My Route

This page contains information specific to Geocaching Australia.

My Route is a function developed by Geocaching Australia to show you caches within a defined distance from a route you have chosen.

Creating a kml file to load as your My Route

• Go to Google Maps.
• Click on Get Directions onthe left hand side of the page near the top.
• Enter your start location in the box marked A. This can be as specific as a street number and name or generic like a suburb / locality.
• Enter your end location in the box marked B. This can be as specific as a street number and name or generic like a suburb / locality.
• Click Get Directions
• You can change any of the intermediate points of the route determined by Google by moving your mouse over the route line and dragging the line around until the route fits where you want to go.
• If you make a hash of a particular route it is easier to start again rather than try and fix the route.
• Try to keep routes to a reasonable distance. It is unlikely you will drive from Melbourne to Brisbane in one day, so make multiple routes based on where you will stop. Shorter routes will return caches along that route faster and will keep the load on the website reasonable.
• Once you are satisfied with your route click on Link on the right hand side near the top.
• Click in the Paste link in email or IM box to select the route.
• Copy the link by using CTRL-C or Edit | Copy depending on which browser you are using.
• Paste the link using CTRL-V or Edit | Paste into the address bar (the bar that has http://) but do NOT yet press enter.
• Scroll to the end of the link and add &output=kml to the end of the link.
• Press enter.
• You will be prompted to download a kml file containing the points of your route.
• Save the file to your computer in a location you can find again.
• Please do NOT edit the kml file. My Route expects the fil as it is generated by Google Maps and any interference with the file may cause the My Route loader to fail.

Creating A My Route

Routes are private. No one else will be able to view or use your route.

• Log in to Geocaching Australia.
• Go to My | Route (via the navigation tabs, hover over My then select Route).
• Click on Create New Route
• Enter a meaningful name for your route.
• Enter a meaningful description for your route.
• Enter a search radius for your route. Please note that the greater the radius, the longer the system will take to return caches. A radius of 5km is probably the maximum you would want to consider. For a shorter radius, use decimals. i.e. 0.25 for 250m. The minimum computed diatance between points in your kml route file is 250, so a radius of less than 125m may fail to return some caches along the route. A radius of 500m (0.5) to 5 (5km) will probably serve most people best.
• Click on the Browse button. This will open the files on your computer so you can select the kml route file you created at Google Maps. Find the file and then click Open. The full directory of where your kml route file exists will be populated into the KML file to upload box.
• Click on Save Route
• All things being equal your route will load and be available for your use.
• If your route fails to load, please contact a site administrator via the forums.

Using My Route

There are 6 actions which can be taken on your route.