This series of caches has been placed to celebrate each Scout Jamboree held in Australia. It has been hidden to coincide with the 24th Australian Jamboree being held at Cateract Scout Park during January of 2016. The Australian Scout Jamboree is a massive camp for Scouts which is held every three years by Scouts Australia and are for members of the Scout Section aged 11 to 15 years of age. They are hosted every three years on a revolving basis by one of the State Branches. The first Australian Jamboree was held in Frankston, Victoria in 1934 and was the only Australian Jamboree attended by the Chief Scout, Robert Baden-Powell.
This cache is all about the 9th Australian Boy Scout Jamboree. The Jamboree was held at Leppington, N.S.W. for over 10,000 Scouts and 2,000 leaders from 25 countries and was held between 29 December 1970 and 9 January 1971. This event was the final event of the Captain Cook Bicentenary celebrations in NSW and was called “The Jamboree of New Endeavour”.
The CO for this cache was a Rover at the time and worked for the Newcastle & Hunter Area as a staff person. A letter I wrote to a friend on the 29.12.1970 said:
“Well we arrived at the camp site at about 3:00PM on Sunday to find ourselves working in the mud and water shin deep. The rain had stopped by 4:00PM and we thought things would brighten up, but by 6:30PM it was raining again. We spent the rest of the night trying to detour water around the tents, it was just like a sheet covering the ground.
When we woke up yesterday we found it was sunny and we set to work to complete the erection of the ablutions blocks and handed out food packs to the Scouts as they arrived in camp.
I woke to at least 1inch (25mm) of water across the ground under my stretcher this morning. There have been over 250 Scouts arrive in our district since 5:00AM. I am just taking a break for breakfast, it’s 6:30AM and it is going to be our hardest day.”
During the Jamboree, even those working to see that the Scouts had everything they needed got some time off. I always remember that it was during this time that I went to my first ever Stage Play “Hair” at the Metro Theatre in Kings Cross.
While this CO no longer has a connection with the Scouting movement, it provided me with memories, skills and friendships that will last my lifetime. The greatest memory of all was being awarded the honor of Queen’s Scout in 1970 by Sir Roden Cutler.
The memorabilia that I occasionally bring out reinforces those memories and it is wonderful to be able to share some of those items in the form of copies and photos in this cache for others to see.
Access is restricted to the Dam grounds.
"Dam grounds 10am to 5pm daily. Extended hours, 10am to 7pm, on weekends and public holidays and during daylight saving time.
Entry is free No entry is permitted 15 minutes prior to closing time"
FTF Certificate and collectors items are included for the first Scout and Non Scout to log a find.
The use of spoilers:
The introduction of Social media to showcase caching activities is now starting to expand and I can see that over a period of time, more people will get involved and showcase their activities through this medium.
I believe that it takes away the experience that Geocaching offers. Tat for every person undertaking a cache hunt, it should be like they are the first to discover it. It is as much about the journey of finding the cache (working out the puzzle, thinking about where a cache might be hidden etc) as it is about finding the cache and racking up the numbers. Geocaching can take you to some beautiful and completely unexpected places. If someone has seen it on a Social media site, then the experience will no longer be a new experience.
It has been the reason why many people who have hidden caches check their logs regularly and remove spoiler images or logs. Geocaching is a controlled environment where the ownership and presentation is in the hands of the cache owner. The use of social media takes the ownership away from the cache owner and places it in the control of those working to discover the cache and present a story on an external medium. Once it has been presented on Social media, there is nothing a cache owner can do to remove it.
Geocaching is a game that everyone plays in their own way. The way Geocaching is set up means that every time a person finds a cache it is a new experience for them because they find it themselves and comment on their experience as a new finder, hopefully without a spoiler. After viewing a few spoiler reports on Social media and having to take action to remove spoiler activity presented in logs through Geocaching lately, I am requesting that this cache is not used for a Social media presentation. Please respect my request.