Conspiracy theory

[+bear&fox]

There is something strange going on in the Cape.

 

I see them. Or at least I see what looks and sometimes even sounds like geocachers. But something is amiss. The real geocachers have disappeared into thin air. I have no clues to offer, but I think it may have something to do with UFOs spotted over the Karoo a few months ago. Maybe it's the wind. I have no leads.

 

But to the folks in the rest of the country beware: the Cape geocaching community is systematically being replaced by robotic drones. They look and sound real, but... they have not been programmed to place any new caches. That's my theory, and I am sticking to it.

 

Have any intelligence or contacts with the underworld? Please help to solve the mystery!

 

* Some say they are being ported to Australia.

 

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

Alright B&F and your point would be?

I'm all for conspiracy theories have a few of my own

[+vespax]

There's a subtle message in this thread somewhere. I just can't pick up on it though...

[+Discombob]

mmm, the mysterious thing is that the great Bear and the foxy Fox have not placed a cache for a while either!

Perhaps we have run out of spots.

Now I am going to hout Bay today.

I will either find a cache, or place a cache, depending on my mood when I get there - lets see what happens!

[+vespax]

Discombob, you know how I feel about new caches in Hout Bay!!! Argh!!!

[+bear&fox]

My point is simple: where on earth are the cache hiders in the Western Cape?

 

The lads in the North (and even East) must be enjoying the start of the seven prosperous years! We desperately need aid down here. We are - apparently - running out of geocachers placing caches. Or maybe they are in hibernation. (And thanks GS&Dogs and DeeBob for attempting to stem the tide!)

 

* Oh, and we've placed a nice little toughie for you to go find. Nice little stroll along the beach.

Edited December 3, 2006 by bear&fox

[+Discombob]

Well, to help out the CT folks, I am offering to donate cache containers to anyone who wants to hide some caches. I have 2 huge bags full of pretty watertight cylindrical chocolate flavoured cache containers going to a good home.

[Trackinfind]

We also been wondering about the dry season. Seen stats of fellow CT geocachers having found 170’s and up without placing any?! Do think they need bit on encouragement.

 

How about a 10/20/30 day cache placing challenge in the Western Cape? Maybe the fellow geocachers up north/east visiting our beautiful city and area can take part and we will maintain the caches for them here?

 

We offer to keep stats and post them here on this tread and see if we can come up with sponsorships for a nice price on for the winning team.

[+Team_Farmers]

We've placed a cache near fish hoek, as part of our Amazing Cache series (though not yet posted), if anybody is able to look after it for us?

[+Discombob]

Shae on you, not posting it yet Whats your excuse?

 

I can look after it for you.

[+Team_Farmers]

Shae on you, not posting it yet Whats your excuse?

 

I can look after it for you.

 

ha ha sorry bob, promise to post it soon (it's actually been sitting there for about 3 months now!) - it's got a cuban theme (saw that vespa likes that little island), and have just been thinking how I'm going to integrate it into the race.

 

Thanks for the offer, will definitly take you up on that! Hope my little cache helps displace this conspiracy theory?

Edited December 5, 2006 by Team_Farmers

[+bear&fox]

Thanks for the offer, will definitly take you up on that! Hope my little cache helps displace this conspiracy theory?

 

Hmmm... placed by the gang from up north... if anything it confirms my theory! But thanks anyway, just about anything is a huge relief nowadays.

 

* Don't just sit here and stare at the screen! Go plant a cache! Go!

 

B&F

[+Stormers]

We placed a cache at Keurboomsstand (that I still need to log) while on holiday their last week, such a beautiful place and it begged for a cache. Is there any one that can help me look after it? As I recall it is still this side of the border.

[+vespax]

I've been thinking about sustainability recently. Maybe because I am working in that field right now for the cache support funds to go caching soon.

 

But I was thinking, how sustainable is caching in Cape Town? Sure, placing a cache in a good spot, well-hidden, etc will allow the cache to remain there for a long time. Although excellent and well deserved, that isn't my point here. My point is, are we spreading ourselves too thin here in the fair cape?

 

Let me explain. I have noticed the since I moved here that the amount of caches have increased a lot over the past year. This is a good thing. Many of those caches have been placed by the core geocachers though. This is a bad thing. For example, Discombob, TVM, cownchicken have something like 40-50 cache hides each. Great work! but once we find those caches, where do we go from there? Place more? Yes, of course. But I wonder if we are not shooting ourselves in the foot by having the group small.

 

We can all recognize the excellent placements and strategy of John-Gill when they came onto the caching scene in the beginning of '06. Now they are leaving us and moving onto other caching grounds. Who is going to pick up where they left off? I might place some caches, you might also, but we need more than that. We need new, active cachers coming into the community to diversify the load of cache placements for everyone.

 

My question is this: How many new geocachers are being produced/discovering caching in the western cape? If there is not a steady increase in number of cachers around the area, are we not just hiding for a one-time "fix" with caches and than arrive back in the same dilemma? Thoughts, questions, disgruntled remarks?

 

Enough from me, time to get out of bed and do some work.

[+QFC]

Great work! but once we find those caches, where do we go from there?

 

You follow Noddy's, C&C's and TVM's examples and see the rest of the country. As far as I last heard Noddy has a silly number (think 3) caches in KZN that he has not found. And with KZN being one of the smaller caching communities, caches do not pop up that often. It is for that reason that about half the GP caches have been found by him. GO NODDY!

 

(now for the snotty comment ) We need to see more of the Capetonians making the GROOT trek past the mountain range and into the blue yonder. There is a world outside the "walls" of Cape Town (but with respect, who would want to go there).

 

But I do see you point...

 

Quickly pulling some data from our database, it looks quite grim. During the conversion to GR.com 64 cachers were added to the new DB since then only 4 new cachers have been spotted. Below is the dates and number of cachers that were added.

 

Date added Number of Cachers

------------- ----------------------

Aug 19 2006 64

Oct 3 2006 1

Oct 18 2006 1

Sep 7 2006 1

Sep 19 2006 1

 

Time to go looking for all those WC cachers that we are missing.

[+cownchicken]

We feel that we are very near to a maximum number of cache hides. There are only so many one can hide and maintain.

We could very easily hide more but then the quality and maintenance of these caches would not be of a good standard.

We would love to see new caches being placed by the newer cachers, but also not just placed for the sole purpose of owning one - caches in the John-Gill, Discombob, GS and B&F vein - well thought out and taking us to places we really want to see - not the ride-by, fling in the bush type.

We are about to lose John-Gill and have lost Larks already, both who placed caches of very high standards - who will fill their shoes?

[+QFC]

Time to go looking for all those WC cachers that we are missing.

 

Right... Just found some hiding in the shadow of the mountain. The stats are looking a little better and there seem to be quite a few new faces with a couple of finds to their name. Time now just to get them placing clever caches.

 

Date Added Number of Cachers

------------- ----------------------

Aug 19 2006 64

Sep 7 2006 1

Sep 19 2006 1

Oct 3 2006 1

Oct 18 2006 1

Dec 7 2006 2

Dec 8 2006 6

[+vespax]

8 new cachers in Dec. Great, but are those one-timers? I hope not, but it seems like so many people find 10 caches and than stop for some reason. What is it that keeps people caching, and wanting to participate in this great community?

 

I just think we need some more cachers around these parts. But how to do that, is anyones guess.

[+Discombob]

There's quite a few caches i want to hide still, most of them being long walks up the mountain on some nefarious route!

[+bear&fox]

Agree with Vespax... we can certainly do with some more hands on deck.

[Trackinfind]

We feel that we are very near to a maximum number of cache hides. There are only so many one can hide and maintain.

We could very easily hide more but then the quality and maintenance of these caches would not be of a good standard.

We would love to see new caches being placed by the newer cachers, but also not just placed for the sole purpose of owning one - caches in the John-Gill, Discombob, GS and B&F vein - well thought out and taking us to places we really want to see - not the ride-by, fling in the bush type.

We are about to lose John-Gill and have lost Larks already, both who placed caches of very high standards - who will fill their shoes?

 

I first thought this is more sad news! But can only ask: What are you guys talking about?! Larks are around and he is caching! Yeaaaaa!

[+cownchicken]

Sadly Larks moved to Johannesburg about two months ago.

We are going to miss his caches here in the Western Cape (there will be far fewer caches placed on mountains though - maybe thats a good thing as we are getting lazy!)

[+tomtwogates]

Hi guys - Just thought I had to put in my cents worth - I am pretty new to caching in the scheme of things, started in Jan 2006. I did a few finds before I felt comfortable to place my first in April and two since then. I also agree with Cownchicken that you need to plan the hide not just the ride by fling in the bush type. I feel that some of the finds that I have logged were just placed to boost the numbers which in my humble opinion defeats the object of the game. I have also found some really good hides in places that I would not have seen were it not for caching. Will be looking to place again in some good spots in the Western Cape.

[+cownchicken]

Looking forward to those new hides of yours! We see that we still have 2 of your existing caches to do. Once the sandpit that used to be our back garden has been restored to something better we will attack those.

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

Once the sandpit that used to be our back garden has been restored to something better we will attack those.

did someone mention the sandpit

Edited December 17, 2006 by batsgonemad and his squirrel

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

Once the sandpit that used to be our back garden has been restored to something better we will attack those.

 

sandpit did anyone mention the sandpit

Edited December 17, 2006 by batsgonemad and his squirrel

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

dadgum i cant get this quote thing right can anybody help out with this pleoblem of mine

[+vespax]

dadgum i cant get this quote thing right can anybody help out with this pleoblem of mine

 

click quote and than reply. Don't edit any of the text at top of the field

[+Larks]

Hi All,

 

I've been so scarce lately! Just got a GPS again and ready to get back into the swing of things!

I agree with C&C, go for quality and place fewer caches, rather than place stacks that we can't maintain.

On that same note, great work by QFC on implementing the hide to find ratio. Although I'm not sure what each fruit actually means, the concept is great in that it should encourage those with a low hide count to place a few more.

 

Once I scope out out JHB, I promise to place a few more!

[+Larks]

Just another quick thought. We have had a great boom of new cachers and a serious boom of cache placements over the last year, that maybe things just seem to be so slow because we are comparing to the unusually active last couple of months?

I know it's not an excuse, but maybe a partial explanation?

[+vespax]

Just a quick update, things seem to be picking up in the cape with cache hides.

 

A few newish cachers are placing some interesting looking caches around the area.

 

I also went out and bought some cache supplies yesterday, so look out for my new multi coming up!

[+bear&fox]

Excellent news!

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

dadgum i cant get this quote thing right can anybody help out with this pleoblem of mine

 

click quote and than reply. Don't edit any of the text at top of the field

 

ok im trying this quote thing again to see if it wotrks following the vespers advice

[+batsgonemad and his squirrel]

ok so it seems i now know how to do this quote thing.

 

As was mentioned above somewhere cachers come and cachers go only some stay to play this game and i suppose it's like anything new one tries you either like it or not. I went to Cape Unionmart and spoke to the maneger about putting up one of those leeflets explaining caching and had him put it inside the cabinet right above the GPS units, only to discover a little while later that it was taken away. So one tries to get new people involved but its not always easy, even though they may have benifitted from extra sale's. It would seem word of mouth works alot better and explaining it to people