New South Wales

NSW Reviewer

About This Guide

The local laws and guidelines for geocaching placement vary from place to place. As community reviewers learn geocache placement policies for a certain location, they can add it here. This site may not be a complete or accurate list of land policies. These policies are made by the land owner or manager, they are neither the reviewer’s nor Geocaching HQ’s. This guide is just for reference, if no policies for the area you’re looking for are listed, that doesn't mean no policies exist. You must still obtain permission to place your geocache from the landowner or land manager,comply with all applicable laws, and follow the Geocaching Listing Requirements.

If you have an update, email the community reviewer(s) listed.

Landowner Information

NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) allow the placing of geocaches on some controlled land provided the placement has been authorised in writing by an NPWS officer

Physical caches will not be allowed in:

Aboriginal areas
Declared wilderness areas
Nature reserves, or
Caves

due to the specific conservation requirements of these areas.

See: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/park-policies/geocaching
From that document:

This policy sets out the conditions under which geocaching can take place in parks. Geocachers are strongly encouraged to liaise with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to assess the suitability of a proposed cache location and to seek guidance on the information to be provided in cache listings.

Caches must not be located:
- in areas which may create a risk to the safety of a person visiting the cache or other park visitors
- within 50 metres of Aboriginal objects
- in, or within 50 metres of, Aboriginal places
- in dams, lakes, watercourses, or wetland areas
- in areas known to contain endangered ecological communities, threatened species or populations, or their habitats

The placement of a physical cache in a park requires written consent from the park authority (NPWS) under clause 13 of the National Parks and Wildlife Regulation 2019 (NPW Regulation).
To apply for consent, the cache owner needs to fill out the application form which is attached to the policy and deliver it to the relevant NPWS office. After it has been signed by the NPWS officer a scan of the form is to be emailed, preferably as a PDF, to ngaambul dot reviewer at gmail dot com.
To assist cache owners in providing current and relevant information, it is recommended that cache listings include links to the department's:

Estate Dataset

The latest version of the NPWS KMZ is available for download on the Geocaching NSW National Parks page

Sydney Olympic Park

The Sydney Olympic Park Authority require that permission be obtained before placing geocaches
in most of Sydney Olympic Park.
Currently there is no written policy, however SOPA want to know about all geocaches within their boundary.

Contact information:

Jennifer O'Meara
Parklands Ecologist
Sydney Olympic Park Authority
8 Australia Avenue, Sydney Olympic Park, NSW, 2127
P: +61 2 9714 7926 | F: +61 2 9714 7466 | M: +61 0409 300 242

The SOPA boundary KML file for Google Earth is available here and the protected area KML file here .

M7 motorway

The M7 motorway is privately owned with public access. The owners require that permission be obtained before any geocaches are placed along the M7 and the adjacent cycleway.

Barangaroo.

Infrastructure NSW (formerly Barangaroo Delivery Authority) have advised that currently they do not permit geocaches within the confines of Barangaroo, Sydney.

Their main concerns:

a) potential of any items being added or placed into the cache,

b) the risks associated with (a),

c) the reputational risks associated with (a)

See archive note on https://coord.info/GC62T3Y for more information

Community Caches

We recognise that there are certain caches that the community are interested in maintaining largely due to their age and location. For a cache to be maintained as a community cache under the following clauses the cache must be considered to be "significant", for this to occur it must meet the following criteria,

a) Be placed on or prior to 31st December 2004

b) Have a number of favorite points.

c) The cache still matches closely to the way it was originally hidden (no mint tins to replace an ammo can)

d) Have a cache owner that is no longer active.

e) Have a community member flag an interest in resolving an issue with the geocache before a reviewer has taken action upon the listing (Reviewer Note Warning, Disable Warning or Archive)

When a cache is community maintained the following will occur

a) Have a community that has expressed interest in maintaining the cache by posting a note to the cache page prior to any maintenance requests.

b) The community members will have the cache on a watchlist

c) The community will promptly respond to any maintenance requests by prompting a note to the cache page after concerns are raised.

d) For any small changes to the listing such as removing attributes please contact the local reviewer

Electrical Infrastructure

Geocaches are not to be hidden on Electrical Infrastructure in NSW. Based on Section 65 of the Electricity Supply Act 1995,

A person must not interfere with a network operator's or retailer's electricity works unless authorised to do so by the network operator or retailer concerned.

Pole "Fishing" caches

GCHQ has advised that a fishing "pole" is not considered to be specialised equipment and, as the finder is standing on the ground beneath the cache, the terrain rating is that of the land traversed to get to the finders standing position. The difficulty is the challenge of locating, retrieving and then replacing the container

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