The 2 Dogs

Hey you guys up there....spare a thought for your fellow geocachers down under. It's summer down here and so far we have had to contend with some terrible times. Most of our parks are closed due to fear of firestorms. Many of our caches have been destroyed by fire of have been deactivated because they are in fire prone areas. Bushfires continue to rage around Sydney and just this week in Canberra (The nations Capital)firestorms destroyed over 400 homes in just a couple of hours, and killed 4 people. The fires have burnt out areas the size of Texas in just a few days. So we have to be very carefull where we go, because these are firestorms we are talking about which are far more terrifying and fast moving than the conventional bushfire. We have also had the highest number of snake/spider bites ever recorded this year (probably a result of the fires upsetting habitat). And drought continues to turn our river recreation areas into dry dust holes, baking in the seering 110 degree heat. Not a good season so far for geocaching in Oz. Hounddog.

I have submitted a new cache at Geocaching.com that has whipped up a bit of a stir. It involves a new concept to the game that almost certainly will be followed by a wave of similar ideas. Because of this the cache approval has been held over by geocaching admin for their discussion. When and if the cache is approved I would like to get some opinions on the concept from other geocachers. It's called Picture This. (1) The riverbank. One example of new concepts was the virtual or locationless cache. Virtual caching has taken the sport in a direction that many, including the administrator, seem to feel it should not have gone . So Geocaching.com are right in being cautious of any new ideas that come along. My idea is not virtual but does invovle more homework and a little less reliance on the GPS unit. Anyway see what you think. Hounddog.

I see by your log that you found the cache name. Shes Apples. Thanks for the log and I hope you had fun. Yes I am SNIFTER of the 2 Dogs. Given the number of caches that we have in the field it would have been a good bet that it was a 2 Dogs cache.

Hi guys. With the recent fires right in the middle of The 2 Dogs territory, here is a list of our POSSIBLE/LIKELY casualties. BUCKET FOREST ARCADE SWEET SIXTEEN HOWYAGOIN WONDERFUL FISH AND CHIPS DEE CEE Others that have a small chance of being affected... SHE'S APPLES NEAR AND FAR LITTLE STINKER GHOST FALLS STASH you won't be able to get to FURPHY for some time. other caches under threat are.... HAUNTED HIGHWAY CHAIN GANG HEIFER HEIFER LAND CALF'S REVENGE W I realise this is trivial compared to the losses of life and property in the real world, but I'm declaring them just for the convenience and safety of our game players. We will get more info as soon as it is safe to get in there. See ya 'round the 'remaining' stashes. Hounddog and SNIFTER

You haven't been looking too hard. There are several that are very good heart starters. They may not be 4 day walks(who has the time for them) but they are all day or most of the day ones. You don't mention Panorama, Wonderful, Up the River, Stairway to Heaven, Yacaaba, Australias Highest or Paramount Peak. These are by far much much better than between the tunnels. That would have to be one of the easiest caches I have done and if I can get to a cache then it must be easy.

Here on the east coast of Australia, it was just after 10.45 in the evening of September 11 when a news flash came over the TV informing us that a small plane has crashed into the WTC. We tuned into CNN to see the amazing pictures and continued to believe it was a small plane. As the pictures were coming in, we noted that in the background of a reporters visual a large commercial jet appeared to be flying past the WTC but it never came out the other side. I said to the wife.."Was that my imagination or was there a plane flying past a second ago". She said she saw it too, but the news was still not reporting anything new. It was only after about a minute or two that we realised with horror that we were correct and that the plane had flown into the other tower. Most people in the city of Sydney never went to bed, they stayed up all night and it was 5 am before we finally decided to turn in. My wife cried almost the whole night, and we were worried sick because or son was on a business trip in the USA at the time. You may also recall that our Prime Minister was in New York at the time also. Our son was OK but our heart goes out to all the victims. Last night we lit a candle that burned all night next to a little American flag we have set up. Just our way of expressing our sorrow for the terrible events of that day. Peter and Camilla

Take a look at one of our geocachers in action Tangles dates Sept 7th. He was doing our cache called Jocks n Sox which is a Faters Day specialty cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=34391 Hope you all have a good laugh with this one.

Take a look at one of our geocachers in action Tangles dates Sept 7th. He was doing our cache called Jocks n Sox which is a Faters Day specialty cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=34391 Hope you all have a good laugh with this one.

In Australia, there are plenty of ways to kill off unwanted Geocachers without having to resort to Lacing Food. We aussies are a pretty tough mob.... Have you ever tried eatin' an Aussie meat pie, crikey those things'd kill a brown dog. All you would have to do is hide a cache in a remote place and drop in a Death adder or a nest of Funnelweb spiders. Another way would be to position the cache somewhere on the Adelaide River in the territory, just 100 metres from the highway crossing will do. The crocs here reckon American Tourists are pretty tasty tucker so come on down guys. If the crocs don't get ya the black fellas will. Seriously though, Snifter is talking about wrapped lollies and sealed packets. Food is not something that we go out of our way to put in a caches down here but if there is a bit of food therein we don't get all freaky and paranoid about it. To the bloke that quoted all the crime stats....mate if you are trying to suggest that Australia is anywhere near as dangerous to live in as America, with all your guns, ghettos and race riots and a murder every 6 mins you must be bonkers. We have our crime sure but no matter which way you try to twist the facts Australia is still a dadgum sight safer place than most countries of the world, and a lot less crowded to.

In Australia, there are plenty of ways to kill off unwanted Geocachers without having to resort to Lacing Food. We aussies are a pretty tough mob.... Have you ever tried eatin' an Aussie meat pie, crikey those things'd kill a brown dog. All you would have to do is hide a cache in a remote place and drop in a Death adder or a nest of Funnelweb spiders. Another way would be to position the cache somewhere on the Adelaide River in the territory, just 100 metres from the highway crossing will do. The crocs here reckon American Tourists are pretty tasty tucker so come on down guys. If the crocs don't get ya the black fellas will. Seriously though, Snifter is talking about wrapped lollies and sealed packets. Food is not something that we go out of our way to put in a caches down here but if there is a bit of food therein we don't get all freaky and paranoid about it. To the bloke that quoted all the crime stats....mate if you are trying to suggest that Australia is anywhere near as dangerous to live in as America, with all your guns, ghettos and race riots and a murder every 6 mins you must be bonkers. We have our crime sure but no matter which way you try to twist the facts Australia is still a dadgum sight safer place than most countries of the world, and a lot less crowded to.

I am always surprised at the claim by people, both in the know and not, that weather conditions, especially cloud cover, have absolutely no bearing or effect on GPS signals. I have quite a bit of experience in the setting up and usage of satellite TV signals and have found that these are very much affected by cloud cover, storms, and passing aircraft at various times. Anyone who has ever watched satellite TV transmissions would be aware of the "Rain Fade" effect that depletes signals significantly during heavy cloud cover and storms. (lovely sparkles all over your video screen) This phenomenon often renders TV signals from sats as almost unusable. Given that this happens even when using a finely positioned parabolic dish and a significantly higher output from the TV birds, it is kind of hard to accept that the weaker GPS signal is not affected. My theory is that they ARE affected but the result is less obvious given the multi channel pickup of a GPSr. It could also be a Analogue Vs Digital thing. Any thoughts or experiences. Hounddog

King Pellinore If you want to put up the point that the stashing tally is readily available on the profile page, fair enough, but then so is the finding tally, so that argument doesn't wash. As far as maintaining caches goes. Why do you suggest it's not possible to get around to several caches for maintenance purposes but it is possible to get around to several caches for finding purposes. Doesn't make sense especially given that it takes a lot longer to find a cache than to check on one of your own. I return to every one of my caches for inspection, and this is quite easily done actually. I'm beginning to think there is opposition to this because it might show up the people that access cache after cache after cache and have never bothered to put down even one of their own for others to find. I'm not saying it's a bad thing not to put one down, but what I am saying is that stashing is just as important to the sport, and the tally should be equally out there. Hounddog. [This message was edited by The 2 Dogs (Hounddog and SNIFTER) on June 07, 2002 at 08:13 AM.]

I have found that provided that you calibrate your walking stride correctly, the old click click pedometers can be amazingly accurate. The odometers on GPSrs on the other hand are disappointingly inaccurate because if they lose signal on the trip they assume a straight line from signal loss point to signal re established point, which is of course untrue. You can buy relatively cheap pedometers at most camping and outdoor activity shops. I actually bought mine at a National Geographic store, it's called a "Count-a-Step mark 3". Hounddog

JamieZ and MrG Firstly, Many thanks for your input guys. Now I have to disagree Oh Ye of little faith in your fellow cachers... Why do we automatically assume that everyone is going to do the wrong thing. Lets assume for the moment that what you are saying is a possibility and lame caches (by your standard) start appearing more often, So what. What is a lame cache? Is it an easy cache. A very easy cache, is it a cache that has little content, or maybe its' one that is too hard for you to get too. My wife is not as mobile as I and loves to find easy caches, down the local park or hidden the grounds of an old historic sites etc. She probably considers a cache that is set on top of a mountain where all but the most fit can't access it is pretty lame. I personally prefer a challenge for my searching and don't really care what's in them. If I just found a note book and nothing else it wouldn't matter because I do it for thrill of the hunt. No I don't think this is about quality, or quantity. It's about simply letting people know that there are cachers out there who enjoy stashing, just as much or more than finding, and contributing an equally important element to the sport. My wife and I together have placed over 50 caches Australia wide, and every one has been enjoyable and challenging for the finders (given the great logs and photos we receive), we make sure the contents are interesting to finders of all ages and fitness as well. However we are not unique, as most cache setters are doing a great job with there stashing. I have faith that the vast majority of future stashers will do the same, whether encouraged by numbers or not. Hounddog

I used my GPSr to sight points of interest during a plane trip over Central Australia recently. All I did was pre programme the waypoints of places like Ayers Rock, Alice Springs and Lake Eyre, so I knew exactly when and where to look for these spectacular sites from the air. Worked great. You can't always rely on the flight attendants to help you. In Australia flight crews don't seem to have any problems with the use of a GPSr once in level flight. Hounddog

I used my GPSr to sight points of interest during a plane trip over Central Australia recently. All I did was pre programme the waypoints of places like Ayers Rock, Alice Springs and Lake Eyre, so I knew exactly when and where to look for these spectacular sites from the air. Worked great. You can't always rely on the flight attendants to help you. In Australia flight crews don't seem to have any problems with the use of a GPSr once in level flight. Hounddog

I found a Brassiere in one cache....true!!. Didn't take it though. The risk of my wife finding it in my backpack was bad enough, but getting her to believe it was a cache item....... Hounddog

We'd like to suggest that in the same way that a tally of "finds" appears with a persons nickname on each found it log, the number of caches each finder has placed also appears. In Australia we don't have anywhere near the number of caches to choose from so for the past year we at the Hounddog camp have concentrated our efforts mainly of stashing rather than finding. This is not to say that we haven't been finding but with a very large percentage of the Sydney region caches being our own placements you can see how our "finds" would be more limited. Therefore we would like people to see (at a glance) how active people have been for the sport with their impressive stashing rates, if the have them, and why some have a lower finds balance. Also I think it may even encourage more people to up there tally of stashing in the same way. Anyone have thoughts? Hounddog and SNIFTER

I have a virtual cache going that requires the finder to go out and and log trig stations. Most GPS owners some who have done hundreds of physical caches, don't even seem to know what a trig station is. You can find some these in the most remote and difficult places on the Australian landscape. Many cachers have spent hours tracking through the bush, climbing mountains and studying topographic maps to find them. This activity is every bit a part of the sport as simple tracking to a given co-ordinates and find the box. In fact, it teaches finders map reading and navigation skills along the way. To make a blanket statemant that virtuals are just number padding and require less effort is just absurd. Jeremy. By subtracting the virtual caches count from the total number counts you will be taking away finds from people that have made great efforts such as I have described above. That does not seem to be very fair by my thinking. Perhaps the problem has been created by allowing any virtuals at all. Therefore the fairest solution is obvious, just don't allow any more to be set up. Hounddog

In Australia we have many varieties of poisonous snakes including the 3 the most deadly species of all. The Fierce, The Taipan, and the Eastern Brown. It goes with out saying that while geocaching down here we have to be on constant lookout especially in summer. Right now it's winter but we still have to be vigilant. The best advice I'd give anyone is whatever you do don't interfere with a snake. Usualy they will slither away before you even know they are there, but if by chance you have accidently cornered one and he can't get away just back out of the situation if safe. I usualy make as much noise as I can and walk slower, if I am walking in snakey territory. You have to wonder why a snake has developed venom so powerful it can kill a man, yet they only need enough to kill a lizard or a rat. Curious. Of course snakes are by no means the biggest threat to geocachers in Australia. We have more than our fair share of other dangerous creatues, both on land and in the water, but it all adds to the adventure. Hounddog

In Australia we have many varieties of poisonous snakes including the 3 the most deadly species of all. The Fierce, The Taipan, and the Eastern Brown. It goes with out saying that while geocaching down here we have to be on constant lookout especially in summer. Right now it's winter but we still have to be vigilant. The best advice I'd give anyone is whatever you do don't interfere with a snake. Usualy they will slither away before you even know they are there, but if by chance you have accidently cornered one and he can't get away just back out of the situation if safe. I usualy make as much noise as I can and walk slower, if I am walking in snakey territory. You have to wonder why a snake has developed venom so powerful it can kill a man, yet they only need enough to kill a lizard or a rat. Curious. Of course snakes are by no means the biggest threat to geocachers in Australia. We have more than our fair share of other dangerous creatues, both on land and in the water, but it all adds to the adventure. Hounddog

Virtual (locationless) caches are great for a change of pace. I think there is a place for them provided that they are on fixed objects and places where the co-ords can be verified. I have recently logged a rash of them myself and ok it was fun, but now it's time to get back to some REAL geocaching. Jeremy I think you should just keep them under control by strictly limiting the number of virtuals on the system at any one time. Hounddog

Nobody ever said that Geocaching is without risks. If I'm fearful of anything with this sport it's the day that people start blaming cache setters for mishaps that happen during a cache search. Hey c'mon we do this for all the fun and the risks as well. All care taken but......be responsible for you own actions guys. Having said that, I have withdrawn a cache because of concern for searchers safety. A spent syringe was found nearby. It would have been irresponsible of me not to achive it in that case. Hounddog