This cache provides a quick tour around some of the features of Johnstone Park in Geelong. The well-established trees and lawns make this a popular place for community events, office workers on their lunch breaks, and wedding photographers. It also contains a number of historically significant monuments. The nature of a Wherigo cache provides some "virtual" tasks that you will need to accomplish in order to obtain the coordinates for the final physical geocache.
Allow 30-45 minutes for the tour, or more if you wish to rest and enjoy a snack while you're here.
This cache has been listed as wheelchair-accessible. Feedback as to the suitability of this rating would be most welcome.
Whereigo Details
To play, you need to download the Cartridge from the Whereigo.com site using this link.
Whereigo development by Groundspeak stalled in 2008 and the software/hardware combination from that time could sometimes be unstable. If you have older-but-compatible hardware you may see it lock up on your unit from time to time. Some Wherigo developers have suggested that you save your Cartridge after any interaction with it (e.g. picking up an item) so you don't have to re-start the adventure from the beginning if your unit does lock up. I cannot yet vouch for this recommendation. In any case, please ensure you have the latest version of the Whereigo Player loaded on your PDA.
Every care has been taken to eliminate errors, and this Cartridge has been completed using both the Garmin Colorado, Pocket PC and more recently iPhone (see note below). I encourage people to try this out on the emulator if they don't have the required hardware (details below) - you could still find the cache this way.
If you don't have any Whereigo compatible equipment yet*, but still want to experience what it's like, download the Whereigo Builder and then run the Whereigo Cartridge in the Emulator. You will need to email me through my GC.com profile to get the code needed at the first stage of the adventure, otherwise you won't be able to continue (you can't rely on the information in Google to match the real world answer here). Once you get the final location in the Emulator, use your GPS and go out to find the cache like you would do a Traditional cache (Google Earth won't help you here - too many clouds). If you do the cache this way, we would ask that you state you did it using the emulator in your logs.
*I can confirm that Wherigo can now be done with an iPhone, using the "PiGo" app. Both the Pocket PC and Garmin Oregon version seem to run okay. I've done a full walk-through on-site with the Garmin Oregon version of the cartridge on my iPhone 3GS with PiGO. The only slight problem is that my original program does not have an explicit unlock code, so without having a way to upload the completed cartridge, I don't know how you could unlock it on the Wherigo website upon completion. (However with my cartridge you can use the emulator afterward - having collected the required hint-code for one section, found on site - to generate the completed cartridge and unlock on the Wherigo website.)
The prize of a new, unactivated Australia 2008 (gold) geocoin for each of the first finders using these platforms has been won by VKC1SR (Pocket PC) and embi (Garmin Colorado). Thank you to both of them for their early feedback.
The Cache
The Whereigo adventure leads you to a final physical geocache box. You need to sign the logbook in this in order to claim a find on GC.com and you can also log the completion of the cartridge on Wherigo.com if you like.
You are looking for a painted, screw-top 5" x 1" plastic cylinder, holding a log and a pen. A very specific spoiler photo is included at the end of this Whereigo adventure, but you will need another code to reveal it. Note that one part of the spoiler photo (one of the current display paintings) will be out of date. If you are on-site and desperate, you may need to phone a previous finder or "phone-a-friend" to get my mobile number!
Please be extremely stealthy at the final location as this area can be very busy at times. If you resort to the spoiler photo you will see that it should be possible to retrieve and return the cache without compromising its location.
First-to-find prize for the physical cache (emulator finds allowed) was a new "Mr Emu - Cache Surfer" pathtag.