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Benchmark hunt / South Africa


Captain Morgan

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Hi SA Geocachers!

 

Please follow this link to see if there is merit in this. I have managed to get some 26 points out of Dept of Mapping & Survey here in South Africa. All these points were the orginal astrological measured points used for the establishing of the Arc of the 30th Meridian, which is connected to the Struve Arc.

 

This is truly a case of how South Africa was instrumental (again) in shaping history by establishing the surveying backbone for surveying in the rest of Africa. Quite interesting.

 

How do you possibly feel about logging these points as caches as a forerunner for a request for a formal Benchmark Hunt right up through Africa and connecting to Europe?

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Hi there,

 

I think this would be a great idea. Maybe now that you have obtained the points (are they all the points in South Africa?), you must become the "30th Meridian Master" and work out some form of way to release these points, i.e. only a few at a time/per week/month, so as to keep the interest going.

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Howzit,

 

Check the full write up on the Arc of the 30th Meridian on the below link:

 

Arc of the 30th Meridian

 

All 26 points are located in SA in the vicinity of 30 deg. E and covers a long band from PE in the south through eastern side of Lesotho through the Belfast area and up to the northern border to Zimbabwe.

 

Initially I thought I could log them all "by remote" by classifying them as virtual caches. Because of abuse of this facility in the past the approvers of caches have made changes to the rules along several parameters so to avoid caches that have not been visited by the poster him/herself or that have not got a physical cache there.

 

I have seen two of the sites and will possibly be posting a microcache on those locations. I will post the link here, once I have logged the cache successfully.

 

If this is the way forward we need people to assist by putting out these caches, and volunteers living in SA near 30 deg E are most welcome to come forward by putting their post on this topic.

 

Shall be in touch.

Global_Viking

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Global_Viking

Thanks for referring me to this discussion. I've long been thinking of trying to establish a benchmark hunt in SA. I acquired a list of SA benchmarks from the directorate some time ago, however they publish their coordinates in a XY format and I've never got round to purchasing the transformation software to get it into DD MM.MMM format. Although I was not planning to restrict the efforts to the 30th, I think this would be an excellent start, and will hopefully boost the sport in SA.

 

Will only be too happy to assist in the effort.

 

GlobalRat

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quote:
Originally posted by GlobalRat (D&:):

...however they publish their coordinates in a XY format and I've never got round to purchasing the transformation software to get it into DD MM.MMM format...


I have some Survey-grade software, can I assist in converting?

 

Jors

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Hi,

 

Great with some interest in a possible benchmark hunt here.

 

I have posted the full list of the 26 historic sites as well as a overview map of their approximate location.

 

JPEG Map of SA with location of caches:

SA Map

 

Excel sheet of details:

Excel Sheet with details

 

I have already submitted #12 and #13. Please feel free to sign up here for those you might be interested in submitting. Once my caches are approved I shall post them here, so you can see how I have done.

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