As many of you know, despite being from New Brunswick I go to university in New Zealand and I’ve enjoyed some great geocaching in that part of the world. Recently, someone near Christchurch has taken a really strange dislike to geocaching and has started kidnapping geocaches.
Looking for a geocache?
To late… You’ve been archived by the Anti Cacher!
(If you want your cache back deposit one bag of pineapple lumps in the nearby mail box… come alone… don’t call the police! Joke about the pineapple lumps! but there will be an opportunity to get your cache back! Stay tuned!)
(Pineapple Lumps, by the way, are a popular made-in-New Zealand candy.)
When this first started happening in mid-January, and people began posting about it on the Geocaching New Zealand Facebook group, I was confused about where these “ransom” notes were being found. It turns out, the Anti Cacher is removing the cache and leaving his/her own small container with this note inside. Numerous caches have gone missing around Christchurch, which is leading many COs to change their caches to Premium Only. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago some Premium Only caches were also kidnapped. No one knows who the Anti Cacher is, and now that PO hides are also disappearing, people don’t really know what they can do about it. The Anti Cacher has become of particular concern because in October, Christchurch is hosting the 3rd NZ Mega.
What would you do, if this was happening here?