June | 2020 | Cache QLD – Townsville GC9BVWD

CacheQLD Going Green

With the unprecedented global events this year, and the message from this year’s World Environment Day, It’s Time #ForNature, it is clear that there has never been a more crucial time than now to take care of our planet.

CacheQLD believes that to keep our community healthy, we need to keep the planet healthy. As such, we have committed to reducing our environmental impact during the Dayboro event. What will this look like?

* Reduction of single use plastics
* Facilitation of day-trip car-pooling services onsite
* All registration packs made to order only
* Recycling available onsite, including a ‘Containers For Change’ drop off point.
* Products sourced from local vendors wherever possible
* Working with local council for CITO and bush regeneration experiences where available

Protecting our planet starts with us!
Have other ideas to help CacheQld go green? Send us an email at admin@cacheQLD.com

Your Cache QLD Committee

JACS Team

Hey, I’m Sheridan, the ‘S’ from JACS Team. What started as a little family account is now just me with my family joining in on the odd occasion. I started an account way back in 2005 it took a phone app and 11 years until I got my first cache on a 6 month holiday around Australia. We were stuck in a Broome during a heatwave and thought we had done all the tourist things, when I remembered this little game of finding things. We ended up learning so much more. Geocaching grew to be part of daily life for the rest of the trip. We continued to find history, fun and hidden gems across the country thanks to geocaching.

Once we were settled back at home, I finally braved my first event after chickening out of two other ones. At that event I met people, from there introductions were made to others, now I have a little band of regular friends who I have enjoyed sharing some great adventures and milestones with. I have a complete soft spot for letterboxes, challenges, geo-art, taking snaps and traveling on adventures.

EatSleepCacheRepeat

I started caching in 2016, since then I have cached in 7 countries, and all the states and territories of Australia! Not bad considering I had never left Australia’s east coast before joining up! I believe caching has had a really positive influence on my relationships, and my environmental awareness. Traveling & caching with friends is definitely where all my greatest caching memories are.

Coming in a close second is sharing my excitement with others! I try to do this through socials as often as I have time for, and more recently through planning geocaching events! This is the third event I have been involved in and they just keep getting bigger and better! I can’t wait to see you in Dayboro!

Ardom

I’m Allan and I started geocaching in 2015 when I found my wife’s GPS lying around the house – an incident that she now considers one of the greatest mistakes of her life. Since then I have found over 5000 geocaches and have travelled around Australia and the world in search of geocaches to fulfil oddball statistics, such as completing my D/T loop using only micro sized caches.

My geocaching highlights include collecting 1000 caches in four days on Yorke Peninsula, a FTF after a multi hour hike in New Zealand, collecting information for a virtual cache in Disneyland, and a visit to the Abbey Road webcam.

Simber15

Amber is one half of Simber15 with husband Simmo. We started our geocaching addiction with a find in Canberra thanks to our caching cousin MrWindy. After hearing some of his adventures we eventually became intrigued enough to ask what exactly Geocaching was. This became a two-hour marathon lesson on containers, locations, hides and the sharing of local knowledge. Armed with a basic account we set out to find our first hide and I remember it took a lot longer than it would now! Within days we had upgraded to premium membership and have not looked back. We love the irony of a ‘free hobby’ that has seen us accumulate a caravan, electric scooters, kayaks, ladders, fishing poles and numerous other TOTT’s. We have cached up and down the east coast and have a few finds from out west. We are the proud owners of a number of creative hides and are currently planning a new GeoArt (watch this space!).

We have attended a few Mega events over the years and very much look forward to being involved in the development of our own local event! We hope to see you there.

Gcoven

My name is Glenda and I cache as Ggoven, a name chosen by an old high school friend who introduced me to the hobby. For this I am very grateful as with my kids now all grown up, I have the time to pursue something that I myself enjoy.

Caching has given me the chance to face old fears such as vertigo and I am now keen on climbing mountains and also kayaking. I have met some amazing friends! My favourite part of the game are challenges as I love having a goal!

SEMIK

Hi I’m Semk. I opened my caching account in June 2004 and learned the ropes of geocaching from GC dot com charter members. I have found over 7,000 caches in both hemispheres and made friends worldwide after meeting them at MEGA events. I first came to Australia to attend the first southern hemisphere MEGA in Wagga Wagga, NSW at the encouragment of SpinDocBob (RIP) — I liked Australia so much, I moved here permanently in 2011. I’m notorious for getting behind in my logs but use Cachly to try to prevent it now.

My favourite caches are on-site puzzles/gadget caches. I enjoy caching for its challenge, its outdoor environment, and the great group of people it seems to attract. I am looking forward to CacheQLD Dayboro so I can once again see so many friends in one place over a great weekend of caching and talking about caching!

Orange Crew

Hi, I’m Kieran. I’m what you’d call the primary geocacher in Orange Crew, but the rest of the family also love to get involved when they can. We started in 2014 as a way to get the kids out and exploring more, but the obsession soon took hold for me more than it did for the kids. We like bike riding, paddling, and bushwalking together, and I also enjoy doing some of the more adventurous things like longer bushwalks, mountain climbing and rope climbs.

We also enjoy hiding caches (including puzzles, GeoArt and challenges), which brings a sense of satisfaction when we read about the enjoyment of cachers finding our hides. Events are always high on the priority list whenever we can attend, as we get to meet other cachers and share experiences. We have been to 6 mega events in Australia so far, starting with the Queensland Mega in Stanthorpe back in 2015. Large events are always exciting, and we look forward to everybody coming to Dayboro and enjoying all there is to offer in this beautiful location.

Caching in Dayboro

We’ve mentioned before the three big Geo-Arts that are within the immediate vicinity of Dayboro: Pacman, We Heart Geo and the Geosaurus. The committee have started to sprinkle a few more traditionals around the area and there are some other cache types popping up as well in the near future. Thanks to Chasing Adventures there is even a new Adventure Lab in town with a very cute bonus cache as well. We have started a bookmark list of CacheQLD caches which we will add to as we gradually release new caches.

What’s Next!

Next month see’s National Tree Day! We are going to feature heavily on trees with a great insight to tree climbing, both regular stuff and the technical side. We introduce our next Caching Kids who recently planted there adventure lab bonus up a big tree!

Welcome to CacheQLD’s June Highlight! This month we welcome winter and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Environment Day on the 5th of June.

World Environment Day reminds us to take action to conserve and protect our natural environment. We have been working with our sponsors to eliminate waste and reduce our environmental impact by ‘going green’ at the Dayboro event!

Due to current restrictions, QLD’s 3-day World Environment Day Festival will be live-streamed. The discussion panel includes expert biologists, botanists and ecologists discussing on biodiversity and climate change, information on local environmental action groups, sustainable living tutorials and live music (Live-streamed June 5-7th at http://www.wed.org.au)!

This year focuses on biodiversity. Think you know biodiversity? Take this fun quiz! https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/did-you-know/take-quiz

Hello Trinity, we are talking about world environment day and biodiversity this month.

Can you tell me what animals you have found during your geocaching travels?
I see a lot of kangaroos, wallabies, monitor lizards and pheasants. At Ewen Maddock Dam I saw a water rat playing in the water and I saw lots of tiny tree frogs. When I did a night-time cache called ‘Nocturnal’ at Petrie I saw a carpet snake on a tree and a bandicoot.

Do you have any advice for kids to find animals when they are caching?
Take a spider stick, if you go to Tincha Tamba make sure you have loads of mozzie spray and climb trees to get a good look around. There are bird hides at Boondall and Lake Manchester. Remember to take a camera with you when you go geocaching to take pictures of the animals you spot.

Why is it important to look after the environment?
We rely on the earth for food and shelter. We need lots of different plants and animals to keep the earth balanced.

How can geocaching help?
You should recycle containers when making caches and swag. If you do earthcaches you will see that rocks rock even though they can’t move. When you make your geocaches, teach people about places and animals. When you go geocaching you can pick up rubbish around the cache.

What are your favourite Nature Parks?
I liked walking down to the ‘ghost train’ cache where I saw micro-bats in the train tunnels. When we first started, I climbed Mount Micketeegumblegree with my cousins and got lost on the way down but we had lots of fun. When I went around Australia with my sister and mum we used the geocaching app to take us to all the national parks.Thanks Trinity it’s great to hear that you are looking out for the environment when you go geocaching.

Adult Bit: There are some good environmental centres to visit with kids around the Moreton Shire and greater South-East Queensland including Downfall Creek (Kedron), C.R.E.E.C (Burpengary), Osprey House (Dohles Rocks), Kumbartcho Sanctuary (Eatons Hill) and Walk-about Creek (The Gap). Each of these have related geocaches to explore.

This month we have a question from our South Australian ambassador, RideTheGeoWalrus

‘Geocachers are asking how close is Dayboro to Brisbane? They would like to see it on a map with maybe some of the attractions and lodgings’

Dayboro is wonderfully located in the South East of Queensland within hour you can be at the Sunshine Coast, set up in the City having coffee at a café and almost at the Gold Coast. No matter what kind of caching you are into within an hour you are going to be set up ready go – plenty of mountains to climb, lakes to paddle, beaches to visit, heaps of cultural / tourist things and I guess if you like shopping there’s plenty of that too.

We have included some links in our past newsletter regarding searching for accommodation in the region – you can find this in April 2020 – Newsletter 04. We also have a map of the caches we mention on the website in the side bar. We try to have this up to date as possible (bar all those geo-arts at this stage). This map also includes where the event is being held and you can search around to see what else is nearby that may interest you.

Dayboro is in the Moreton Bay Region and they themselves have a great website that really highlights all the Moreton Bay has to offer and help identify what is in the area. We strongly suggest you check out their website https://www.visitmoretonbayregion.com.au/ If you are planning on bringing your furry friend to the event you will also find information on pet friendly beaches, parks cafe & other areas that might be of interest.

Of course please remember that you can camp with your pets at the Dayboro Showground!

Geocaching with Dogs

Bodhi has been geocaching since he was 8 weeks old, when we picked him up from the breeder! Being a cocker spaniel, he is the perfect geodog, as he is built for family adventures and retrieving. Bodhi loves nothing more than sniffing out the cache and sitting down once he has found it.

Bodhi loves attending geo-events where he even met Miss Direction’s cocker spaniels at the Sweeney Reserve Australia Day Event at Petrie and he was trying to catch bubbles at the WWFM XV Brisbane’s Bubbly Bridge Event, where Barbbowman took some great photos of him. Bodhi has even sniffed out dog friendly accommodation for the upcoming Dayboro event, so he can attend all the dog friendly activities, which we are all very excited about.

Bodhi has been on many geocaching adventures with us from bush walks, to beaches, to urban hides and his personal favourite, at dog parks.

Recently, Bodhi has been hiding his own geocaches in his favourite spots to walk and play, including Bodhi’s Lost Squeaker (GC8280A) and A REALly Great Park (GC82DB8). Bodhi just loves doing maintenance runs (any excuse to go for a walk and play!) Bodhi also has his own TB which he wears to events, he just loves people and other dogs, so he is more than happy to share the code with you.

We just love geocaching for finding and exploring new places! We recently had a fun family day at Fingal Head completing the earth cache and other caches nearby, visiting the lighthouse and had a lunch in a dog friendly venue where Bodhi met a new furry friend to play with.

We love everything about geocaching with Bodhi and the places and adventures it takes us as a family.

~ Chasingadventures, Muggle Hubby and Bodhi xox

Seeing as we featuring Caching with Dogs this month, Tim shares a little of his experience with his dog Zelda.

So Zelda is a trainee assistance dog with mindDog Australia, basically to help me cope with my depression and anxiety and PTSD, she found her very first geocache on the way home from adopting her from Karmas Place Rescue at the steam roller at Maidenwell (GC17AGD). She has been caching with me ever since, she joins me for my photos shoots and when hiding geocaches, and she is one kayak loving water doggo who can’t help getting her paws muddy when I’m out hiding evil water based caches. Being an assistance dog in training she is lucky in the fact that she can go places most dogs can’t like National Parks, so she is definitely a T5 pooch.

A group of people standing next to a dog

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Find the hidden codeword and retain it for the event. You never know why!

What’s Next

Next month we finally fully reveal the Cache QLD team, not that we’ve been hiding or anything. We also talk about how we are going green for the event.