The 2 Dogs

I was very easy to do when the site was still very young, but it's seems they closed that loophole a long time a go. Cheating? well I guess it is, isn't it?

One that's probably more for the old hands, but do you still remember the first geocache you ever found with fond affection, and is geocaching still as much fun for you today. I do......I still remember the great thrill of finding my first geocache. "Sydney Geocache" way back in March of 2001. It was quite a buzz then and, I'm happy to say, the sport is still just as much fun for me today. Happy caching.

I don't think a new cat is required for historical themed caches. Many of my caches are based on historical themes, in placement or style. Most can be done just as a normal cache but with the added bonus of teaching the finders something special about the location and it's history, but then the same could be said of most cache locations. If you start to set up special listings you'll end up with hundreds of different categories and this would just get way too out of hand. Better to leave the sorting to the finders, that is if they want a particular type.

I know what you are saying. Worse still is the cost of updates with City Navigator, $200 AUS for a few lousy streets added to software that is already full of glaring errors. What the.....

I only use ammo boxes in extreme conditions. Eg snow, extreme heat etc. One cache I have placed is snowbound for six months of the year and has been out in the elements for 5 years. It's a painted ammo box and is showing no signs of wear and tear. Got to love ammo boxes.

I have been a radio enthusiast all my life. I guess it's a kind of extension of the interest in electronics and radio that leads us to tinker with GPS, and we all know what tinkering with a GPS lead to.

In Australia, we are blessed with some of the deadliest spiders and snakes. The "Funnel" spider you mention is actually known as the "Sydney Funnel Web" and is reputed as being able to kill a small child within minutes. Commonly, they make their nest in leaf litter around the gardens of suburban homes, especially in my area in the north of Sydney, so bites are a common thing especially during the breeding season when the males go marauding for females. I actually see my cats playing with them from time to time, but even though they can kill a man, cats are completely immune to their venom. Up until an anti-venom was invented some years ago, they were killing people on a regular basis but this has now stopped. Still they have a very painful bite so it's best to avoid them if possible. Caching down under does have it's hazards, if the spiders don't get you the snakes will or the saltwater crocs or the white pointer sharks or the box jelly fish or the blue ringed octopus just to name a few, Red Kangaroos present a danger too....... never corner a roo.......if they swipe you with their tail they can easily break bones. Lastly there's the ever present danger or finding yourself stranded in searing heat hundreds of miles from civilisation. In the last few years there seems to be an increase in overseas tourists taveling the 4WD highways of Australia and getting into serious trouble. That to me poses more of a risk to cachers than any of our critters.

Try this. I've spent hundreds of dollars in containers and contents, thousands of dollars in petrol for geocaching trips, and now over 50 thousand for a 4 wheel drive just to do the 4x4 caches. Yep...it's a lifestyle, and a very expensive one at that.

I get on a forum and voice an opinion, and get accused of being a troll by dozens of people. This person gets on and spams the forums and no one says boo. Kind of hard to understand.

We are the 2 dogs. Woof Woof We love to geocache, we go to puppy school and can even read stuff.

I'm currently using a Nissan Xtrail, but in the next few days that changes to a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado. Turbo Diesel Oh yeah!!! . This is the second fourbie I have bought and it's all because of geocaching.

As my avatar suggests, I am an old school geocacher. I come from the days when "all" placers put a lot of time and effort into not only the location but the contents of the cache as well. I've spent many hundreds of dollars on quality cache contents over the years, so you can imagine how I feel when I turn up at a find where someone has simply shoved an empty film cannister under a rock. It often leaves the experience feeling just as empty as that cache.

Member only caches were supposed to be rewards for supporting members or this site, however the relatively rare use of this type of cache is testimoney that most people don't think of them as such a great idea. I guess if they are going to work anywhere then the U.S. would be the place given the high volume of caches and finders. In my country however, with participation on a much smaller scale, it just doesn't make sense to restrict who can find caches. I am a premium member and have placed many caches but have never placed or found a member only cache.

That's true! We have to stand on our heads when we sign the logs, although these days we're hard up finding the water to flush our toilets. But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

Pretending your GPSr is a cell is a great idea but our equipment is getting so recognisable these days that pretty soon someone is going to ask you what the hell you're doing talking into a GPS. Could be a litle embarrassing. Might be better to stick to a real cell.

Most of Australia is, for want of a better term, wasteland, and only accesable by walking or 4wd drive cars. But this might not be the cachers dream than you think. Australia rates as the most sparsely populated country on earth (if you take away askew figures such as Vatican city or Antarctica and such like), but then distance between towns becomes the major problem. If only we had lower fuel prices, I'm sure there would be many more in and around Darwin and in the centre of the country. I've cached in Darwin and have some placements there and can understand the frustration of not having enough to do. BTW I heard the crocs got another American tourist just a while ago. They certainly find them yummy...Just kidding. Just have a look around on Google Earth, like America we have some amazing sights. A word of warning about Google Earth though. I have a cache near Darwin that looks like a walk in the park from above. It's a micro in the crotch of a tree by the side of the road. What google earth doesn't show is that the area is infested with salt water crocs, especially during the wet, and the temperature is often above 45 celsius. Hey tttedseins! I just purchased a new fourbie, diesel powered complete with long range fuel tanks as standard. It's the second I've bought all on account of Geocaching, Crazy isn't it. Anyway I'm looking forward to really putting it through it's paces up Darwin way soon. Happy Caching

Thanks to all for your input. I've been supported in my view and Ive been accused of being a troll for making my observation known, so I dare say there are as many who do feel the same way as do not. I guess you have to understand how strange it looks to us down here, particualry the long time participants, who have travelled the country and cached day and night for years and still not found anywhere near the massive numbers we see attached to logs in the USA.

As I said in my post, we do have our easy caches, but I think it's more balanced down under.. That's not to say you don't have many difficult caches in America. I 'm sure you have some doosies, but I still say it's getting too easy when you can rack up 4000+ finds in just a couple of years. What does that equate to?.......something like 5 or 6 every single day of the year, and that's not allowing for "did not finds" BTW the Butterfly Farm is actually 5000km from my home and many kilometres outside of Darwin, which is one of the most remote cities in the world. I actually enjoyed the virtuals. Most virtuals involved a lot more effort than finding micros in roadside trees. If you really wanted to make an example of me you should have cited my entry in "Yellow Jeep" or "Flagpoles" they were dead easy. As for the easy cache yesterday, guilty as charged! I walked my dog there..........so I couldn't resist having a look? I've done 1/1's and I've placed 1/1's but I also do up to 5/5's and my average for placing (BTW I've placed more caches than anyone else in this country) is maybe 3/3 with some, 4's and 5s but it's not ease or difficulty I'm talking about so much as the balance between the two.

We are one of the pioneer caching teams in Australia, and have always looked forward to the challenges involved in every cache find. Most caches in Australia, particularly in the first two years were very difficult by today's standards. After 5 years of caching there are very few cachers in this country that have find tallies over a thousand for this reason. It surprises me then to look at the American stats and see cachers amassing find tallies of multiple thousands even within very short caching careers. What are you guys doing up there? Looks like many of you are just placing caches anywhere and everywhere without thought for making them a challenge. Isn't it the challenge of the hunt that makes geocaching so much fun? I would much rather have my tally of just 500 knowing that the great majority were hard one with blood, sweat, tears, energy and endurance, than to have a 4 thousand tally of walk up start caches anytime. My fear is that there are many cachers out there that have never really experienced the true feeling of satisfaction when you have to work really hard to find a cache, because they only go for those easy ones that seem to be so abundant in the USA.. Maybe some of you should come down here and try caching in Australia, I think you would get a shock at just how difficult the cache hunts generally are, we have our easy ones sure, but most of us have not lost touch with what the sport is all about, and still make our fellow cachers work hard to find them. The cache pollution rule is in place to stop too many caches in one area, but maybe it's time to start knocking back ridiculously easy placements as well. The classic film canister in a tree crotch at the side of the road is one style I'd knock back for sure. Sorry to be so blunt but I just think it's getting way too easy when you can rack up a tally of 4 thousand+ in just a couple of years.

I have two brands of GPSr and I take them with me all the time. One's "Garmy" short for Garmin and the other's Gupus. it's a Magellan. Hey! be nice........GPS's have feelings too you know.

Making yourself invisible to muggles is an art, especially when you want to search in crowded places. If, over the years, I've learned anything about making myself less obvious to muggles it's this...... Put a cellphone to your ear and you can get away with anything. People will simply ignore you. Yep! you can do anything as long as you have a cell pinned to your ear. You can stand in one spot, walk around and feel surfaces, bend over and look under things...what ever you want. People will just ignore you. Try it...you'll see that I'm right.

Recently I was caching in a very heavily wooded area, and found that my GPS was unable to get a lock. Because of this I decided to call my partner who was waiting for me and tell her that I'd be longer than expected. Cellphone reception was poor in the area as well, so I gave up on that idea and turned the phone off. At that moment I realised that the GPS was then able to get a good fix. I experimented a few times and found the phone did seem to be affecting the GPSr's ability to get a fix. I'm theorising that under normal circumstances a cellphone close by will not affect the GPS signals, but in low signal situations this might not be the case. Has anyone made the same observations?

Down under we have many dangerous creatures to worry about in the bush. During the course of my long caching career I have been confronted with many frightening critters. Snakes are really not a great worry, even though we have most of the worlds deadliest roaming around and I see them regularly. Spiders are more of a worry, the funnel web is quite often found in leaf litter and has a very nasty bite. of course nothing compares to the bite of a saltwater crocodile, just today we have had another person devoured by a saltie while on a fishing trip. I think that makes about 3 so far this year. But with all this , I'm more scared of my own stupidity than anything else. It's taking silly chances and doing crazy things that is the greatest danger. Climbing out on to unstable cliff lines or crawling across slippery rocks. Or not wearing proper clothes and footwear. Not telling people where you are going or knowing the first thing about first aid if anything does go wrong. These are things you need to be concerned about. Out in the bush just remember you are your own worst enemy. Happyand safe caching to all

You're lucky these days to have that option, back in the old days (sorry for the cliche) we were starved for caches so of course we did them all. It nice to see so many caches now and how the game has evolved over the years. Hounddog

The cancer of micros is also happening down here. I am now going to boycott them unless I am really convinced that they are warranted for the location and not just used as a stingy alterative to placing a decent size and stocked cache. I have place over a hundred caches and none of them are micros., they are all good caches with well stocked good quality products. The worst thing about micros is that they are often put in locations where a decent cache could have been placed. A film cannister with a few pieces of paper and often not even a pencil is not geocaching and should be banned. Also, anyone can pull up at the side of a road and shove a film cannister in a hole in a tree. These type of Drive by caches are just plain boring and bring down the quality of the sport.