And the April 2016 Geocacher of the Month Is…

By Alex Danie Viljoen
Danie Viljoen, April 2016 Geocacher of the Month

Since beginning geocaching in 2008, geocacher Danie Viljoen has been an active member of the southern African geocaching community. After reading an article about geocaching and finding an excellent geocache near his house, he was hooked. And, Danie says, the game fit well into his personal interests. “As an engineer, the technical aspects of geocaching appealed to me.”
There were less than 3000 geocaches in South Africa at the time.
Danie finds GC11H2Z, and a view overlooking the Blyde River Canyon“I remember attending a technical event shortly after I started caching, where somebody said that there are 3 aspects of caching: finding caches, hiding caches and solving puzzles. Although I like all three of these, I want to add a fourth (my favourite) – generating statistics on finds, hides, locations, etc. I publish these on the local (South African) geocaching forum.”
Geocacher Carbon Hunter adds: “[Danie’s] biggest contribution to geocaching, both locally and globally, has been his consistent and interesting inputs into the statistics of geocaching across Africa. His inputs on the forums are legendary and he was also used by Geoaware to develop statistics for the global Earthcache program on their 10th anniversary. This has provided unique insights to our game and added a lot of value to many people he is unlikely to ever meet.”
Danie finds the cache…and a muggle nearby.When asked what the best geocache he’s ever found was, Danie shared a story about a geocaching expedition very few others can say they’ve had.
“There are so many [geocaches] that stand out. I’ll answer with my most memorable cache: GC1KNCX – JohanChristel. I found this cache in 2009 and it has remained unfound since then! To get to the cache required quite a long walk in a reserve on a farm (7 km, 4 miles). The owner warned me that one of their leopards recently had cubs, so I was quite nervous during this walk (I was alone). On my way back I stopped to rest and to take a photo of a calf, and the next thing I heard was a bellowing bull, which chased me all the way down the mountain! Remarkable how that energized me.”
We can only imagine.
Thank you Danie for your outstanding contributions to the Geocaching community!

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