how many still use GeoWiki?

[Craig]

Thank you Bruce and Jon for your ongoing efforts with GeoWiki. I was simply trying to find out why Rod and Kerry were not getting any enquiries and thought it may have been associated with the clubs forum closure.

[BruceS]

Craig I'll be a 'test case' or is that a 'cot case'???
Been a little while since I took a look so I'll go see.
Can you give me a clue as to just roughly where your referred to camp spot is? (Kerry?)

Sorry...... Oakford... !!

[BruceS]

10 minutes is my limit. Nothing I could find at Oakford at all.
What is there Craig?

[Craig]

I find the easiest way to search on Geowiki is by maps. If you do a search for campgrounds around Perth you will find them.

[homeless]

I find if I am looking for a campsite in an area where I don't have one already is I use Google earth and zoom down and follow a river etc and find a spot where it appears you might be able to camp and then follow the track out and get a GPS bearing where the track joins the main road. With the GPS bearing you get to the start of the track and then just follow that to your spot.

Easy and you find some good ones just best to keep them to yourself though or it will be full or closed if you want to return

Another way is ASK in the town when you are buying your supplies. Local fishing shop usually good for a couple. Might need to buy some worms or hooks etc but small price to pay and you can feed the worms to the birds whilst at your new found camp site.

Regards
Brian

[Craig]

I find if I am looking for a campsite in an area where I don't have one already is I use Google earth and zoom down and follow a river etc and find a spot where it appears you might be able to camp and then follow the track out and get a GPS bearing where the track joins the main road. With the GPS bearing you get to the start of the track and then just follow that to your spot.

Easy and you find some good ones just best to keep them to yourself though or it will be full or closed if you want to return

Another way is ASK in the town when you are buying your supplies. Local fishing shop usually good for a couple. Might need to buy some worms or hooks etc but small price to pay and you can feed the worms to the birds whilst at your new found camp site.

Regards
Brian

Totally agree Brian. I cannot understand this need that people have to make common knowledge of every campsite they stumble across. Some of these sites have been used by locals for years and they do take offence to their sites being published and end up being over run by campers. In the end the council shuts them down due to the site being abused.

Craig

[BruceQ]

Brian & Craig

I look at it the other way - if we have plenty of sites listed then we will spread people out over a wider range of sites with fewer people per site. It seems to me that the crowded sites are in areas where there are just not enough sites listed.

The worst result of not listing more sites is the few that are listed do get overcrowded and they get closed down - making the next site in the area even more overcrowded, and then it gets closed down too .... downward spiral of less and less camps ... with more and more regulation

Making more sites known to more people means more options and less people per site = everyone happy

JMHO

[homeless]

I think it is best to agree to disagree on this one.

If someone gives me their favorite site then I am not going to give it away to all.

Same if I find a little spot in the never never I am not going to publish it as next time I go there it is either full or it is covered with rubbish.

I use the camps book when I am in transit from one place to another but I rarely stop in one for one of my extended stays.

I have my spreadsheet with all my sites in. Some are just as told to me so in a list form but many of them I have the GPS bearings and they are in my GPS and collated in the other list so I can check the description etc that I have. These come from word of mouth, my travels and from forums and other sources.

If they happen to be in the camps book then that's OK but if they are not then I sure wont be adding. Same as the new APPS where people are madly adding their favorite sites. I think they will be sorry later when they cant even get into the sites that were once perhaps only for a select few.

I thought that Geowiki should have been great asset but a hungry few in power decided they could make money out of it and gave all the info to the KEA campers and they in turn passed them on. That spelled the death nell and I assume why the original developers wont touch it anymore.

Anyway we are all different and I will follow my conscience and do it my way and you can follow yours.

Regards
Brian

[Rover All Over]

I might be playing devils advocate here but that's not m intention.

There are places we have camped that we thought we had all to ourselves and were relatively undiscovered, only ever stay one or two days, and have had the place all to ourselves. There have been occasions when we went back to some of these great places thinking no one uses them only to find that the next time there was not enough room for us to fit in and had to go elsewhere. The one thing that was different was the time of year and the season.

Places that are empty and abandoned one week can be crowded out the next.

So for that reason I agree with what Bruce had to say. Thinking along these lines - I we can find it then so can others and there are plenty out there looking.