20/09/2018 - Our spring skills event at Lake Alexandra, Mittagong, coincides with International Earthcache Day and had a mention in the Southern Highlands News.

What better way to propose marriage to a geocacher than by placing that proposal in a geocache?

Laura contacted Geocaching NSW in August 2018 asking for our help to construct the perfect marriage proposal for her geocacher boyfriend, Lachlan.

As the couple would be holidaying in the Blue Mountains, we put out a call to the local geocachers in that area to see who could help. Waywardwoman (Jenny) put her hand up and went above and beyond to help out the lovebirds. She communicated with Laura to decide on a great cache to use for the surprise, prepared a note and sprinkled red hearts in the envelope.

After the find, Laura messaged us to say:

"Everything went fabulously!!! The view was spectacular Jenny picked an amazing geocache and of course he said yes! Thanks for all your help! He was really supprised."

Congratulations Laura and Lachlan and we hope there are many more geocaches in your future. And a massive thanks to Geocaching NSW member WaywardWoman for assisting.

We were invited to chat on the ABC again to help "Weekend Warrior" Serpil discover the world of geocaching. She's uploaded the interview to Sound Cloud. We kick in at about 18:15 and it goes for about 15 minutes. Have a listen using the link below!

We New South Welsh folk are an inventive lot – Dr John O’Sullivan, the creator of WiFi, is Sydney born and educated; Professor Graeme Clark, inventor of the Cochlear implant, was born in Camden, NSW; and although Scottish born, it was in Sydney’s Darling Harbour that Thomas Mort created the first freezing works in the world in 1861.

With that great legacy in place, it’s time for the inventors of today to come up with ideas for Lab Caches for the OzGeoMuster 2019. With a “Battle of the Labs” trophy to vie for, NSW will need some clever ideas to come away as winners. Lab Caches are experimental and an extremely rare geocache type and they’ll be available at the OzGeoMuster 2019.

Our NSW Lab Cache coordinator Tatt2squared (find him on geocaching.com) will be able to answer all your questions. Even if you’re not a builder of caches but have a spectacular idea, run it by the team as they may have the skills to bring your genius idea to life.

For more info on Lab Caches visit the OzGeomuster Page and the Geocaching.com page covering Lab Caches.

The annual Geocaching NSW Winter Walk was held in June the venue being in “The Bluies” starting near Lawson and taking in part of the Empire Pass (GC87WJ9).

After a cold night, we had near perfect weather in the morning as a group of about 25 eager bushwalkers took off from the Park Run grounds around 10:00 am. The group was made up of walkers of all ages – the young, not-so-young and the old(ish)! One participant even came all the way from Texas, USA just to join in the walk.

With The Bebes and Brewmaker as the “tour guides”, we made our way along the well-marked track, grabbing a few caches along the way and admiring the great views. We passed some impressive sights, including Fairy Falls, Echo Bluff, Frederica Falls and the Natural Spring. Some of us even detoured to take the steep drop to grab the nearby puzzle final too!

After 3 hours we completed the 8km walk for a well-earned rest. There were plenty of laughs and conversations throughout the journey. Then it was time for some lunch at a nearby café.

Thanks to all the participants. We look forward to the next Winter Walk in 2020 and we're always open to suggestions of places to visit - just drop us a line in the forum.

Rain didn’t dampen attendee’s spirits when it came to the recent Geocaching NSW event, “Rock into Spring” at Lake Alexandra Mittagong. It had been wet for days and the rain had no plans to stop today either, but with his presidential tongs in hand, Seemyshell was able to get all the snags and onions cooked. A nice big shelter was secured and lunch was served. The BBQ lunch was provided to our members for free but the association suggested a gold coin donation for non-members. A total of $31.50 was collected and is bound for the Southern Highlands Rural Fire Service.

With full bellies, it was time for our special guest, Len from 154Crows to take the floor. Len gave us some great general and specific information about earthcaching and how best to approach both finding and placing them. This had people talking, asking questions, and getting excited about heading out into the field.

A total of 30 geocaching teams/players penned their names in the event logbook. But a very clever CO had a surprise in store for us. Just as the event had concluded, Muppet95 announced that a brand new earthcache listing had been published only 400m from the event! So with proceedings at the event wrapping up, most teams shuffled over to the site to collect the required info, check their answers with the CO in person, and by logging the cache, where able to obtain their earthcache 2018 digital souvenir.

A big thanks to all who attended – GCNSW members (old, new and complete newbies) for braving the elements, 154Crows for the valuable earthcache information; and Muppet95 for arranging the publishing of his new cache to perfection. The next Geocaching NSW event will be our Christmas event and announcement of the Geocache of the Year. Dates, locations and voting forms will be released in the coming weeks.

Were you a sleepy head and miss the 6am segment on ‪#‎Geocaching‬ on 702 ABC Sydney last week? Well never fear! Here is a recording of the interview with Simon Marnie & President Zalgariath. This Sunday at the more reasonable hour of 10am Simon and Zal (aka James) will go for round 2 live at the ABC studios! So make sure you tune in... I have no idea what we'll talk about, but I've got a sneaking suspicion it will involve GPS and boxes...

You're invited to the association’s tenth Annual General Meeting and Meet’n’Greet. When and where? Sunday, 12th August at the Carlingford Bowling Club on the corner of Pennant Hills Rd and Evans Rd, Carlingford.

The formal AGM will run from 10:30am until about 11 or so and is for members only. That's where we do all the necessary annual reporting and elect a committee. However as soon as it's out of the way, we'll move onto the fun part - a Meet’n’Greet open to all.  Come along and meet other cachers, share stories, log trackables, get hints for those tricky hides  and enjoy the camaraderie. This year to celbrate 10 years of the Association there will be a short presentation on the history, highlights and hopes for the future of GCNSW.

After 6 years on the committee and 5 years as President, Zalgariath will be stepping down, as will Vice President Marcus Vitruvius (8 years) and Committee Member Kid Ron Satan (3 years). This changing of the guard means it will be a great opportunity to become part of the new team to lead GCNSW into its second decade and members are encouraged to nominate themselves or other members for any role they feel suited for. The Committee Nomination Form (and nomination procedures), the formal Notice of Meeting and the Meeting Agenda are available here in the Member's Forum. If you can't remember your login details or have trouble accessing this members only area, please drop us a note to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Similarly if you have any questions about what is involved in being on the committee don't hesitate to ask! A summary of the Committee roles is below.

Hop across to the AGM Event now, log a "Will Attend" and lock it into your diary.

The Geocaching NSW committee Roles:

• President - Acts as chair at association meetings, governs association business and is the first point of contact for media, landowners or other interested groups seeking information about Geocaching in NSW.
• Vice President  - Support the President and provide a second line of guidance for the association.
• Treasurer - Manages the money the association has collected, ensures that all payments authorised by the association are made, that correct books and accounts are kept showing the financial affairs of the association. 
• Secretary - Prepares the agendas and keeps the minutes of all meetings of the committee and is responsible for the lodgement of papers with NSW Fair Trading.
• Ordinary Members -  They help the association where needed including organising and assisting with events, managing the shop, posting on social media and providing insights and opinions to matters that affect the association.

All positions in the committee will be declared vacant during the Annual General Meeting to make way for the new committee. Click here to grab your nomination form today! Please Note, you must be a financial member of Geocaching NSW to nominate for the committee. See you all there!

Community Caches

In a recent question to the Committee, we were asked to come up with a way to help look after old and significant geocaches where the CO no longer plays the game or cannot maintain the cache themselves. The proposal was to have active players watch over these caches and maintain the cache when necessary, even though they aren’t officially the owner.

This situation has come about as players from the early years have moved away from their areas, have stopped playing the game, or sadly passed away. The game of geocaching is now 18 years old meaning that there’s a lot of history that could potentially be lost. Archiving happens, often for perfectly valid reasons, but from our discussions, the community is willing to bridge the gap.

NSW Original Stash

We have been in talks with the NSW reviewer (Tiddalik) who has kindly given us some practical advice on the matter.

How to maintain a significant cache when you are not the owner

As part of your local geocaching community you’ve established that the CO is no longer on the scene, the following points need to occur:

1. Place a 'Write Note' on the cache listing, stating that you wish to maintain the cache on behalf of the CO. (effectively making it a Community Cache)
2. Place the cache listing on your watch list.
3. Attend to all DNF's or 'Need Maintenance' logs, and place a 'Write Note' to inform the reviewer what you have done.
4. Upkeep the cache as if it was your own.

Remember, a cache can have more than one carer from the community, and if this is the case, all persons caring for the cache must be listed as such, with all carers having the cache on their watch list.

We hope this gives you the tools you need to take action locally and keep these old school caches active in our state. Please let us know about caches that you’ve successfully kept going (and the backstory on why they needed intervention) or if you’ve spotted a significant cache that needs some TLC - we’re not able to maintain them ourselves, but we might be able to bring it to the attention of people who can help.