'Cache day' Planning

[Threepwood]

I seem to go through a great deal of 'phaffing' (technical term) about before I get the tribe out for a days caching. I look up GC and find the caches I want to go for, have a quick peek at the online maps to check that they are in the same region, download the GPX for the selected caches and then start printing out the sheets. My little Garmin does not have maps so now I'm off to my meagre map collection to try and pinpoint (or may be localise is a better term) where the cache is, and how best to get there.

So, my questions to the audience of long term practitioners of the 'art'; what steps do you go through planning for your days caching and do you have any hints to streamline the process. Second up, once I get outside of the main Melways area, finding maps is pretty difficult, what sourfces do you use for maps to get through (for example) State Parks etc where one might end up on logging tracks etc.

Look forward to any hints.

Threepwood

PS. Though it sounds longwinded, i do tend to enjoy the planning aspect anyway as it is part of the overall experience.

[Stubby Holder]

One way to enhance your cache planning is to use a program called oziexplorer (http://www.oziexplorer.com). This program will allow you to download the geocache waypoints and view them on a map then download the waypoints to your gps. You can also print out the map for touring to the caches.

However you will need to get some maps to use with oziexplorer. These can be expensive. You can check out the map page in oziexplorer. 250k maps for the whole of Australia are about ($97.00). You will also need to get some software which will allow you to send the waypoints to oziexplorer (such as cachemonkey). Check out the software solutions page of this forum.

[Biggles Bear]

We used to do all that. Then we bought ourselves a premium membership and get all the way points and cache descriptions emailed to us once a week. You can write custom queries so you get the details of only the caches you’re interested in.
Then we bought ourselves a copy of Mapsend (now replaced by Discover Aus, Garmin has something similar) and a lap top. Then we bought ourselves a Magellan Meridian. We’ve also got a copy of Ozi Explorer but rarely use it as we rely mainly on the Discover Aus software, as you can zoom in and out without having to wait for map files to change over.

Planning for us now consists of loading the waypoint file into the lap top and deciding were to go, and making sure we have the appropriate cache descriptions either loaded on the laptop or the palm top, and off we go.

[swampgecko]

Plan... Why Plan???
<P>
Seriously thou I have just started using oziexplorer for my mapwork, as it is better than my alternative which is the Garmin Mapsource. I normally just rough out what caches we want to do and decide if the 2 daughters will be with us or not. If so we pick areas and caches that will be easy and kid friendly otherwise I select harder caches for the wife and I to do. And if it just me going out I just wing it and decide on the fly what caches to do, thou I will have maybe one or two that I want to do not matter what...<P>
For a day of urban caching i have a street directory that is marked up with the caches plotted already in it. I have a list of cachesand their map references ready to go so we can just flick to a map and go"yep, we are here and we need to get there", and Mrs Gecko can navigate me to the next cache.... after we quickly decide on the best route before hand.. saves arguements afterwards...<P>

For non-urban caching I just work out what maps I need and if I don't already possess them I either go out and obtain them or I print out a small map with the general area on it from a website...<P> but most of the time I dont do a lot of planning we just cache on the wing so to speak

[EcoTeam]

I seem to go through a great deal of 'phaffing' (technical term) about before I get the tribe out for a days caching. I look up GC and find the caches I want to go for, have a quick peek at the online maps to check that they are in the same region, download the GPX for the selected caches and then start printing out the sheets. My little Garmin does not have maps so now I'm off to my meagre map collection to try and pinpoint (or may be localise is a better term) where the cache is, and how best to get there.

So, my questions to the audience of long term practitioners of the 'art'; what steps do you go through planning for your days caching and do you have any hints to streamline the process. Second up, once I get outside of the main Melways area, finding maps is pretty difficult, what sourfces do you use for maps to get through (for example) State Parks etc where one might end up on logging tracks etc.

Look forward to any hints.

Threepwood

PS. Though it sounds longwinded, i do tend to enjoy the planning aspect anyway as it is part of the overall experience.

When I was a boy.... planing was a pain in the butt.
Go paperless with a Palm PDA ($50-$100 on ebay), you'll never regret it. You'll get a warm fuzzy knowing that you are saving trees, you won't ever forget your cache sheet or accidently leave it in your car or street directory, and you'll have the most up to date cache details and logs all in your palm.

Our planning usually involves:
- Downloading the latest Premimum GPX file
- Using the Geo2Ozi program to generate an OziExplorer file and convert the silly GC.com waypoint names into intelligent 6 character names for our eTrex
- Use GPXspinner to turn the GPX file into fully cross referenced HTML pages.
- Use iSilo to convert and download the HTML cache pages into the Palm.
- Use OziExplorer with a map of the entire Sydney region to locate in a split second a bunch of caches in a suitable area
- Use OziExplorer to download the cache waypoints (for every cache in NSW) into the etrex.

Sounds like a lot of work, but all that only takes a few minutes.

If we are in a hurry to go then we just jump in the car and convert the UTM coords on the fly from the cache pages on the Palm, so we can pinpoint the cache on the Sydway. It's a pain with the eTrex though as it does not display both UTM and Lat/Long at the same time (and uses the wrong datum)

If we have a bit more time up our sleeve, we'll use Planner on gc.com.au to give us Sydway plots of where each cache is.

The Sydway pretty much covers every area in the greater Sydney region, so it's not often that we go caching outside of the Sydway maps. But when we do, we'll either wing it if an entry point seems obvious, or we'll get a topo map, either paper or electronic. I have every topo in NSW in electronic form on 5 CDs

EcoDave

[Biggles Bear]

The Vic Roads directory is not bad once you get off the Melways pages

[GeoQuacks]

I agree, except that a good 2x4 gravel road is marked in the same way as a 4x4 track only accessible in good weather.