I’m not sure how I stumbled across Geotalk and their podcast episode 28, at a guess it was from Geocaching.com.au, either way I’m pleased I found it

About the Geotalk Podcast: Geotalk is a fortnightly podcast produced in Australia about geocaching. Geocaching is a ‘high tech’ treasure hunt, using hidden containers, known as geocaches, a GPS receiver and the internet.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was really cool to be able to listen to something a little more close to home. Overall, it’s well worth a listen to and I’m now slowly working my way back through the previous episodes.. you have to love iTunes for making the seemingly complex oh so simple

To quote directly from the summary of Episode 28:

Geotalk travels to Albury-Wodonga to chat with Marcus Vitruvius and then on to Tasmania to find out more about the Geocaching Association of Tasmania. A big thank you to those people who have made Geotalk a featured podcast on the iTunes Australia store. Don’t forgot that you can win a Geotalk geocoin by leaving a comment on the iTunes Australia or New Zealand store.

Links for the show:

• Geocaching’s eighth anniversary – the original stash
  
• WWFM III events in Australia – event being organised by the Podcacher podcast
  • Make a Federal case of it by Rhinogeo & Facitman (GC19T7Q)
  • The Last Post by Tealby (GC19Y0Q)
• Australia’s first Where I Go cache – Flight of fancy by Mr Emu (GC1BCA3). Opps! It’s in Geelong and I said Perth.
  
• iPhone coming to Australia – SMH.com.au
• Marcus Vitruvius profile page on GCA.com.au
• Geocaching Tasmania Inc on GCA forums

We missed out on attending our local (Auckland) GC18W59: WWFM III – Kiwi Stylie event, it looks like they all had an awesome time… fingers crossed for our attendance next time

A Geocache causes a bomb scare in Auckland NZ… makes international news!

Everyone it seams likes a good scare or major threat these days, world news is full of terrorist threats, bomb scares and epidemics, “Good news is no news” has never been more true even if it involves stretching, misinterpreting or blatant miss-reporting of the facts and truth.

<rant mode on>
The slightest hint of suspicion is taken so seriously with enormous amounts of time and resources assigned when maybe a little common sense would have been a better solution? “Better safe then sorry” But doesn’t this apply to everyday life? Suddenly a potential bomb threat is more likely to endanger life than the known real offenders on the streets causing injury and loss of life to innocent people on a daily basis. This is fairly typical as the resources have already been assigned for dealing with these (potential) threats, the procedures already in place, and guidelines followed to the letter (well would you want to be the one held accountable if it was real!?). What is the real threat out there? Understandably there is a real threat out there, but with today’s global reporting, world incidents suddenly appear to be relevant on a local level; You won’t find a rubbish bin on a train station in London, leave a bag unattended and if the thieves operating at the station don’t grab it first then it’s whisked away by security as a suspicious package. So should bins in all public places be removed? If for whatever reason you post white powder it has to be anthrax and dealt with accordingly.. Shut the post sorting depot and decontaminate all the workers first before reading the label addressed to the local bakery.
</rant mode off>

If someone had dropped a briefcase in the same manor as the cache, would it have been given the same degree of alarm? From what I understand the police have confiscated the cache and the contents, surly this is simply lost property? They made a mistake.. it wasn’t a bomb.. Hand it back over!

(more…)