Lane Cove

Lane Cove (GC3E) is the first geocache in Australia: placed on 18 May 2000 in Lane Cove National Park, north of Sydney, a fortnight after the game was invented. Paul Edwards had buried a white bucket there with only the lid showing, filled with drinks, tinned food, books and a logbook to sign. On Mike Teague's list, which then served as the official site, he called it a "stash": the word "geocache" did not exist yet.

On 19 August 2001, a national parks ranger removed the bucket: without knowing it, Edwards had hidden it in a stand of Darwinia biflora, a rare shrub protected within the park. The penalty went beyond the cache: placing geocaches was then banned in every national park in New South Wales - a veto only lifted in 2011, through an agreement negotiated with Geocaching NSW.
Even so, the cache survived: it became a virtual cache, a status Geocaching HQ later granted it officially for its historic role.

People still come, and the Australian gatherings for the game's 10th, 15th and 25th anniversaries were held here. Edwards asks that nobody go near the exact point: there is nothing to see and the scrub there is fragile. The stone staircase on Plassey Road leads to the marked trail and to a lookout over the Lane Cove River.