Hawmorfords get new Australian record

djcache · Post by **djcache** » 21 September 06 9:48 pm

Time for a 60 Minutes style name and shame session

Let's not go there....

But I do now avoid caches placed by particular teams, and I'm ultraquick to do maintenance visits after visits by others.

DJ

stickler · Post by **stickler** » 21 September 06 10:08 pm

Obviously this thread has hit a raw nerve considering the number of views this item has had. As shown, people of keen on "raw numbers" whether the rest of us like it or not.

Whereas I am typically interested only in caches that pose a real physical challenge, are very cleverly hidden or ones that I basically trip over on the way to somewhere else.

My curiosity with this topic is not necessarialy the 101 finds (I will never match it or even come close because I am not driven by the numbers), but how many DNF's during the day? There are always a number of DNF's no matter how hard you look....Any idea?

TeamTandoori · Post by **TeamTandoori** » 22 September 06 11:01 am

Don't get me wrong? I don't mind the hard to find ones but when they are dangerously or stupid ly hidden that means property or flora damage occurs that what tickes me off . I do like the ones with themes(spoonersim in Daylsford, leave your mark in Inglewood).
If time put in to a cache time should be also placed into the find and it's surroundings ,in my humble opinion.
Geez their are even caches the onwer will welcome you to their home for a coffee.. and what about event caches?
I can see the future "we did 20 event caches in one day" In my world of geocaching the only records that count are within your own team and that why it's I enyoy geocaching because it used to be non competetive and a fun but obscure way to meet people(event caches,etc )....whos been caching only to meet a fellow cacher with that stupid silly grin of being busted .
To me that's caching.

Bundyrumandcoke · Post by **Bundyrumandcoke** » 22 September 06 3:59 pm

Its interesting viewing this and other like threads on GCA and GC.com as a newbie. Its been said before, and no doubt will be said again, this game/hobby/sport caters for many and varied people from all walks of life. They play the "Game" in many varied ways, some chase the numbers, some seek the places, others enjoy the challenge. For me, personally, its all these and more. New places to visit, where caches are placed- I've had this already, and will no doubt will have this again and again. It gives me a reason and excuse to visit places I haven't before. The challenge of nutting out a difficult puzzle cache, Dooghans "Text Me" springs to mind, MAKES me be patient- an attribute I know I am short of. The numbers, tomorrow I trip to Bundaberg, to see if I can find some or all of them there, because I can, and would have no other reason to visit Bundy. And in the next week or so, is a visit to Brisbane. We were heading there anyhow, to Bribie to have a break from work, and "Normal" life, as you do on holidays. Caching gives me an added dimension to my holidays, giving me a reason to go "there" And because I am there, and all my local caches are found, I want to see how many I can find in the time I am there. So why not attempt to see how many I can find in a set period of time, in my case, one 24 hr period. If I break the Qld "record" all well and good, if not, so be it. And for the question of walking away from a cache because of muggles, my thread in Queensland caching tells the story, with about 150 caches to be loaded into my laptop, so I can leave a cache without finding it, if need be. Above all, this "game" gives me a reason to exercise, something I have been very reluctant to do over the last few years, with subsiquent affects on my big fat arse and gut. Hopefully, this will make the difference. I know others may not agree with my reasons, but isnt that what being in a free country is all about, the ability to disagree and still get along. Cheers
Bundy And yes, count me among the guilty ones of being overenthusiastic in my search for a cache, with regards to evidence of my search being left behind. I would hope I have learnt my own lesson.

Spruce Mooses · Post by **Spruce Mooses** » 22 September 06 4:42 pm

I have read the thread and it made for interesting dinner conversation with michelle. You will know that we were toying with the idea of attempting the record, trying to achieve the record in the true spirit of caching, having fun and working it out for ourselves. This is my two cents worth on the issues raised.

It would be easy to find 100 in a day if you had a driver which has visited most sites, but are you being true to yourself. I'm sure we could easily do it if i had a driver with 1000 cache finds, but are you being true to yourself and playing in the spirit of the game. My impression of geocaching is that the most important component navigating to the location, if you take out the bulk navigation component are you really geocaching.

Just remeber caching is about enjoying the find and the surroundings and meeting new people, not about the numbers.

The Garner Family · Post by **The Garner Family** » 22 September 06 5:03 pm

Spruce Mooses wrote:Just remeber caching is about enjoying the find and the surroundings and meeting new people, not about the numbers.

Who says?

This is the problem... people keep saying that caching has to be about what they want it to be about. As has been said already in this thread... if someone wants to do a day where its just about the numbers or even play the entire game so it is just about numbers then how does that affect anyone else's enjoyment of geocaching?

The beauty of our sport is that its about whatever you want it to be about.

zactyl · Post by **zactyl** » 22 September 06 5:33 pm

Spruce Mooses wrote:My impression of geocaching is that the most important component navigating to the location, if you take out the bulk navigation component are you really geocaching.

If you're using anything other than a distance and a direction, yer cheating!

Sometimes trying to find the way in to get to the cache is fun, other times it's great to know where you're going... If I'm out for a day of caching, I mark the caches in the street directory, so I know which roads to take. If I had Tomtom, I'd use it, if I had someone who knew the roads better than I did, I'd let them drive! It's still geocaching.

NastySteve · Post by **NastySteve** » 22 September 06 7:05 pm

First, I wish to make it crystal clear that I have nothing but respect for the HawMorFords and Dak, and I am not questioning their sincerity or ethics. I have met the HawMorFords on a couple of occasions and our family feels fortunate to have made their acquaintance. I have not met Dak in person, however I have exchanged emails with him. He is one of the legends of our sport. I don't think there are any problems in chasing numbers, if thatÃ‚â€™s the aspect of caching that you enjoy, however it gets a little sticky when you start claiming Australian records. In most other sports, there are strict regulations governing the setting of records, and all claims are usually verified by an external panel. Caching is not strictly regulated, so it becomes difficult, and without any form of verification, the "record" is always going to be questionable. Again, let me state that I believe that all 101 caches were logged in a single day. The problem is that only the people involved know for sure. I think the other aspect that may have raised some concerns is that the trip was escorted by someone who is thought to have placed or found many (if not all) of the caches. Would 101 been achievable without Dak's assistance? I have not idea, however it seems many people suspect not, which leads to a perception of an uneven playing field. Certainly not having to figure out the best way to approach (often through trial and error) would save time, and knowing in advance which caches were short walks and easy finds would also help. The problem is that the record now appears to only be available to people that Dak (or similar) is prepared to escort. Regardless of any controversy surrounding the day, 101 in a day is a simply mind blowing effort and deserves to be recognised as a fantastic achievement.

TeamTandoori · Post by **TeamTandoori** » 22 September 06 7:54 pm

With respect to all cachers and all forms of caching, what I write is only my opnoin and its fine if you dont't agree that's ok ,in fact I encourage it! just don't take it to hart...this are what fourms are about healthy discussion.

I do think Nasty Stev Sums it up nicley. who care about records but those involved but just do it fair and square even if their are no solid rules.
Maybe the elders of the sport should make some general rules for the number chasers , maybe one for single teams, mutli teams assisted, non assited and number of caches visted ( logged or/not ) I say that with respect to all cachers what ever you enjoy geocaching for!

Chwiliwr · Post by **Chwiliwr** » 22 September 06 11:05 pm

I became curious about the logistics involved in doing something like this some time ago and worked out that all you really need is virgin area for the cachers involved with a great cache density.

I think the answer to NastySteve's question about a local driver being needed for future attempts would be 'no' if the cache density is great enough.

I didn't try to see if they were all available and doable but, for instance, there are more than 200 caches within a 10km radius of the Melbourne CBD as of last week. (I picked Melbourne as it has greater clusters of caches closer together than the other cities.)

Or if you count every cache 5km either side of the highway going SE then you get to about 275 before reaching 45km from the CBD.

With that many caches to play with I'm sure the current count could be increased by anyone who hasn't done many in Melbourne.

Melbourne's density is good enough for the 'world' record if someone was willing to try for it.

djcache · Post by **djcache** » 22 September 06 11:21 pm

Chwiliwr,

This helps but the timing is the issue that interests me. As stated earlier in the thread, you need to find each cache in an average time of 14 mins & a bit even if you cache for 24 hours straight. T

That includes everything, travel between caches as well.

Drop it to 18 hours and the time decreases to about 10 mins per find.

Now there are always going to be caches that should take at least that long or more to find with out the travel to the cache even if the degree of difficulty is low. There will admittedly be ones that take less time too but maintaining a find rate of 10mins a cache including travel (over what distance does walking or running become faster than vehicle travel - bicycles are easier to park....) , logging the find, rehiding and any other delay (toilet, traffic, finding a park, muggles etc.) may require the skills of the man in the red and blue suit who changes in phone boxes.

Lets work on the 18 hours attempts used by others here - That means even if it takes you only 3 mins to travel between each cache you have less than 7 minutes to find it log it and rehide it to get 100 caches.

Good luck. Even with a driver.

And if there are multis in it one presumes that prefinding has been used as you might as well forget 10 mins even for an easy multi.

DJ

The Garner Family · Post by **The Garner Family** » 22 September 06 11:45 pm

Well obviously if you were attempting a record you wouldn't pick multi's, you wouldn't pick ones with any sort of a walk, you wouldn't pick ones with high difficulty or high terrain, you wouldn't pick ones with any DNF's on them... etc.

This is part of the pre-planning that goes into setting a record & rarely do people set out to do ONLY those sorts of caches. To set the records you need to bypass all the ones that have the long scenic walks, the reading of several historical plaques etc.

I know caching ourselves sometimes I'm amazed that only 10-15 minutes have passed between the time between putting an entry into one log book and then doing the same in another. And that is when we're not even rushing! Hawmorfords and I went out last night and knocked off 14 caches in the evening after work with about 9km of walking... we ate-in when we stopped for dinner & we had a drive of 30 minutes at one stage... the numbers can come up really quickly when you're trying.

pprass · Post by **pprass** » 22 September 06 11:53 pm

First of all we can fully understand the geocachers who claim foul regarding the validity of a record attempt.

However I do not believe that HawMorFords have claimed any record - they just said that they found 101 caches in total (100 in one day I think) and that they had a blast of a time.

It was others that stated that a record had been broken.

So what's wrong with that? They had a great time. dak presumably had a great time and we now all have an invitation to cache with Queenslanders next time we are up there.

What is also very interesting to us is that the logs that HawMorFords posted (on our cache finds at least) were very descriptive of the area, the difficulty and the conditions. These were comments from people that actually observed what was around them while madly running from one cache to another - ironically this is something that a few of our locals don't even bother to notice or mention in their brief logs even when they just find one or two in a day!

Chwiliwr · Post by **Chwiliwr** » 23 September 06 2:29 am

djcache wrote:Chwiliwr,

This helps but the timing is the issue that interests me. As stated earlier in the thread, you need to find each cache in an average time of 14 mins & a bit even if you cache for 24 hours straight. T

That includes everything, travel between caches as well.

Drop it to 18 hours and the time decreases to about 10 mins per find.

Now there are always going to be caches that should take at least that long or more to find with out the travel to the cache even if the degree of difficulty is low. There will admittedly be ones that take less time too but maintaining a find rate of 10mins a cache including travel (over what distance does walking or running become faster than vehicle travel - bicycles are easier to park....) , logging the find, rehiding and any other delay (toilet, traffic, finding a park, muggles etc.) may require the skills of the man in the red and blue suit who changes in phone boxes.

Lets work on the 18 hours attempts used by others here - That means even if it takes you only 3 mins to travel between each cache you have less than 7 minutes to find it log it and rehide it to get 100 caches.

Good luck. Even with a driver.

And if there are multis in it one presumes that prefinding has been used as you might as well forget 10 mins even for an easy multi.

DJ

Whilst people may imagine it to be hard it is quite achievable to do more than 5 or 6 caches in an hour if you pick the ones you do. I have done 10 in under 2 hours and if there had of been enough of the unfound traditional caches left in Perth I may have continued at that rate but I switched to doing long multi caches.

The lesser time of 18 hours and using 10.8 minutes per cache mentioned in previous posts still sounds reasonable. If you split it equally between driving and finding this averages out the distances to caches at 4.5km (50kph) and gives 5 minutes for looking.

However in most city areas I have found that the cache distance average is less than 2.5km in the cache dense areas that result in these large numbers of caches found in a day.

Using that second example from my previous post and starting near the CBD and ending up 45km away (straight line) I measured travel from cache to cache along main roads (with a few extra legs thrown in for mistakes and the fact I couldn't be real exact doing it this way) the distance travelled to visit 100 random caches was roughly 150km. This equates to less than 2 minutes travel between caches on average. That now gives 8 minutes of looking on average.

Working it out like I have above and having done a 2 hour run at a similar rate in the past you can see why I think that 100+ is achievable over even a 18 hour day.

djcache · Post by **djcache** » 23 September 06 3:05 pm

Ah. What I wouldn't give to have the ability to go out and find 10 caches in an afternoon without doing 150-250km...

All this numbers stuff is giving me a headache. Congrats to the Hawmorfords for the record they haven't claimed.

I think however I'll stick to caches with record kilometres between caches (eg my FTF on Northside's Canning Stock Route) rather than caches in areas with record muggle densities.

There seem to be a few who think it can be done and a few who seem to be unsure. Maybe I could be induced to try it some time.

I think I'd prefer Bendigo to Berwick though.

DJ