Geocaching Australia

Has anybody experienced a large number of missing caches in or near the Sydney CBD. A large number of my caches have gone missing in the space of a week. I also just noticed that a series of three caches in Pyrmont by thevoucher went missing too. His were quite well hidden.

I know there is nothing that anybody can do about it, but as I am new to the scene, I haven't experienced anything like it before. Is it tied to the phases of the moon or something.

It has happened once in Sydney that I recall, a year or two back, but the culprit was nearly instantly identified due to a beef they had with the CO of the missing boxes. Other cities have had more random trashers, even those who log the caches online saying they have trashed them!

I would hope it is a new person who has misunderstood rather than a targeted Muggling campaign

rinsemesocks wrote:Has anybody experienced a large number of missing caches in or near the Sydney CBD. A large number of my caches have gone missing in the space of a week. I also just noticed that a series of three caches in Pyrmont by thevoucher went missing too. His were quite well hidden.

Ah haaaa , I knew 6 DNF's to only 6 finds in 2 days wasn't just me or the rain a few weeks ago:-"
for a 50/50 find/dnf ratio
Phew, I can sleep again tonight.

rinsemesocks wrote:Has anybody experienced a large number of missing caches in or near the Sydney CBD. A large number of my caches have gone missing in the space of a week. I also just noticed that a series of three caches in Pyrmont by thevoucher went missing too. His were quite well hidden. I know there is nothing that anybody can do about it, but as I am new to the scene, I haven't experienced anything like it before. Is it tied to the phases of the moon or something.

Sure hope it wasn't someone targeting your personal caches. Of course, the CBD area is a seriously 'muggle intensive' area, so it could well be that someone has simply taken up the 'game' of grabbing as many caches as he can find. Sad, but it happens.

Posting here is a good idea. We'll all keep our eyes open.

But no, there's not much you can do, except to re-hide in a different place.

Good luck!

I did hear (from Baktrak) that a number had gone missing in the eastern suburbs in the past week or so.

It's beyond idiotic.

Oh! I have a cache near the CBD that has NEVER gone missing and it disappeared a week or so ago. I was really surprised, maybe this is why.

Sorry about your caches rinsemesocks. I have meetings in the city every month or so, and usually look for a cache or 2 between meetings. Mostly they're yours. Hopefully if someone is deliberately taking them, they will get bored & give it up soon.

Yurt wrote:I did hear (from Baktrak) that a number had gone missing in the eastern suburbs in the past week or so.

It's beyond idiotic.

Damn, the eastern suburbs was where I was planning to cache today. Might have to make a new plan, that's a long drive for us just to collect a string of DNFs.

It's sad, but perhaps the eventual fate of all caches in built-up areas.

(Even some of rogerw3's hides in very remote places have gone adrift, sometimes as the result of interaction with the local wildlife.)

And if you place more than one or two geocaches, the odds are that you'll lose the occasional one.

Anyhow, hoping there isn't a 'phantom muggler' at large in the Sydney area . . .

This is the reason why lodging prompt DNFs is so important.

Well that's a good excuse to refrain from replacing Tolkein Tree

Ah, this might explain my strike rate yesterday!!

Zalgariath wrote:It has happened once in Sydney that I recall, a year or two back, but the culprit was nearly instantly identified due to a beef they had with the CO of the missing boxes. Other cities have had more random trashers, even those who log the caches online saying they have trashed them!

I would hope it is a new person who has misunderstood rather than a targeted Muggling campaign

Please do tell, I must have been oblivious to this.........

tronador wrote:

Zalgariath wrote:It has happened once in Sydney that I recall, a year or two back, but the culprit was nearly instantly identified due to a beef they had with the CO of the missing boxes. Other cities have had more random trashers, even those who log the caches online saying they have trashed them!

I would hope it is a new person who has misunderstood rather than a targeted Muggling campaign

Please do tell, I must have been oblivious to this.........

It was when geomatica's caches all got taken. In the end, he transferred ownership to another team and all was well

Perhaps changing caches to Premium only for a while may provide some sort of defence against vandals with smartphones, if that's the issue.

We could be seeing a problem here with the new smart phones, which come preloaded with geocaching details. It is so easy for people to add GPSr apps onto their phones today. Whatever it is, it may be a deliberate act of vandalism, or it could be that the person thinks that taking the caches is part of the game.

I agree with the idea that making your caches premium member only caches may work, and later on you could convert them back. To test this idea I would put two caches close together, one a standard cache and one a premium member cache and see what happens to them.

I was just browsing a couple of my recent DNF's and came across this cache GC2Y1N by "the voucher". It seems they have had 3 caches go in the CBD area too