By Tanya Steele
A local community environmental group joined forces with an enthusiastic group of geocachers for a good cause this month.
On Sunday 21 July the Glenfern Valley Bushlands was chosen as the focus of a “Cache In Trash Out” event held by local geocachers from all over Victoria, many of whom live locally.
Hills resident and avid geocacher since 2013 Amanda Lenihan organised the day and said she had always seen the notice boards for the “Friends of Glenfern Valley Bushlands” group and had always wanted to help with their working bees.
“Putting it all together and having my two worlds collide was a real highlight,” she said.
Geocaching, which can be described as a form of modern-day orienteering sees people hunting for small ‘caches’ located by geographical coordinates with their mobile phones via an app.
Once you navigate to the correct spot, you have to find a small cache hidden in the area, you can then sign the log book.
Geocaches can be incredibly varied, some easy to spot and others requiring puzzle work and a keen eye to find.
“The first geocache I ever found was in Glenfern Reserve,” Ms Lenihan said.
“We’ve been going to the reserve for a long time and during lockdown it was one of our go-to places – it has that much stunning scenery there,” she said.
Ms Lenihan got in touch with the Friends of Glenfern Valley Bushlands and organised the ‘Cache in, trash out’ (CITO) event through the geocache app to help out with the monthly working bee.
“On the day we had ten volunteers from the Geocaching community attend – one came from as far away as Ballarat,” said Ms Lenihan.
“It’s just a great way for people who are interested in geocaching to give back to the environment because we’re out and about really enjoying all of these natural environments every day,” she said.
“We arranged to meet and had a wonderful briefing on the history of Glenfern Valley and some good visual cards to help identify invasive weeds.”
The group then got stuck into some weeding with the Friends of Glenfern Valley volunteers, making short work of the area that they were designated to for the day.
A volunteer with the Friends of Glenfern Valley group Daniel Jackson said it was very much like the group’s usual activities but on the day he was interested to learn more about geocaching itself.
“I didn’t realise that people abseil, climb trees and solve puzzles to find the caches – there was more to it than I realised,” he said.
“With their group joining us, it more than doubled our numbers for the day.”
“I had no idea about some of the technical abilities required to access some of the tricky to-get ones”
Ms Lenihan has done many CITO events over the years, but this is the first one she has organised herself – she’s also found around 3,500 geocache locations over the years.
Recently her geocache group planted trees in Kalorama Waters in Knox for National Tree Day and has been up at George Tindale Gardens helping out as well.
Geocaches can be found all over Victoria and beyond and Parks Victoria Area Chief Ranger Conrad Annal said that it always pays to be prepared when heading out into nature.
“Choosing the right hike means thinking about your fitness, the time you have available, what kind of things you want to see, and then picking something that is a good match for you and your fitness level,” he said.
“Make sure you tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, dress appropriately and stay on the marked trails. There’s lots of great information about preparing for a hike and staying safe on the Parks Victoria website.”
The CITO events have been held by geocache groups all around the world since 2002 and seek to improve the places in which caches are located – which the Friends of Glenfern group said on their Facebook page is a ‘wonderful’ initiative.
“We are appreciative of their help and camaraderie that morning,” the post read.
There are several caches hidden within the Glenfern Valley reserve one such cache has been there for almost twenty years. There are 2,843 geocaches around Melbourne alone.
The one in Glenfern “Glen’s Valley” has been there for almost 20 years and has been found by 485 people.
“Geocaching just gets you into places you would never think to go to normally yourself,” Ms Lenihan said.
“It keeps you physically and mentally active and I have made some great friends as well,” she said.
