barefootjeff

Because geocaching isn't just a phone game. The only way a cache icon appears on your phone's map is because the cache owner entered the coordinates into the website, preferably after averaging them over several visits. Even when locatlities can be readily identified on maps or satellite images, those can sometimes be wildly inaccurate. For example, the walking tracks near my most recent cache appear quite differently on Google and OSM maps and neither is anything like the actual tracks on the ground, with the real track junction almost 200 metres from where either map puts it. On the satellite image all you can see is the tops of trees so that's of no help, so the only way to reliably locate anything there is with GPS coordinates.

I gave out 43 FPs across 219 finds, thanks to the 20 bonus FPs earlier in the year, but I'm now back in deficit so I need to be a bit more selective with my favouriting. It's difficult, though, with few new caches being published now but most of those being good quality and great experiences. Gone are the days of a steady stream of 1.5/1.5 trads to bulk up my find count with non-favourites. The other slightly surprising stat was 9 hides during the year, as my annual average had previously been about 5. At the start of the year I hadn't really planned on hiding any new caches, other than one I'd been trying to get approval for from national parks (and I'm still waiting on that).

Thanks for the suggestion. I've done that with other caches inside national parks, most notably my Chasing Waterfalls series, but this spot doesn't really lend itself well to a multi as the entire 5km hike from the parking area (itself within the park boundary) to the headland is inside the national park and the only nearby spots on public land outside the park boundary already have physical caches there. Yes, I know there's no distance restriction on a multi final relative to its listed coordinates and virtual waypoints, but I like to keep the final as an integral part of the whole experience. For my waterfall caches, I've generally placed the final along the same watercourse close to where it enters or leaves the national park. I don't want to have the challenging hike out to the spectacular headland topped off by a mediocre roadside final or have it a long drive off to somewhere unrelated to the rest of the experience. At one point I considered placing an AL there and even set out along the walk to identify locations for it where reasonable questions could be asked, but soon realised that, once off the fire trails, none of the walking tracks around there are shown on the AL map. It's pretty wild country in there and wandering blindly without a map would be a good way to get lost. Phone coverage is also pretty marginal once you drop below the ridge tops. My first preference for the site is still a virtual, and I'll find out on that score in a couple of weeks, but in the likelihood that I miss out again I think a reasonable EarthCache could be created, particularly if some of the other features along the way, like that cave, could be worked into the main geology lesson. As soon as we get a cool enough day, I want to head back out there with fresh eyes and might even discover enough along the way to weave it all into neat EC to make that my first choice and, if I do get a virtual reward, deploy that elsewhere.

Thanks. My main interest in that cave is the contrast between the grey, hard and relatively uneroded outside surface and the yellow, soft and deeply eroded interior. My understanding is that this is a result of case hardening (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_hardening_of_rocks) and, if so, I'm wondering if the same phenomenon plays an important role in the formation of the Spion Kop rock fingers. The smaller one in particular looks like that might be the case, with the case-hardened top layer protecting the softer rock directly underneath. Tafoni (specifically honeycombing) is very commonplace in the sandstone cliffs and larger boulders around here (it makes great hiding places for physical caches), and there are other EarthCaches that deal specifically with that, such as GC7AK5B, GC4RTXY and GC5FQAQ.

How can I be gentle? Like it or not, the number one rule in geocaching is to find the cache, open it and sign the log. Maybe that's archaic, something more suited to the Middle Ages perhaps, but there are other phone-based games (Adventure Labs immediately comes to mind but there are others like that pokey one that was all the rage a few years back) where you don't have to open or sign anything. If doing that is too irksome or too much trouble, you can always put the cache on your Ignore List so you won't keep seeing it sitting there unfound, but just photographing the cache isn't a find. If I can see the cache but can't sign the log, it's a DNF and, if the problem is with the cache rather than me, an OAR as well, because caches that can't be opened (perhaps they've rusted shut) or with logs too degraded to sign need to be either fixed or removed from play. You won't solve the problem of crappy caches by allowing photo logs on them, or leaving it to that mythical "someone else" to do something. Sure, as a CO I can be lenient, and I won't delete a log just because someone made the trek to GZ but their pen didn't work, but I would hope such incidents would be one-offs and that players won't make a habbit of logging a find just for getting somewhere near it and taking a photo. I try to make it easy with my hides, they're all smalls or regulars with actual log books (not rolled-up strips of paper) and I always include a pencil plus, on the more remote caches, a sharpener. In return, I really want finders to make that extra effort of extracting the cache from its hiding place, opening it, signing the log and putting it all back the way they found it. That, in its essence, is the core of what this game's about.

No, that's not geocaching, or at least it's just a "lowest common denominator" subset of geocaching. The game covers a much broader range of experiences, physical caches and localities, many of which can't be reduced to just take a photo of the cache or something written on it. By way of example, a couple of days ago I did four caches up north of here, two of which were tree-fishing ones where you have to use a long pole with a hook to get it off the branch it's hanging on, open the container, sign the log then put it back in the tree. Seeing the cache (or photographing it) is easy, getting your name in the logbook isn't. Another of the caches was in a tree stump and pretty easy to spot, but inside was a cryptex that required a code word from solving the cache puzzle to open and get to the logbook. No photo logs of the container allowed on that one, obviously. The fourth cache was an ammo can tucked into a small opening a few metres up on a concrete bridge support. You could take a photo of it standing on the ground with a selfie stick, but to get to the logbook requires a ladder (which you have to carry from the nearest parking a few hundred metres away) and a fair stretch to reach the container (I used a grabbing tool to make it a little easier for me). I don't find many caches, after nearly eleven years in the game I'm still well south of 2000 finds, but a lot of them are memorable experiences that go way beyond standing under a branch trying to get a logsheet out of a micro. Many required a fair bit of effort just to get to GZ (or a fair bit of mental effort just to get the coordinates for GZ) then often further challenges to get hold of the cache, open it and add my name to the logbook. Sometimes that last step turned out to be a bit too challenging and I've had to be content to log a DNF, with that blue frown on the map a reminder to come back again better prepared. Amongst my list of favourites are many with the "takes more than an hour" attribute and usually involve a good measure of hiking, rock scrambling or, in some cases, kayaking. For me, caching isn't about numbers or badges, it's about experiences, of being taken to places and doing things I wouldn't have otherwise contemplated. It's also about the satisfaction of overcoming all the obstacles the CO and nature have put in my way, to get the container in my hand, open it and add my name to the log. That, to me, is what geocaching's all about.

Examples from my own hides where the numerator is wrong: GCAHPD9: 1 FP / 1 find (PM) = 0% FPs (should be 100%) GCAEX05: 1 FP / 1 find (PM) = 0% FPs (should be 100%) GCA2XYJ: 3 FPs / 8 finds (all PM) = 29% FPs (should be 38%) GCA25XJ: 10 FPs / 13 finds (all PM) = 75% FPs (should be 77%) GC9JDPF: 10 FPs / 14 finds (all PM) = 64% FPs (should be 71%) The problem seems to be it not updating correctly on the most recent find, either ignoring the FP but counting the find or not counting either.

Many of my logs (which I post from the website, not an app), have photos attached as they form part of the story I'm telling. These are not spoilers. For example, this one of me getting up the slippery slope on our route to a cache: Or this one of a rock pinnacle we passed on the way to a mountain-top cache (I was so impressed by that one I went back six months later and placed a cache of my own there): It's the old adage about a picture painting a thousand words.

Thank you both for your suggestions. I'm still scratching my head a bit though... The naturalarches.org page says right at the start, "Wind is not a significant agent in natural arch formation. Wind does act to disperse the loose grains that result from microscopic erosion. Further, sandstorms can scour or polish already existing arches. However, wind never creates them." Caves and honeycombing are a common feature of the sandstone cliffs around here, but from my reading there appears to be ongoing controversy as to whether they're formed primarily by wind or salt spray. Perhaps both are involved. After the 17th, when I know whether I've received a Virtual Reward or not, I intend to revisit the site and pay closer attention to the rock layering, case hardening and any signs that they might be remnants of collapsed arches (such as evidence of a fracture where the missing part of the arch once joined the rockface). Also thanks for the suggestion to ask the ranger, I will next time I'm in touch with her though she can be a bit hard to pin down sometimes. Edit to add: This has at least given me an idea for the EarthCache name, should it eventuate: "Fallen Arches".

Log in to labs.geocaching.com and from the drop-down menu in the top right, next to your caching name, select View Finds. Each stage of each AL has a Delete button next to it, which just removes it from your caching stats without actually deleting anything. If you want to restore them later, click on Show Deleted Logs right down the bottom and you can then click on the Undelete button next to each one. It's a bit time-consuming if you have a lot of them you want to delete or undelete, and I wish there was a single setting that hid or showed all AL finds, but it's better than nothing I guess.

Quoting from another thread, as this is off-topic for that one: There's a location near home in Brisbane Water National Park called (locally at least) Spion Kop, where I once wanted to put a physical cache but the ranger wouldn't allow it on account of the unofficial (but well-maintained) walking track out there passing near an Aboriginal site. She said, though, that because virtual caches and EarthCaches don't need formal approval under the NSW National Parks Geocaching Policy, one of those would be fine. I ended up picking another nice spot in the park for my physical cache (GC752YF on Scopas Peak) but have kept Spion Kop in mind as a possible virtual cache if I'm ever successful in a Virtual Rewards draw, or for an EC if I can figure out the geology going on there. I'm an electronics engineer by profession (now retired) and the only geology I've studied was in high school over 50 years ago and from the ECs I've done in recent years, so I really don't know much about the subject beyond what I can find online. The main geological feature at Spion Kop is this large rock finger like a dragon's head poking out over the cliff edge: Here's a view from a slightly different angle that shows a bit more of the rock: It's not a one-off formation, though, as just around the headland is another smaller version (what I call Little Kop): Looking up from below and about a kilometre away (the closest I could get on dry land): I've had various ideas about its formation. Perhaps it started off as a cave just below the top that eroded through the roof to form an oculus, which then lost one side of the bridge through further erosion. Then there's also case hardening in sandstone, forming an outer grey crust that's harder and more resistant to erosion than the yellow rock inside. This is more evident at Little Kop where there's clearly a cap above the honeycombed rock underneath. Another possible contributor is water flow, given the curved surface on the rock below Big Kop, but there's not going to be much going down there as where the man is standing on the right of the photo is pretty much the highest point in the vicinity. Looking at the view from below, there's some very obvious (and regular) layering in the rock, with the rock finger roughly in line with one of the layer boundaries. I don't know what signifcance (if any) that has, though. If case hardening really is an important factor in the formations, there's an excellent example of that in a cave next to the track on the way up, with a hard grey surface on the outside and the softer yellow honeycombed rock inside: But beyond that I'm scratching my head, unsure whether any of this is right or if there might be some other mechanism involved. Nor do I have any good idea for the tasks to ask the finders to perform and the questions to ask, particularly as I want to avoid having them climb out along or under the rock fingers as it's a long way down. So I'm open to ideas, although I suspect it would be better to have someone with geological knowledge accompany me to the site so they can see it in the flesh and look in all the right places. If I do get a virtual reward in the draw this month, I'll probably go down that path and just focus on the aesthetics of the site (including the awesome views), but it would still be nice to know how these formations came to be.

I think the bigger issue here isn't individuals cheating, but it encouraging the creation of ALs whose sole purpose is to facilitate claiming souvenirs for countries players haven't visited. It's not likely to happen in this part of the world, but there are places in Europe (looking at the map, perhaps Austria), where you could get within the geofence of AL locations in multiple countries without crossing any borders or even getting out of your car. Sure, it doesn't affect me but it does taint the game's overall integrity appearance.

The problem isn't related to counting PM logs as the error occurs on caches where the only logs are from PMs (like my one I quoted recently that has one PM find with one FP but shows <1% FPs). In any case, this used to work properly until they changed something around September last year.

Our reviewer explained all this in a recent podcast. From the moment you create a new cache page, that location is effectively reserved, insofar as the reviewer will see a saturation violation if someone else submits a cache near that location. This is part of the reason why unpublished listings are automatically archived after ten months.

One of the issues that was mentioned early on was not being able to edit a Reviewer Note on an unpublished and unsubmitted cache, with some speculation that this might have been intentional. I'm wondering if that's still the case, as I'm currently putting together a reasonably involved puzzle cache that has a lot of information to go into my Reviewer Note that I can do now while it's fresh in my mind, but the final stuff like photos of the cache placement I won't have until I go out tomorrow to place the cache. As a precaution in case I still can't edit, I'm writing my draft note in Word so I can copy and paste tomorrow, but that's a little cumbersome.

I really wish they'd use different terminology here. To me, "personal information" is stuff like my real name, email address, physical address, phone number, date of birth, etc. but none of that is shared with Authorized Developer partners or even known by HQ. There's nothing in a geocaching profile that links to a real person unless that person decides to make themselves known.

I gave FPs to 43 caches this year out of 219 finds (those bonus FPs early in the year really came in handy!) so picking just one favourite is hard. The two Blue Mountains EarthCaches I did recently (GCA9FJ2 and GC9Q2EZ) are right up there, as is GCA8WQY at Sandy Hollow in the upper Hunter Valley, GC6HR8E in Sydney, GCA48A1 at Bulahdelah and the spooky night cache GCA3XPH. All quite different experiences but all great fun. Also great fun were the group caching trips with lee737, his sons Samuel737 and Oliver737, Banj5150, Mighty Minions and GeoIan, and I'm looking forward to going out with them on more adventures in 2024.

A lot of the playgrounds here these days are part of multi-function sport and recreation areas, such as the local Peninsula Recreation Precinct which, in addition to the enclosed kiddies playground, has a cafe, picnic tables, bike paths, skateboard rink, BMX track, basketball court, flying fox, climbing wall, several rugby/soccer/cricket fields and tennis courts. With the cafe, bike paths and adjacent surf beach, there's no issue with unaccompanied adults being there, indeed I cycle through there each day to get my morning coffee and often grab a snack from the cafe after going swimming. There have been a few caches placed around there over the years, plus a couple of events I've hosted there. The caches either eventually got muggled or, in the case of my multi which had virtual waypoints scattered around the precinct and the final in bushland beside the creek in the south-west corner, I had to archive it when the activity signs I'd based the field puzzle on were either vandalised or just faded away to unreadability. But anything hidden in the more popular areas of the park would need to be very well camoflaged if it's to last more than a few months. As for permissions, in general explicit permission isn't needed for caches in council-managed public spaces in this part of the world (NSW, Australia), where the OP appears to live. I vaguely recall seeing something about Geocaching NSW making representations to the Local Government Association to that effect in the early days of caching. The Regional Wiki lists those places where either caches aren't allowed or explicit permission is needed

I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with your first hide. Perhaps close to a playground is problematic as there are likely to be lots of kids in the vicinity poking around in whatever nooks and crannies they can get their fingers into. A good idea is to try to make the cache blend into its surroundings as much as possible, so for example if the hiding place is amongst rocks a fake rock might work well. Also a placement that's above or below eye level can help make it less obvious to the casual observer. I see most of your finds are around the Newcastle area so I'm guessing that's where you were placing it. lee7347 and his son Samuel737 have had good success placing well-camouflaged caches in high muggle areas around there so they might be able to offer some suggestions.

These are the number of active ECs by placement years for New South Wales (Australia): 2004 : 1 (the world's first EC) 2005 : 1 2006 : 1 2007 : 1 2008 : 2 2009 : 13 2010 : 17 2011 : 10 2012 : 9 2013 : 23 2014 : 23 2015 : 26 2016 : 35 2017 : 52 2018 : 31 2019 : 23 2020 : 13 2021 : 5 2022 : 11 2023 : 12 So clearly we've come off the peak of 2017, but perhaps back to a more sustainable long-term rate?

That last phrase seems to go beyond just using an existing cache. I have an AL that overlaps two virtual locations in a pre-existing (2015) multi. At one location, the AL even references the same plaque as the multi, although they ask different questions, simply because that plaque is about the only thing at the lookout to base unambiguous questions on. Beyond those two locations, the AL and multi go in different directions and follow different themes, with the mulit's final nowhere near any of the AL's stages or its bonus cache. Neither of us placed the plaque at the lookout, so I wouldn't have thought there'd be a conflict with the wording or spirit of the guidelines, and there's no free smiley since answering the multi's questions doesn't give you the answer to the AL question (or vice versa), but, well, I guess it could be seen as one of those grey areas.

So where do you draw the line? If the answer is "no, you can't use the outside of a cache as an AL stage", do you then want to ask "What colour is the camo rock covering the cache?" or "What sort of bush is the cache hanging in?" What I'm struggling to get my head around is why you'd want to be doubling up physical caches and AL stages at the same location, other than the obvious answer of providing two smileys for the price of one. If that's what the game has devolved into, then I'm just going to have to agree with fizzymagic's assessment of them and be glad ALs are dead here.

I don't really like AL bonus caches as often, even for a really good AL, they're just an afterthought with a micro in a guardrail or under a bush. As an owner, bonus caches have always been the hardest part in coming up with a new AL as they take away all the benefits of the AL being virtual and really it just degenerates into a multi with 5 virtual waypoints, except the finders get six smileys instead of one. With my most recent AL on Dangar Island, I didn't provide a bonus cache, in part because the AL guidelines now recommend against it and also because there wasn't anywhere on the island where I would have felt comfortable placing a physical cache. So far no-one's outright complained, but it's only had 15 completions in over a year and some of those were group visits. To me, ALs are really a separate activity to caching as just about everything is different, apart from bonus caches and the awarding of smileys for every location visited. I delete the latter from the website since they're way out of proportion to all my other caching finds.

There are still some of us hiding "let me bring you to this great spot!" caches, but they rarely get any finders. GC9QR5W, a 1.5/3.5 traditional located amongst a series of beautiful waterfalls, was published in April 2022 but has only had 5 finders. It's not exactly remote, being a 5 minute drive from the M1 Somersby interchange and then a 2km hike mostly along the Great North Walk, but nobody's interested. Last month I did an awesome 3/4 Earthcache (GC9Q2EZ) in the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney) that was published in July 2022; it had a group of four claim joint FTF shortly after publication but I've been the only other finder since. My own most recent hide (GCAEX05), a 1.5/4 traditional at a series of waterfalls and rock pools with nice views down across the Hawkesbury River, has only had one finder in the two and a bit months since publication. By comparison, a 1.5/1.5 traditional a short walk from a car park in Gosford has had 61 finders in just eight months, and a similar cache in a suburban park in Newcastle, published in January, has had 97 finds. By and large, most players these days, particularly the newer ones who only use their phone and have never visited the website, don't want great spots, they just want quick smileys. As for ALs, with mine I've tried to showcase what I think are interesting places that are a bit off the beaten track. They're not meant to be educational, just fun experiences you might not have otherwise had. It's much the same with the 36 ALs I've completed over the last three and a half years, most are fairly mundane but still fun to do. It's hard to create ALs in nice bushland locations because often there's poor phone coverage, little if anything to ask meaningfui and unambiguous questions about and the app's map doesn't show most walking tracks. But ALs are pretty much dead here now, with only two new ones in 2022 (one of them mine) and none this year. ALs as an experience were probably doomed right from the start when they decided to award smileys for each location, and even more so now that the app encourages people to cherry-pick whatever locations are close by rather than do an AL in its entirety. Getting back to the original question, I'd have to wonder if the only thing worthy of bringing someone to a location is an existing physical cache, what is the point of the AL? Other than for an easy extra smiley, I suppose.

Here's an assortment of containers I've listed as smalls, compared to an actual apple: All the boxes are in the range 100ml to 1 litre, with the smallest 180ml and the biggest about 500ml. The apple's volume, as best I can measure it, is about 150ml so it really is the smallest of any of them. Being at the bottom of what's normally considered the small range (100ml - 1l), it strikes me as a particularly bad example of a typical small, much less as the boundary between small and regular.