Geocaching Australia

On Friday 6th April 2012 a small group of NZ cachers 'accidentally' did 230 caches in a day whilst traveling to Albury for Oz MEGA (we started with the 188 Wandering Heros caches and went from there).

From the limited investigation that we've done, it seems that this may have been a new Australian record for finds in a day and we may have also 'accidentally' set a new state record of South Australia on the way (we're not really sure how many caches we did on the SA side of the border).

On 14th April 2012 we (the same group) beat this new record on our way back to SA from Oz MEGA, with 251 finds in a day (subject to confirmation when we log them all!) including the new Tour de France power trail (104 caches), the APM serries and parts of the NXY power trail with a large number of stand alone caches in between! This included 6 hours of sleep! - We did Wandering Heros in about 6 hours the week before!

Imagine what could be achieved by combining Wandering Heros with TdF and then NXY (and carrying on into Adelaide). We weren't trying to set records so didn't do any real route planning , etc (unlike my last real attempt at it with a team from NZ in December 2007).

I reckon that 500 finds in a 24 hour period is now reasonably possible - but only for a team of people who haven't already visited the above mentioned power trails... I wonder how long it'll be?

Moneydork wrote:I reckon that 500 finds in a 24 hour period is now reasonably possible - but only for a team of people who haven't already visited the above mentioned power trails... I wonder how long it'll be?

Maybe it's time to get the band back together

Mind you it just wouldn't feel the same based on power trails...

FarmerFrentzen wrote: Mind you it just wouldn't feel the same based on power trails...

I was involved in the group from NZ that set a record of 195 finds in Adelaide on 12th December 2007 - waaay before power trails exisited. You're right - its not the same, however the finer end of it (the difference between a 450 cache day and a 550 cache day) will come down to the disciplines that made 195 possible back then and the subsequent records that beat it possibe afterwards, so some of the same challenge will exist once an initial powertrail based record has been established.

We need to have individual records identified separately to team records which would be much easier.
Many hands make light work, or in this case, many eyes find cache quickly.

Moneydork wrote:

FarmerFrentzen wrote: Mind you it just wouldn't feel the same based on power trails...

I was involved in the group from NZ that set a record of 195 finds in Adelaide on 12th December 2007 - waaay before power trails exisited. You're right - its not the same, however the finer end of it (the difference between a 450 cache day and a 550 cache day) will come down to the disciplines that made 195 possible back then and the subsequent records that beat it possibe afterwards, so some of the same challenge will exist once an initial powertrail based record has been established.

Agreed. As a member of the group that knocked off your record in 2009 (also prior to power trails) I can see the challenge that lies ahead in applying the same disciplines to the power trail....

gmj3191 wrote:We need to have individual records identified separately to team records which would be much easier.
Many hands make light work, or in this case, many eyes find cache quickly.

A little off topic i know but still related... A similar philosophy could be adopted for a consecutive days caching streak of physical caches....

Well done on some big numbers....although I would have thought the way things are now...300+ was on the cards. .

To put things into perspective...when I did 215 in a day on my own...I started with the NXY series on bike for a total of 55 or so (a few were missing), then headed off to do the APM series, then floated through Adelaide city in the middle of the night picking up 70-80 or so...then had to take the bike that I hired back in between that...and then headed out to do the Wandering Heroes series (which was only 70 or so long at that time). For me to achieve that...I stopped once for something to eat and drink, and once for petrol...During the run however,...a lot of time was lost finding a park each time, getting in and out at every cache, then punching the next cache into the GPS...etc etc. With a team of cachers...all of this is made so much more easier, and is less taxing as the load is shared.

So...from my calculations, given how many there are in the WH series now, and the emergence of the TDF series, as well as the other series already mentioned...a team of dedicated cachers over a 24hr period should easily reach 350...if not 400...and this number will only get bigger.

The 24hr run record is only really comparative to the number of power trails available nowadays, which is the reason why I didn't make a big deal of it at the time as I knew it would be broken straight away...but it still makes for a fun challenge to do.

What I would love to do...just to see what numbers can be reached...is get together all the people that have had significant 24hr runs over the past few years (NZ guys, FF, Big Matt, Steeba, The Rats, and anyone else who was up for it...and really find out what can be done... Maybe even an allied assault of the USA trails?

Of course...there's always NZ territory to play with!

Marcus Vitruvius wrote:Of course...there's always NZ territory to play with!

Absolutely - come set a new record this October.

Moneydork and I were talking about it over the trip, and it should be pretty easy to do 400 around greater Adelaide in 24 hours - which is why we didn't really treat ours seriously (I mean who takes 7 hours out for sleep in the middle like we did). We definitely weren't serious about the attempt as we split the powertrails across different days. Both days that MD mentions, were really just solid caching days.

Even without 'powertrails' there are still plenty of locations that have enough easy caching and enough caches to be treated as a powertrail even though they weren't designed as such. There are simply so many more caches than 2007, or 2009...

Records like this are just another facet of caching, and a means of challenging oneself to trying new things (whilst caching). Little difference from challenge caches (not gc.com challenges) in some ways.

The concept of assembling an Australasian team for the US has appeal

rediguana wrote:
The concept of assembling an Australasian team for the US has appeal

Now that sounds like a plan!

Powertrail ... what's that?

On 8 February 2005 Facitman and I set the Australian record for finds in a day by finding 43 caches in eighteen hours. We didn't have multiple vehicles, mapping GPSr and we were both present at every find and log. We even spent nearly an hour on one multi

That was after we'd got up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before we went to bed, eaten lumps of cold poison, worked twenty-nine hours a day down mill, payed mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dads had killed us, and danced about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

But you try and tell the young geocachers of today that... and they won't believe you

Power trails change everything

rediguana wrote:Moneydork and I were talking about it over the trip, and it should be pretty easy to do 400 around greater Adelaide in 24 hours

And I see this has already been done just a few days ago - awesome

352 caches in a day, taking in NXY, APM, WH and TdF.

Awesome indeed!!!

FarmerFrentzen wrote:

Moneydork wrote:

FarmerFrentzen wrote: Mind you it just wouldn't feel the same based on power trails...

I was involved in the group from NZ that set a record of 195 finds in Adelaide on 12th December 2007 - waaay before power trails exisited. You're right - its not the same, however the finer end of it (the difference between a 450 cache day and a 550 cache day) will come down to the disciplines that made 195 possible back then and the subsequent records that beat it possibe afterwards, so some of the same challenge will exist once an initial powertrail based record has been established.

Agreed. As a member of the group that knocked off your record in 2009 (also prior to power trails) I can see the challenge that lies ahead in applying the same disciplines to the power trail....

But the planning would be a cinch now - no puzzles to worry about and route easily calculated. I'd have thought the planning for the old runs would've been great fun and quite involved?
Cheers