the competitive variations to Geocaching. Unlike a sport like rugby, with a limited, or strict set of rules, geocaching is what you make of it. I personally hate low quality caches, uninspiring cache descriptions, mindless power trails. It detracts from what made geocaching so great in the first place. Like I mentioned in a different post, unfortunately, this is the nature of any activity like geocaching. Initially it's taken up by passionate people (geocachers) and then it evolves over time, because more and more people get involved, and add their own ideas and interpretations of the rules. As I've said a number of times, if anything, we can vote with our hides, our log entries, the caches we choose to do or not to do, and awarding favourite points.

Some time ago a geocacher far North was trying to find a cache a day. One particular day he tried to find a cache hidden by my brother (the only cache in 50km radius), and when he couldn't find it, "replaced" the "missing" cache and claimed a find for the day. My brother went to do cache maintenance the same day and found the original cache still in its hidey hole! (This cache wasn't particularly difficult to find...) How could this geocacher set a challenge for himself and then when he can't find a cache, replace it and claim a find? The mind boggles how this person reasons... Point is that everywhere in life people will break the rules/cheat/be dishonest to favour themselves. Sportsmen take performance enhancing drugs, politicians are corrupt, impatient drivers & taxis push in & overtake illegally. Geocaching is an activity no different to any of these other. I cannot comprehend why someone would log if a find if they haven't even bothered to visit a cache. When I started playing this game in 2005 I was amazed how trustworthy the geocaching community is. Hiding containers everywhere, leaving valuable coins and TBs for others to discover and trade, and a website that trust what everyone logs. Like any other activity, we cannot do nothing but accept that over time, given enough people participating, the same people that overtake illegally, steal, cheat or do things that is not considered acceptable behaviour, will also call themselves geocachers... Not even if the stricest rules are enforced will it deter who don't want to play by the rules. We can only set the example, by playing by the rules, put effort into hiding great caches, write interesting logs and posting great pics while having as much fun as we can while doing this. Hopefully through our actions we can change the attitude of one of those geocachers then at least we achieved something through our participating in geocaching.

Hello, I've often wondered whether I should configure my GPSr to true North or magnetic North? Does it matter? Some cachers would write a hint like "...hidden 20m NE from the beacon..." Depending on your GPSr setting, you could end up at the right place or not. For specific caches it matters. For most caches not (I think). What's your opinion?

Let me know if you're going up. We might just be able to join you.

NAY - I love geocaching because it takes me place I would not have seen/visited otherwise. PT is just a stupid way of wasting petrol.

We (or at least Battlerat) is keen to join the adventure on Sunday!