Geocaching Australia

We have a very small volunteer development team here at Geocaching Australia. This means some things get done quickly and others are put on the backburner. It also means we rarely have time to give you a heads-up on what may be coming as things we build are rarely planned too far in advance. However here's a little calendar of things that are coming up through to July. We hope that the new and exciting content here at Geocaching Australia entices you to continue to play the game of geocaching at Geocaching Australia.

January
- GeoArt competition closes. To celebrate the launch of the new GeoArt geocache type, everyone who hides and publishes a collection of 10 or more GeoArt geocaches in a single collection during the competition will be entered into a draw to win a new, limited edition GeoArt geocache pathtag. There are a limited number of pathtags which have been minted so there are a limited number of pathtags available to win.

February
- New virtual collector cards. Cards are virtual items that as you collect them they boost the rate at which you earn points. They range from common and uncommon through rare to elite and legendary. Cards are rewarded randomly based on their scarcity with elite and legendary cards being rewarded far less frequently that common, uncommon or rare cards. You cannot trade for individual cards, only for packs of 10 which may result in you receiving duplicates.

March
- New rank shields on your My dragonZone page.
- Anniversary Orbs
- Autumn Equinox Orbs
- 3x3 Well Rounded Cacher research quest starts (no time limit)

April
- Blitz 2021
- New "Online" version of the Reverse Geocache where you use your mobile phone and the Geocaching Australia website to be guided to a specified or target location. This is different to using a GPS as the only information you receive is how far you are from the geocache with no indication of direction. At the location a codeword is presented and a final location of the geocache is revealed (if the geocache is not at the location). You use the codeword to unlock the geocache using a device such as a combination lock and you are able to access and sign the logbook.
- Easter Orbs

May
- New stickers and additional collector cards based on stickers and rank shields.
- Gotta Find 'Em All research quest starts (no time limit)

June
- Winter Solstice Orbs
- A mid-year game that has two winning strategies by finding geocaches with the bonus of some strategic game playing from you. There will, of course, be pathtags rewarded as prizes.

July
- Continuation of the June mid-year game.

This sounds exciting! Thanks for all your work.

As always, I have a question...
These virtual collector cards - how do we get those? By finding dragonZone caches, or any GA/TP caches? Or do we buy them only in 10 packs with research points or dZ points? And if we can buy them, where/how? I can't figure it out. It is almost middle of Feb so I'm assuming they are activated already.

Can't wait to explore and use this new card thing.

They're not activated yet.

Thank you.

The small development team here at GA seem to be able to achieve far superior games and projects than other geocaching sites can. Looks like a fun 6 months ahead! Thanks to the developers for keeping the game exciting.

Sounds great, we'll keep ears to the ground....

Sounds intriguing. Looking forward to it. By the way the geoart competition didn't close in January. You still have time to put one out as it closes end of February. There are some cool ones already published. Thanks to the faeries for working all the fun things out. Thanks also for adding the stickers to the "drops". They are cute and I have stuck a few on cache pages already.

"June
- Winter Solstice Orbs
- A mid-year game that has two winning strategies by finding geocaches with the bonus of some strategic game playing from you. There will, of course, be pathtags rewarded as prizes.

July
- Continuation of the June mid-year game"

As we have a game starting in June, should we be hiding now or waiting to hide when games start? The last game all caches had to be hidden before announcement of game start. Just checking as I plan to hide some and would like to know my options.

Looks like the answers I seek are in the rules for Battleship.