What is Geocaching Australia ?

(West Oz Geocaching supports ALL geocaching. We are not restricted to any one listing site)

Geocaching Australia, or GCA, (www.geocaching.com.au) is an alternative listing site to the www.geocaching.com or GC website that most people are familiar with.

Many people often ask, "What's the difference between the geocaching site I use, and GCA ?"

Geocaching.com has been operating since 2000 and a majority of Australian caches are listed there. Geocaching Australia started as a resource site, providing services like Maps and Statistics to Australian Geocachers which weren't available elsewhere. The site began listing caches in early 2005 and is a serious alternative for listing your cache.

There are many Pro's and Con's for listing on either of the websites. For a more detailed listing, check out this link for a comparison of GCA vs GC.

One thing to keep in mind, is that while each site has it's own listings, and you shouldn't duplicate listings (i.e. list the same cache on both services), by default, ALL geocaching.com listings will also appear on geocaching.com.au

GCA offers a number of features that are not available on GC.

To begin with, there are a number of "types" of geocaches that are not available or GC, or are no longer available. As an example, as well as the standard GC cache types, there are also the following types on GCA.

VIRTUAL CACHES - Virtual caches are a benefit to people who live near National Parks where physical containers may not be permitted.

LOCATIONLESS CACHES - Locationless caches are a benefit to people who live in cache poor areas but still want to play the game. They find things that match the cache criteria and log their location.

HISTORY CACHES - History caches (a type of virtual with questions and answers) allow you to create a series of caches highlighting a historical area without having maintenance issues or permissions issues. There is no container to find, just the questions to answer which can only be done on site.

WEBCAMS - Webcams. Who doesn't love a small, grainy, out of focus picture of themselves taken from a camera 200 meters away by someone at home 1,000km away

TRIGPOINTS - The first geocache. Look for them at the tops of most mountains and hills. Easy to find a challenge to get to. As a community asset you can always update, change and edit the TP listing to make it more accurate or archive it if on private property. You not only get the benefits of a find, you also get the views from the top of the mountain.

For a full list of the types of geocaches available on each listing site, follow this link.

GEOCACHING GAMES

Further to these cache types, there is a range of GAMES available.

Join the dragonZone games arena http://geocaching.com.au/dragonzone/.

Find and hide geocaches and accumulate points which you can then use to control a cache, a zone or help your clan to control a state. There is more info here.

Join in a game or two. http://geocaching.com.au/dragonzone/game/
Run once or twice a year, a chance to win some prizes, get involved in geocaching and challenge yourself and your mates. Struggle up hills, down dales and across rivers and swamps, all for the small chance of winning a token pathtag reward prize. Go on. Do it.

LISTING GUIDELINES

One of the other major difference between the two sites are the listing guidelines. The guidelines for the GC website can be found here. The listing guidelines at GCA are a lot more flexible.

You want to hide a cache 100m from another one. Knock yourself out. We're not going to restrict you.

You want to self publish your caches? It's what we do. Hide, list and publish at your convenience. No waiting for weeks for a reviewer beholden to the rules of another country.

Would you like GCA to publish your cache at midnight, two weeks from now when your asleep in bed. Set it up properly and we'll do just that.

Want to create some caches for an event that will only last a day or two? GCA welcomes you to make up and archive caches as you need.

The listing requirements at Geocaching Australia are what you and the community make of them. It's all self service.