Geocaching

[vin.vierge]

To all members and webmaster
Im thinking about starting geocaching as a new hobby
is there any of you ever play it or in a sort of geocaching club in jakarta maybe?
thanks in advance

[Puspawarna]

Me! Me! I am a geocacher! But all my finds are in Hawaii (my American home) and Egypt (where I lived prior to Jakarta).

At present, I don't geocache in Indonesia because, when I checked last (a couple years ago), this country had virtually no caching activity. Which is nuts, because the possibilities are fantastic.

For anyone saying "what the heck is geocaching?" here's an article on it from a magazine I used to edit in Egypt (please note I am not personally responsible for the failure to capitalize the first letter of the article, or any other punctuation atrocities on the website, which was always embarrassing and is now a cobweb site).

http://www.traveltodayarabia.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2601

If people want to start caching here, count me in!


PS - if you already have an i-Phone or an i-Pad, there is no need to acquire a hand-held GPS unit - you already have the technology you need!

[vin.vierge]

Me! Me! I am a geocacher! But all my finds are in Hawaii (my American home) and Egypt (where I lived prior to Jakarta).

At present, I don't geocache in Indonesia because, when I checked last (a couple years ago), this country had virtually no caching activity. Which is nuts, because the possibilities are fantastic.

If people want to start caching here, count me in!

PS - if you already have an i-Phone or an i-Pad, there is no need to acquire a hand-held GPS unit - you already have the technology you need!

most of my friends play it but they all germany
they even have a member of a club or more
maybe we should create a club too what do you think puspawarna?

[Puspawarna]

Yes, if enough people are interested. But there should be a bunch of us or it won't work. Hopefully more people will show up in this forum saying they are interested.

If there aren't a lot of people yet, we can spread the word and hopefully in the future find enough cachers.

To anyone else reading this, it's fun, really, it is!

[TheJester]

I must admit I was wondering. So, basically a treasure hunt then?

[K&M]

I am up for this also, I proposed a treasure hunt a few weeks back but there was little interest in it.
But f enough people then I buy a GPS and join

[vin.vierge]

correct! and you got the gps device to help you locating it. care to join jester?

Yes, if enough people are interested. But there should be a bunch of us or it won't work. Hopefully more people will show up in this forum saying they are interested.

If there aren't a lot of people yet, we can spread the word and hopefully in the future find enough cachers.

To anyone else reading this, it's fun, really, it is!

my friend said they can play it even with 6 members but offcourse the merrier the better

[vin.vierge]

I am up for this also, I proposed a treasure hunt a few weeks back but there was little interest in it.
But f enough people then I buy a GPS and join

niceeeeee, so two of you joined the club

[Puspawarna]

Well, I took a look at the geocaching website (www.geocaching.com) and there seem to be about 80 caches in Indonesia, though a lot of them have been placed by non-residents. On the first page of Indonesian caches, these seem to be Indonesia-based geocachers:

The Curious Cats (Jakarta)
panaramamacikaso (Sukabumi)
CKschoolgeocaching (Medan - probably one handle used for an afterschool activity at Chandra Kusuma and including a bunch of high schoolers, or something like that)
glogloman (who seems to divide his/her time between the Czech Republic and Indonesia - he's a divemaster so maybe he just does a lot of dive trips here)

Further searching might reveal more, but it's a somewhat tedious process - if anyone wants to tackle page 2, be my guest! Otherwise I'll go back to it in the next few days when I'm procrastinating on a particularly boring bit of work...

[vin.vierge]

among 80 caches, how many of them placed around jakarta or west java area?

[Hombre de Maiz]

What can of prizes can I expect?

[Puspawarna]

What can of prizes can I expect?

98 percent of the time insignificant trinkets only; the fun is in the search and in logging an ever-growing number of finds. I can't speak to Indonesia, never having cached here, but in the US at least, cache contents are becoming less interesting as the sport matures. I suspect that is both because the novelty has worn off and improved technology has made it easy to geocache on a whim, instead of requiring advance preparation.

Indonesia, or at any rate Java, probably does not lend itself to having a lot of readily accessible caches with neat prizes inside. It's too populated here! There are probably not a lot of places where you can hide a container and no "geomuggles" will ever notice people pulling out a container of goodies and hiding it again. (Remote mountains/jungle, sure, but those locations don't lend themselves to frequent and easy caching trips.)

The solution that cachers usually follow is either micro-caches (too small to hold prizes; usually there is just a rolled up piece of paper inside a film canister so you can sign the log) or virtual caches (in which there is no physical cache, but you prove to the person who set the cache that you found it by e-mailing them the answer to a question that you would know only by making it to the cache spot.) For some reason new virtual caches are not allowed to be established, but old ones have been grandfathered in.

Indonesia seems like a good place for "Earthcaches" (I see a number of them in the list of Indonesian caches). They are defined as follows on the website:

An EarthCache is a special place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our Earth. EarthCaches include a set of educational notes and the details about where to find the location (latitude and longitude). Visitors to EarthCaches can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage the resources and how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth. For more information about EarthCaches, visit http://www.earthcache.org/.

Definitely no physical prizes in that type of cache.

originally posted by vin.vierge:
among 80 caches, how many of them placed around jakarta or west java area?

You'll have to start caching to find out. The location listings for Indonesia are not very specific, they just say "Indonesia." But -- you can sign up on the site (it's free), enter your coordinates, and do a search for, for example, within 75 kilometers of your home coordinates. Or you can search via GoogleEarth, or there is an iPad geocaching app; lots of ways to get started.

The majority of Indonesia's caches are out in the wilderness, I'm betting, but check out the ones established by "the curious cats" - it looks like three of them are in Jakarta.

Geocaching does seem to be alive and well in Indonesia so I guess we do not have to make a push to get it started. Anyone who really wants to do it can find what they need on the www.geocaching.com website. I'll be glad to answer any questions if you are confused (always assuming I'm not equally confused - I think my knowledge of the sport is a little out of date).

[4Kaka]

hmm.. just thinking about how many muggles there are in this place.. the survival rate for caches here could be very low.
the aim of geocaching should be to keep the cache alive, and track progress, rather than collect prizes.
the pleasure is sometimes just finding the cache and making sure no one sees you.. can be quite funny.

[Hombre de Maiz]

No IOUs or promisory notes for services then?

[vin.vierge]

Definitely no physical prizes in that type of cache The majority of Indonesia's caches are out in the wilderness, I'm betting, but check out the ones established by "the curious cats" - it looks like three of them are in Jakarta.

Geocaching does seem to be alive and well in Indonesia so I guess we do not have to make a push to get it started. Anyone who really wants to do it can find what they need on the www.geocaching.com website. I'll be glad to answer any questions if you are confused (always assuming I'm not equally confused - I think my knowledge of the sport is a little out of date).

I know it cant be done in Jakarta with rapid houses standing side by side, but in a park or a camping field in the hills perhaps? I saw that the cache placed in a grey or black can or something and hidden between bushes, big stones or under the tree. do geocachers allow to bury their cache?
just made an account and starting tinkering with the page and my phone gps