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Longevity in the game


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This was prompted by the discussion in the How Many Players thread but it's something I've been pondering for a while now. I started caching in 2013, three years before retiring from full-time work, and I knew it would play a big part in my twilight years as it combines many of the things I've always enjoyed. Back then, new caches were appearing locally at about the same rate I was finding them so I thought it would be a sustainable activity, but that started dropping away substantially in 2016 as a whole lot of prominent hiders either left the area or found other interests. With this year almost a third gone, there have only been eight new caches in my region and two of them were mine. So over the last couple of years, most of my finds have been further and further from home, usually on day trips to Newcastle in the north or Sydney in the south.

 

In part this has been offset by other aspects to the game. I own 44 active caches, most of which are terrain 3 or higher, so I spend a fair bit of my caching time hiking or paddling to do routine checks on them and the occasional bit of maintenance when the need arises. This region is far from being saturated (about 500 caches spread across 1680 square kilometres) so I'm continuing to create a steady stream of new caches (about half a dozen a year) whenever I find somewhere interesting to bring people to. I'm also pretty involved in the local caching community and will eagerly join in group hikes even if I've found or own most or all of the targeted caches. Then there are puzzle caches further afield that I'll put some time into solving and bookmark for possible future trips to those regions.

 

So I'm wondering how many other long-term players have found themselves in a similar position of depleting their local supply of caches and how their involvement in the game has changed to accommodate that.

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I'll celebrate 20 years in this RASH on the 25th.  Living nearby to HQ I just can't seem to run out of caches.  A number of years ago I had the 10 miles around home down to about 20 caches left, went on vacation for a couple of weeks, and came back to over 50, which quickly grew to 90+.  There are currently 368 caches I haven't found within 10 miles and 23 within 5 miles(mostly puzzles I can't solve).  I keep an off-line DB of caches within 25 miles and it's currently at 4409.

 

I've found 2631 caches within 10 miles, and 4788 within 25 miles.  In the last few years we've been doing a lot of traveling (over 75,000 miles in our trailer we bought in April '15) and doing most of my caching on the road.  Last year we bought an inflatable, 2-man kayak and have been enjoying the paddle caches around here.

 

Since retirement I haven't done as many full day grab-a-bunch-of-caches days.  Several reasons:  wife isn't as obsessed (but does enjoy it), her mom's condition going down hill limited our time 'away' (she just passed last month), and the distance to travel for local caches.

 

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Won't be running out of caches any time soon in my area of Ontario. thousands still to find just within a couple hundred km. I'm approaching 16000 finds. We still have long series on trails and rivers I need to find, and geoarts, rural roadsides, loads of paddle caching on lakes, and an active community that's consistently putting out new caches. Though publishing is slow in my direct vicinity, it's relatively active the next city or two over in both directions, regularly seeing published 40-70km away. (but right now publishing is paused, again, due to provincial lockdown)

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I will reach my 19th Cacheversary in June.  Back in 2002-2003, I had pretty much cleaned out my home area, so I began taking roadtrips.  I discovered that I liked the roadtrips much better - whether they involved flying to a Mega Event, driving hundreds of miles, or going backpacking or kayaking in a remote location.  So, most of my caching is far from home, which always leaves me plenty of local caches to hunt when I want to get out of the house for an afternoon, or when I want to combine errands with geocaching.

 

In the past year, I've found 504 caches.  (Those numbers, and my travel distances, were way down because of the pandemic.)  Of these, only 155 finds were within 50 miles of my home.  Will I run out of caches?  Doubtful.  There are more than 7,000 that I haven't found within that same 50 mile radius. 

 

Over my 19 years, I've found 8,886 geocaches.  Only 2,630 of these have been within 50 miles of home.  My "Cache Centroid" is 285 miles from home.  For me, roadtrips are key for never running out of caches to find.

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2 hours ago, The Leprechauns said:

In the past year, I've found 504 caches.  (Those numbers, and my travel distances, were way down because of the pandemic.)  Of these, only 155 finds were within 50 miles of my home.  Will I run out of caches?  Doubtful.  There are more than 7,000 that I haven't found within that same 50 mile radius.

 

Surprisingly, 2020 was one of my better years with 174 finds, bolstered by all the puzzle caches I solved during the April-May lockdown and the finding spree that ensued when we were released. So far this year I've made 33 finds spread over 13 caching days, with 23 in the Newcastle region (100km north), 6 in Sydney (a similar distance south by road) and 4 local. At that rate, I'll likely end up with about 100 finds for the year.

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I started in 2010.   Today there are still plenty of caches in my area to find but many of them are of the urban, guard rail variety which I tend to pass up.   

 

Your question leads me to another topic.   Archiving older caches for new hides.   I've wrestled with the idea of archiving some of my older caches and placing new ones around the same general area.  

 

Half of me want's to preserve my older caches for new cachers to enjoy.   The other half want's to archive those caches and place something new for existing cachers to find. 

 

There are still areas around where I could place new caches.   The issue for me is having to many caches to properly maintain.   I only have about 22 active caches but most are somewhat elaborate and are located along wooded trails.   I find maintaining my 22 caches to my standards is about the right number for me.   I enjoy the process of creating interesting hides.   This past weekend was the first time in a long time I was able to make something new and I realized how much I miss the process.    

 

           

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24 minutes ago, justintim1999 said:

Your question leads me to another topic.   Archiving older caches for new hides.   I've wrestled with the idea of archiving some of my older caches and placing new ones around the same general area.  

 

Half of me want's to preserve my older caches for new cachers to enjoy.   The other half want's to archive those caches and place something new for existing cachers to find.

 

I'm in two minds about this. I know colleda up Newcastle way has done this on some of his series with good results, but my own experience paints a different picture. Last year an old (2009) cache at a scenic waterfall was archived by its owner after it fell into disrepair, so I decided to create a new one at the same spot as part of my Chasing Waterfalls series which was published in November. Three Sydney cachers who were up this way doing other caches in the area claimed joint FTF but that's been it, no interest from anyone else. I guess those who wanted to see the waterfall had done so with the previous cache and, as it's out in the middle of nowhere with no other easy caches nearby, it's probably seen as too much effort just for one extra smiley at a place they've already seen. I still reckon it's a pretty nice spot for a cache, though, even if no-one else does.

 

696dd142-cda2-4f02-9e11-7269fd228d55.jpg

 

44 minutes ago, justintim1999 said:

There are still areas around where I could place new caches.   The issue for me is having to many caches to properly maintain.   I only have about 22 active caches but most are somewhat elaborate and are located along wooded trails.   I find maintaining my 22 caches to my standards is about the right number for me.   I enjoy the process of creating interesting hides.   This past weekend was the first time in a long time I was able to make something new and I realized how much I miss the process. 

 

Most of mine are in places protected from the elements, such as in caves or under rock ledges, and are good-sized containers with good-sized logbooks, so maintenance isn't a burden at all even with 44 active hides, particularly now that I'm retired. The extreme weather of the last eighteen months (fires, gales, torrential rain and floods) has meant lots of checking but most have survived unscathed.

 

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Replacing a single cache may or may not have the intended effect depending on the cacher and where the cache is placed. 

 

All 22 of my active caches are part of 3 series.   A single trip would give the cacher 6, 7 or 9 smiles as well as new cache hides to find.    This approach may be incentive enough to get people who've already visited an area reasons to return.    For some,  hiking a mile to get 1 smile may not be worth it.  For others finding a replacement guard rail cache may not be either.

 

I don't know the numbers regarding new cachers in the game but if what I've been hearing and seeing is any indication,  replacing existing caches from time to time may be the way to go if we're going to keep Geocaching alive and healthy.       

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I have yet to live in an area long enough to totally deplete it of caches, as my generous uncle keeps moving me around every couple of years. But as my knees and back reminded me just this morning, it's about time for me to find a new career. When that happens, I'll still be in a cache-rich area for a while. When I run out, I imagine I'll be taking the same approach as The Leprechauns and taking more road trips.

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14 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

So I'm wondering how many other long-term players have found themselves in a similar position of depleting their local supply of caches and how their involvement in the game has changed to accommodate that.

 

When the other 2/3rds cached, we'd head to pretty-much anything, anywhere. FTF runs were also in another state.  We missed few hides.

I have no desire to find nondescript roadside hides, where the walking distance to it is feet from your car.

It doesn't phase me one bit that I'm "missing out on" hundreds of caches to get to one I'll do.

That hasn't changed since starting.  

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We’ve found nearly 6200 since October 2003 and have archived our own geocaches to concentrate on geocaching. I live in a metro area of 4 million and geocaches come online probably regularly. We prefer small to regular sized traditionals and those seem fewer and far between these days. So in that three years now, I will take monthly multi-day (usually three days) geocaching roadtrips throughout my state. Staying in low cost motels and bringing my own food to save money. There are more regular sized geocaches in rural and forested areas. While I prefer not to find micros in urban settings some rural areas in the state have many micro power trails making it an easier and less intrusive search. I used to scoff at roadside geocaches but l like statistics and I like to see ours increase so I have made my peace with those. 

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15 minutes ago, brodiebunch said:

We prefer small to regular sized traditionals

That is my preference too. On long distant car journeys, if knowing I can't find all the caches, I will preference them, and often drive past micro caches. I will find micro caches if that's all there are, or on previous trips I have already found the bigger caches.

15 minutes ago, brodiebunch said:

I will take monthly multi-day (usually three days) geocaching roadtrips throughout my state

I like to go on road trips and stay in cheaper motels, or even sleep in my car if the weather is warm enough. We have free camping places in Australia, as well as commercial places. My minimal standard; flushing toilets. I don't mind going bush for this, but not near where others are camping, and I won't camp alone. I rarely eat out while travelling. I get most of my food from supermarkets, both to save money and so that I can start logging that day's caches while I eat dinner. If I camp in my car, my biggest expense is petrol. Some of my trips have taken weeks.

Edited by Goldenwattle
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Been caching on and off from 2014 until the end of 2017. From there, I cached more regularly....this year is my most notable drop in caching, partly due to maintaining over 60 caches in one area, and others elsewhere....alongside dealing with stay at home orders which recently have become very serious. I don't have many local caches anymore, though new ones have cropped up. I'm saving em for a future date, to fill in my finds calendar...most still are a bit of a trek with this pandemic in mind. That said, a 10 or 15 km walk will still allow for about 30 caches at least in walking distance.

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Well, I've been geocaching for more than sixteen years.  Hit find 9800 today!  Depends on what considers local.  Still lots of caches within an hours drive.  Well, I avoid New York City urban area about thirty-five miles east.  Lots of hiking caches to the north.  New caches do keep popping up.  But I have found most of the caches nearby. Except those evil mystery caches...  I'm not going to watch movies for the answer to mystery caches.

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I'm in Darwin, and by a rough search of the greater Darwin area the map shows about 480 caches within about 100mi / 160km (not including PMO's, Adventure Labs or any other caches a Basic member can't see on the map). That's one of the reasons I haven't gone rushing around trying to find all the caches, I'm kind of "rationing" them. Of my current 97 finds, about 26 or so are from out of state while I was on holiday end of last year.

 

As I don't get notifications when new caches come up, I'm not sure how many new caches have been put out in my area in the last 12 months, but it isn't many. It's one of the downsides of the game - once you've found a cache, there isn't much need to go re-visit it (apart from dropping off TB's into TB-friendly caches, or introducing new people).

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Unit473L said:

I'm in Darwin, and by a rough search of the greater Darwin area the map shows about 480 caches within about 100mi / 160km (not including PMO's, Adventure Labs or any other caches a Basic member can't see on the map). That's one of the reasons I haven't gone rushing around trying to find all the caches, I'm kind of "rationing" them. Of my current 97 finds, about 26 or so are from out of state while I was on holiday end of last year.

 

As I don't get notifications when new caches come up, I'm not sure how many new caches have been put out in my area in the last 12 months, but it isn't many. It's one of the downsides of the game - once you've found a cache, there isn't much need to go re-visit it (apart from dropping off TB's into TB-friendly caches, or introducing new people).

 

 

A weekend trip to Katherine would get you a few more finds :)

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1 hour ago, Unit473L said:

As I don't get notifications when new caches come up, I'm not sure how many new caches have been put out in my area in the last 12 months, but it isn't many.

 

A quick search of the Darwin area shows 18 new caches placed in the last twelve months, so similar to what I'm seeing on the NSW Central Coast.

 

image.png.dc6930366db3886fbfa9a67ebf09d5b2.png

 

I see amongst them a new Earthcache which was only published a few weeks ago, so you'll be right for this year's International Earthcache Day :).

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Yes! I live out of town from a small community. I have 1 cache less than 5km from my home and I have cleaned out most from my 50km radius - I have left 1 power trail to utilise for souvenirs or challenges. I’m only a low key cacher- I haven’t hit 600 finds yet, but proximity is my killer.

I’m a bit of a novice at puzzles, so I haven’t even got that to take my focus. 
I love it when I can get involved, but I definitely lose interest as trying to complete my calendar or get streaks just isn’t achievable for me. 

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I'm not going to run out of caches to find but I'm running out of caches I want to find in my area.  Like one or two others on here have stated, I'm almost 12 years in and my caching preferences have become much more selective as I tend to focus on non-traditional caches and higher D/T combo traditionals, most of which I've managed to significantly deplete in my area, unsolved puzzles notwithstanding.  Most of the caches I prefer to try to find are now outside of a 25-30 mile radius from my home coordinates, 40-50 with some specific cache types.

 

As to archiving my old ones so new ones could be hidden and found by others, I'm just not seeing many new caches being published in my area so I doubt anyone other than myself would put out a new cache or two in those locations.  I would consider it but I'm running out of new ways to create interesting caches or unique stages that I'd want to incorporate into a new hide or two.  I like my current hides (although I've had to archive a couple recently due to muggle activity) and the effort I put into them a bit too much to archive them in order to come up with something different.

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I found my first cache in October of 2001, when a friend came to visit and told me about this new hobby that had started on the West Coast (he's in Oregon). There was a time when I found every cache in a 30 mile radius of my house in the Youngstown OH area. But I began to prefer quality to quantity. And I grew to dislike urban micros, or any micro hidden in a high-muggle area. So I don't look for them. Geo-friends and I would plan a day of caching somewhere and skip over the caches we didn't care for. So, as coachstahly said above, there are plenty of caches out there, but the ones left are the ones I don't care for.

 

I've moved to Amarillo Tx recently, and most of the caches around here are of the urban micro variety. Those can be fun if you're with a group, but I'm disappointed that the geocaching community here seems pretty unfriendly - I've tried to start conversations with one or two local cachers, online, and either had my question answered, then been ignored, or just outright ignored. So I cache alone, and pick and choose caches in parks, cemeteries, and others that sound like the kinds I like to do. I can see the day coming when there won't be any new ones I care to do within reasonable driving distance. 

 

 

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46 minutes ago, Ed_S said:

I've moved to Amarillo Tx recently, and most of the caches around here are of the urban micro variety. Those can be fun if you're with a group, but I'm disappointed that the geocaching community here seems pretty unfriendly - I've tried to start conversations with one or two local cachers, online, and either had my question answered, then been ignored, or just outright ignored. So I cache alone, and pick and choose caches in parks, cemeteries, and others that sound like the kinds I like to do. I can see the day coming when there won't be any new ones I care to do within reasonable driving distance. 

 

Wow, I get that...      Would you happen to know the start-dates of most ?

We've found that most starting years after us consider this a game (it's still a hobby for us).  Numbers taking the place of locations.

Games need points.  Games need a winner, which is why I don't understand this thinking.  :D

I pass by hundreds of 1.5 micros (or pill bottles passed off as "small"...) for a cache I'll do.   Been that way a long time. 

It took about six years before locals finally realized I simply don't play the same way..  In the beginning, most thought I was rude.

 - They still don't really "get it", but at least don't bug the other 2/3rds about it anymore.  "What they thought" affected her more than me.

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I found my first cache 17 June 2011.  I away from home for months on end so more than half of my finds have been over 1000 miles from the house in Florida.  Currently working in California where I have found over 350 since 8 March.  California is now my third highest state for finds and will shortly overtake NY at second place.

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I live in a medium size community and at 1000 finds (many of which were found while traveling) I've already depleted the local cache pool, and not that many new ones get published. So yeah, I feel you OP. But I still look forward to doing some geocaching whenever I go somewhere new. Earlier this year I went to the San Juan islands (Washington state USA) and got quite a few caches while I was there. I'm not going to be getting any impressive day-after-day streaks, but geocaching is still something I'm involved in, even when I can't grab one at home just any ol' time I want to.

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On 6/1/2021 at 11:39 AM, cerberus1 said:

 

Wow, I get that...      Would you happen to know the start-dates of most ?

 

Seems to vary, but many of the ones who are still active seem to have started around 2008 - 2013 or thereabouts. 

 

On 6/1/2021 at 11:39 AM, cerberus1 said:

We've found that most starting years after us consider this a game (it's still a hobby for us).  Numbers taking the place of locations.

Games need points.  Games need a winner, which is why I don't understand this thinking.  :D

I pass by hundreds of 1.5 micros (or pill bottles passed off as "small"...) for a cache I'll do.   Been that way a long time. 

It took about six years before locals finally realized I simply don't play the same way..  In the beginning, most thought I was rude.

 - They still don't really "get it", but at least don't bug the other 2/3rds about it anymore.  "What they thought" affected her more than me.

 

That's how I feel - if someone wanted to sit in their living room and mark a hundred caches as "found" in one day, that doesn't impact my enjoyment of caching. I'm not competing with anyone else, other than the competition of finding something someone hid. And 20 years ago, the approvers wouldn't let you put a micro in the woods - they'd ask if there was some reason you weren't putting a larger cache container out there. Anybody can hide a nano so it's almost impossible to find out in the woods. Make me work for an ammo can (remember those?) and you'll earn my respect.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Ed_S said:

if someone wanted to sit in their living room and mark a hundred caches as "found" in one day, that doesn't impact my enjoyment of caching

 

The problem is if such a user marks a cache as found when it's not actually findable. That misleads other geocachers and the cache owner. The "it doesn't affect me [directly] therefore it's okay" mentality doesn't help community and that's the problem with couch caching. It's not about competition, it's about integrity of the content of the hobby.  The looser it gets, the less people with 'enjoy' it, if/when they're affected by it. And of course, the more people are negatively affected by general passivity in the community, the more the community (and the hobby) overall suffers...  There are guidelines for a reason - not to restrict fun, but help keep the fun flowing :)

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I live just north of Stockholm, Sweden, been caching since 2013 and will have 4000 finds in a couple of days. My cache centroid is 113 km south of my home, but that's due to vacation caching at lower latitudes. Otherwise I suspect it would be somewhere along the line from home to work. I cache at a very steady rate of 40 finds per month. Last month 79 new caches were placed within 50 km of my home, and I still have over 8,000 unfound inside that radius. So for the time being, local cache depletion is not one of my problems.

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43 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

Last month 79 new caches were placed within 50 km of my home, and I still have over 8,000 unfound inside that radius. So for the time being, local cache depletion is not one of my problems.

 

Hmm, in the last month there's only been one new cache in the whole region from the Hawkesbury River north to beyond Newcastle (a span of about 150km):

 

image.png.05694a98858362b87f67f796ff602c9c.png

 

That solitary new cache, GC9BBJE, is one of mine so it's not much help in boosting my find count. Even the Sydney region to the south has gone quiet, with only ten new caches in the last month:

 

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That said, I did have a most enjoyable caching day last Sunday with a small group of friends from up Newcastle way. We did the 8km loop hike through Popran National Park for my Chasing Waterfalls 6 - The Emerald Pool multi (GC8JGWN) and then visited my Chasing Waterfalls 7 - Ironbark Creek traditional (GC92WV1) on the drive back out. The latter would have to be my most unpopular hide, with a 3-way joint FTF the day after it was published last November and no more visits until Sunday. We'd also planned to visit Peaceful Popran (GCYWJJ), a cache I'd found a few years ago, but after taking a wrong turn and then realising it would add at least another 6km of fairly undulating terrain to our hike, we unanimously decided to leave it for another day.

 

Montage.jpg.7360cb9baf3ca3a210e42ab372299290.jpg

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On 6/9/2021 at 1:33 PM, thebruce0 said:

 

The problem is if such a user marks a cache as found when it's not actually findable. That misleads other geocachers and the cache owner. The "it doesn't affect me [directly] therefore it's okay" mentality doesn't help community and that's the problem with couch caching. It's not about competition, it's about integrity of the content of the hobby.  The looser it gets, the less people with 'enjoy' it, if/when they're affected by it. And of course, the more people are negatively affected by general passivity in the community, the more the community (and the hobby) overall suffers...  There are guidelines for a reason - not to restrict fun, but help keep the fun flowing :)

When I see cachers with several thousand finds claiming DNFs, then one  cacher with 25 finds logs a find, but there's no owner's note showing cache maintenance, I don't take that as confirmation that the cache is there. I call that doing due diligence. I agree, people should be honest and shouldn't 'cheat' but if that's how they want to conduct themselves, it's a reflection on them. The locals pretty much know who's legit and who's faking numbers. And who has a bazillion finds, all of them lamp post skirts and guardrails. 

 

 

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On 6/9/2021 at 10:54 AM, Ed_S said:

That's how I feel - if someone wanted to sit in their living room and mark a hundred caches as "found" in one day, that doesn't impact my enjoyment of caching.

  

Does lying about achieving the basic tenants of the game, or condoning  dishonesty in how its played impact the integrity of the game?  

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I live in western Sydney, and have been caching since June 2008. Like barefootjeff I am noticing less and less cachers hiding caches my area, and in fact less and less in general in the greater Sydney area. I cache more often then most as I am retired and average about 1000 finds a year.

 

For this year I made a new years resolution to try and find 2021 caches for the year, to achieve this I have had to do something like Goldenwattle and travel away from home and spend two or three days in cache rich areas, but even that is getting harder to do. Thankfully our national capitol Canberra has come to my rescue twice so far this year and I'll be back there again once the weather warms up.

 

BTW I have hidden around 280 caches myself, remember if people don't hid, people can't find, so lets try to pay back the game and hid a few more.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Ed_S said:

When I see cachers with several thousand finds claiming DNFs, then one  cacher with 25 finds logs a find, but there's no owner's note showing cache maintenance, I don't take that as confirmation that the cache is there. I call that doing due diligence. I agree, people should be honest and shouldn't 'cheat' but if that's how they want to conduct themselves, it's a reflection on them. The locals pretty much know who's legit and who's faking numbers. And who has a bazillion finds, all of them lamp post skirts and guardrails. 

Yes, I know of one cacher where visiting the area where the cache is, is enough. If she finds the cache she signs the log, but if she doesn't she still logs a find. Even blatantly after several DNFs. Then more DNFs follow her 'find'. I have removed several of her logs from my caches.

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7 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

But there are still thousands of older caches to find there. There's no shortage of caches in Sydney.

 

Yes, there are something like 4000 caches in the Sydney region, of which I've found a bit over 200, but I really don't like driving in Sydney - if the traffic isn't bad enough, a few decades of "urban consolidation" means parking is almost impossible to find once you get where you're going - so most of my Sydney caching has been by public transport, either on the train or the Broken Bay ferry. COVID has also added another perspective, particularly after I narrowly avoided being caught up in the Northern Beaches lockdown just before Christmas, having visited the area just a week before it all started.

 

Most of my cache-finding this year has been in the Newcastle region and, looking at the map, I've probably gotten through about two-thirds of the caches available there:

 

NewcastleFinds.jpg.05d51c6d234e77e692e4ed500c4eced1.jpg

 

The rest should keep me going for a few more years I guess before I start having to go further afield, but I'm also reasonably content for cache-finding to play a diminishing role in my participation in the game, with CO duties, group hikes and events filling the gap. I expect that trend to continue.

 

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4 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Yes, there are something like 4000 caches in the Sydney region, of which I've found a bit over 200, but I really don't like driving in Sydney - if the traffic isn't bad enough, a few decades of "urban consolidation" means parking is almost impossible to find once you get where you're going - so most of my Sydney caching has been by public transport, either on the train or the Broken Bay ferry. COVID has also added another perspective, particularly after I narrowly avoided being caught up in the Northern Beaches lockdown just before Christmas, having visited the area just a week before it all started.

 

Most of my cache-finding this year has been in the Newcastle region and, looking at the map, I've probably gotten through about two-thirds of the caches available there:

 

NewcastleFinds.jpg.05d51c6d234e77e692e4ed500c4eced1.jpg

 

The rest should keep me going for a few more years I guess before I start having to go further afield, but I'm also reasonably content for cache-finding to play a diminishing role in my participation in the game, with CO duties, group hikes and events filling the gap. I expect that trend to continue.

 

Maybe try far western Sydney. There are places out there where the traffic isn't too bad.

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2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Maybe try far western Sydney. There are places out there where the traffic isn't too bad.

 

The lower Blue Mountains probably appeals more to my taste in higher terrain caches so that's an area I want to start looking more closely at. The 2019-2020 fires killed off any thoughts of caching there last year, but I expect to make a few spring-time visits this year if there aren't any other calamities.

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35 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

The lower Blue Mountains probably appeals more to my taste in higher terrain caches so that's an area I want to start looking more closely at. The 2019-2020 fires killed off any thoughts of caching there last year, but I expect to make a few spring-time visits this year if there aren't any other calamities.

There's this 2001 cache, if older caches interest you.

#22 !! A E I O U !!   GC1ED6

It's off an easy walking track. It's the last bit off-track which is the difficult part.

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15 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

There's this 2001 cache, if older caches interest you.

#22 !! A E I O U !!   GC1ED6

It's off an easy walking track. It's the last bit off-track which is the difficult part.

 

Hmm, it might be an old listing but the container and logbook have been very recently replaced by a community maintainer, so, um, maybe. I've heard great things about the virtual Fortress (GC7B6E4) and this was suggested on Sunday's hike as a possible group target in the springtime. LOST WORLD (GC10XZ8) is also highly recommended by one of my friends so I hope to give that a try sometime. There looks to be plenty of interest to choose from around there anyway.

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On 6/10/2021 at 5:03 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

  

Does lying about achieving the basic tenants of the game, or condoning  dishonesty in how its played impact the integrity of the game?  

You're reading too much into it. I don't condone cheating (I thought I made that clear) but if I'm heading out to find a bunch of caches - no other qualifications, no bunch of DNFs and a cheater marks it found, none of that stuff - then if one of the dozens of "finds" was claimed by someone who didn't actually find it, does that change in any way how I'm going to approach finding the cache? 

 

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On 6/10/2021 at 7:40 PM, Goldenwattle said:

Yes, I know of one cacher where visiting the area where the cache is, is enough. If she finds the cache she signs the log, but if she doesn't she still logs a find. Even blatantly after several DNFs. Then more DNFs follow her 'find'. I have removed several of her logs from my caches.

That's my point - you know this cacher, or at least know of her. So you don't take as gospel that anything she marks as found is really there, if there are DNFs all around her "find." She has no credibility in the geocaching community. Her cheating does not impact your caching experience.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Ed_S said:

if I'm heading out to find a bunch of caches - no other qualifications, no bunch of DNFs and a cheater marks it found, none of that stuff - then if one of the dozens of "finds" was claimed by someone who didn't actually find it, does that change in any way how I'm going to approach finding the cache? 

First, this isn't something that can be anecdotally dismissed because it hasn't personally affected you. In the same way, I personally have been affected by false find logs, so....

Second, I'm avoiding "cheating" because this happens both intentionally and unintentionally. And it has a very negative connotation where people can easily infer that this is a competitive game, which it isn't (even though cheating can be done against yourself).  Yes, false finds can and have been posted on listings which have not been found and are actually missing.

Third, a string of DNFs followed by a false find can reset the cache health score, which sets the CO at ease so they feel no urgency in coming out to check and/or fix their geocache, and again geocachers who - whether the false finder has many or few geocaches - may feel the cache is in fact findable when it is in fact not - but only the CO would know.

Fourth, of course everyone can judge the situation themselves. I think most experienced geocachers take logs from accounts with very few finds with a grain of salt. That doesn't change the fact that false logs, especially finds, can mislead followup geocachers and the cache owners.  Whether it's "cheating" or not.

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4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I think most experienced geocachers take logs from accounts with very few finds with a grain of salt.

 

Interesting that you mention that, particularly in the context of this thread. After returning home last Sunday following the group hike to my Emerald Pool cache, a 2/3.5 multi with 8 virtual waypoints, I saw there was a new find logged on that cache from someone not in our group, a PM newbie who'd made one previous find (a traditional) and had never visited the website. This was the first find in almost a year on that cache and the log just said "Found on bushwalking with family" so I was pretty suspicious, suspicious enough to go back out the next day to check the logbook. As I was walking towards the cache I was mentally composing the message I'd be sending, trying to walk that fine line of explaining how multis work while not sounding reprimanding or discouraging. When I reached the csche I saw that it was fully covered in bark exactly as we'd left it so I knew I'd been right and they'd probably just walked down to the pool and thought that was enough to claim the find. Anyway, I opened the cache, pulled out the logbook and - well - you could have knocked me down with a feather. There was their signature neatly written under those of our group.

 

So I've learnt my lesson not to jump to conclusions based on someone's raw newbie status or even the incredible odds that they came along in the couple of hours of daylight after our group visit on that very day to a cache that gets so few finds.

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18 hours ago, Ed_S said:

Her cheating does not impact your caching experience.

Except I remove her log. After asking for other proof of find, or a description of the cache, which she has never managed to provide. So it does impact my caching experience. It's so much easier when everyone signs the log and this isn't necessary.

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On 6/11/2021 at 4:20 PM, Goldenwattle said:

That looks like about a twenty km return walk. Um, not for me...:blink:

Looking back at our photos, my son (aged 9) and I did it in 3.5hr, so its maybe 12km.... but some of the longest, steepest terrain I've done as a biped!

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I've been caching for 15 years, and am slowly (very slowly) nearing 5000 finds. Thus.. not a super busy cacher, but I'm still not bored. Sub-games for me really are caching in different countries and EarthCaches. And hiking multies. I absolutely have no idea what my 5000th cache will be, but considering it's customary that my milestones are random garbage bin caches or similar I'm not planning anything but just let 'it' happen.

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On 6/11/2021 at 12:02 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

Hmm, it might be an old listing but the container and logbook have been very recently replaced by a community maintainer, so, um, maybe. I've heard great things about the virtual Fortress (GC7B6E4) and this was suggested on Sunday's hike as a possible group target in the springtime. LOST WORLD (GC10XZ8) is also highly recommended by one of my friends so I hope to give that a try sometime. There looks to be plenty of interest to choose from around there anyway.

Add North Vue-34 and Pride Rock, and LAUGHING WATERS to your list Jeff..... all excellent, you'll love the last one the best.... :)

 

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