We are now back and catching up after attending the UK Mega events. A nice range of cache types and difficulties have been published in our absence:

GCBAQC4 Walk to the beach by JGibson16062012 Traditional D2/T2
GCBAP8B River below by Theonator8772 Traditional D1/T1
GCBAP78 Ciara’s crash by Theonator8772 Traditional D3/T2
GCBAMGA Stone pole by Jackinnorthwales Traditional D1/T1
GCBAHNZ Bethel, Pont Charlie by Math1212 Traditional D2/T2
GCBAD9Y Dod yn ôl at fy Nghoed by Clueless_Goose Mystery D3.5/T2
GCBA909 The Toy Box by gethv1 Traditional D1/T2

Premium Member Only
GCBAVKR The Bridge, the Beast and the Bounty! by RichieBlod Traditional D1/T1
GCBAMKV Anglesey GeoMon – Orogenic Origins by MrMagnaDefender Earthcache D4/T2.5
GCBAMFB YOSM #1277 Mynydd Bodafon by MrMagnaDefender Earthcache D3.5/T3

Event Reminder
Tomorrow night!
GCBA6JY Come and Join Us at Criccieth by The Creepy Crawlies Event D1/T1
Where: The Lion Hotel, Criccieth
When: Wednesday 6th August, 2025
Time: 6pm-7pm
The Creepy Crawlies will be travelling around Wales for a week on holiday. They would like to meet both local and not so local Geocachers to discuss our fascinating hobby. Also they are fully supporting the UK Mega 2026 Committee and are keen to discuss this event.

9US Birthday Party

GCAW0G4 9 US Celebrate International Geocaching Day by 9 Usual Suspects
Where: Plas Gwernoer, Nantlle
When: Saturday 16th August, 2025
Time: 2pm-6pm (the bar will remain open until the last person leaves!)
Games Start Time: 2.30pm
BBQ: 5pm
Trackable Raffle Draw: 5.30pm
9 Usual Suspects invite you to join them in the beautiful Nantlle Valley to celebrate their 10th Birthday, 25 years of Geocaching and International Geocaching Day, the theme for this years event is ‘An Afternoon of Birthday Fun Games’. We will also be taking a look back at our adventures over the last 10 years.

Please log will attends so that we have a rough idea on numbers for catering and prizes.

Virtual Awards 5.0

Geocaching HQ have announced the next release of 4,000 Virtual Caches as part of their 25th anniversary celebrations. Geocachers who meet the following criteria will automatically be eligible for selection on February 3rd, 2026.

• You must have three non-Event geocaches published in 2025.
• You must have created your geocaching account before July 29, 2025.
• Prior Virtual Reward recipients are eligible to participate.
• Players who opted-in for Virtual Rewards 2.0 and 3.0, and/or who qualified for Virtual Rewards 4.0, but did not receive a Virtual Cache will have a higher likelihood of receiving a Virtual Reward 5.0.

On February 3rd, 2026, Geocaching HQ will randomly select up to 4,000 eligible geocachers to receive one Virtual Cache. Recipients will have one year to create their Virtual Cache page and submit it for review (February 3rd, 2026–February 3rd, 2027). The caches must comply with Virtual Cache-specific guidelines.

Note: An algorithm to help distribute Virtuals will be used favouring countries/areas that do not have many Virtual Caches.

Why not make Virtual Caches available for everyone to hide?
Because today’s active Virtual Caches are rare and generally well-liked, people often forget the problems that led to the Virtual becoming a legacy cache type in 2005.
The Virtual Cache type was initially created to place a cache where physical caches were not permitted or high-traffic areas made a physical cache impractical. While the intent of this cache type was positive, it created significant problems for geocaching community volunteer reviewers and often led to poor cache quality. Some players used Virtual Caches as a shortcut to create basic caches that did not require maintenance. Guidelines were eventually updated to require Virtuals to have special qualities to set them apart from other caches. However, the subjectivity introduced to the review process became difficult for both reviewers and cachers. The decision was finally made for the Virtual to become a legacy cache type to avoid these issues.

GIFF 2025

We have been asked if we are hosting GIFF this year. We intend to host this popular event on Sunday 9th November. We still have to confirm the venue but hope to be returning to Canolfan Talysarn, as soon as the venue is confirmed we will publish the event and further details.