It's been a while since we've posted on here! We've done some geocaching in the meantime (although not a lot), but we've been slack at posting about our adventures. So, here goes!
I had a contact course at Massey University in Palmerston North, so during the trip, when I could I did some geocaching. It wasn't the easiest time to do it with the terrible storm that hit most of the North Island, but I did manage to search for six caches and I found four of them.
The first cache I found was on Friday, just metres from where I was catching the bus in Wellington. It is called Progressive Geometry and was near the art in the images below. It was a quick and easy cache, and made a good start to the weekend.
Saturday was too wet to do any geocaching, and my course took up the majority of the day, so on Sunday morning, carrying two rather heavy bags I headed off to the second day of my course. I found another relatively easy cache under a tree near the Hokowhitu Campus (Intravenous).
I went in search for Udderly Amoosing, which is inside the Hokowhitu Campus but was unsuccessful. It's somewhere on the art pictured below.
After my course I had a few hours to kill and a bit of walking to do, so I do a bit of geocaching in the time I had. I only searched for three and I didn't find one of them, but it used up most of the time I had before my bus ride back to Wellington.
Yesterday we took Rebecca's parents out for an introduction to geocaching. We headed up through Upper Hutt to Tunnel Gully and walked part of Tane's Track. Here we found two caches and a third cache near the carpark.
Tunnel Gully is a great place to explore and is very child friendly. There are several tracks and of course the 253m Mangaroa tunnel which was used as part of the railway between Wellington and the Wairarapa.
This post should've been written a few days ago, but life gets busy sometimes...
The other day we had a bit more of a difficult geocaching adventure. We initially set out to find 3 caches, but only found 1 of them.
The two we didn't find were along the Hutt River Trail. Perhaps having 5 kids searching around a highly populated area is not the best, as we were very conscious of people around us probably wondering what was going on. One of the things you need to do when searching for geocaches is be discrete. This is because if people who don't know about geocaching find the caches then they may take them away thinking they are neat treasures (which they are but we don't we them to disappear).
The cache we did find was at Wellington's Windiest Picnic Table. I must say, it wasn't very windy on this day. It was a lovely day, and we probably could've eaten lunch there without too much hassle.
We actually found a bonus cache today. This was one that we had unsuccessfully searched for in the past. Happened to need some groceries and this is around Countdown in Lower Hutt. This Urban Illusion #7 is well worth the search for if you are in the area. Seems to pop up on many favourite lists.
A few days ago was our 8th wedding anniversary. Yesterday we had babysitters for the day so the two of us took off on a geocaching adventure.
We ended the day with 13 successful finds and several DNFs (did not find). A couple of them, we actually couldn't find. Many of them however were in very busy spots where we felt too conspicuous for more than a quick check. Will have to try them again at some point. We'll highlight a few of the more interesting finds.
We started our day with 2 multi caches. These involve going to the given location and solving a puzzle that gives you the coordinates for either the next stage or the final destination (depending on the number of stages in the multi). Both the ones we did (An unusual sport and Garden of Remembrance) were 2 stages, and were a great introduction to this type of geocaching.
Inbetween more traditional finds, we also attempted parts of a series of caches called Urban Illusions. The point of these are to challange your thinking as to what can constitute a "cache" - it doesn't have to be a specific sized container, and in fact could be anything! We had success with #3, #6, #10 and #12, but weren't so fortunate with #2 or #7. Check out the log (last photo) for an example of an Urban Illusion cache.
Here's a few photos from our day.
By the way, does anybody know what a "Mosquito Consultant" does? LOL
We were thrilled to learn we'd inspired someone to give geocaching a go. Good luck on your next adventure, @haikugirlOz!
If you are a member of geocaching.com, send us a friend request to CachingInNZ.
It was a bit of a windy day today but we thought we'd still give our new favourite pastime a go. We headed over to Jubilee Park in the hopes of it being a bit more sheltered. Luckily for us it was!
Jubilee Park is full of beautiful New Zealand native bush. On one side of the park is State Highway 2. It's pretty much opposite the CBD. The first image below is of the highway. The second image is right next to the highway.
Our first cache (Minoh's Retreat) brought us near the historic Minoh House. This was tricky to find (the cache, not the house) and we ended up resorting to using the hint. We placed the geocoin we retrieved on our last outing in this cache.
Our next find was Minoh's Hidden Fall's. This was a short, pleasant bush walk away. The path was quite narrow at some spots with a nice drop off the side making some of the kids a little nervous. We made it however and discovered a lovely spot.
Although the walk was quite easy, finding the cache was not. Reception for the GPS was not great and it was jumping all over the place. Again we resorted to the hint, but even this did not help us greatly! We found it in the end after searching several spots.
Our third and final find of the day was a short drive away at The Greenaway. This is an unusual little park next to an overbridge crossing SH2. It wasn't a difficult find, but it was difficult keeping the kids out of the gardens and making a mess! All-in-all a great mornings geocaching!
We were only a little way up the hill when we found somthing that we wanted to take a picture of but our camera stopped working so we took it with Dads phone instead.
Then we went back to climbing the steep hill.
When we finally got to where the cache was hidden we searched around for a while in the bush and then Dad found it. It was about as big as a pill container and was hidden very well.
Last night we decided to go geocaching today if the weather was good. After a little bit of research, we realised that there are 6 caches along 3 intersecting trails in the hills in southern Wainuiomata, so we planned to head there.
With the day being fine we packed a bag and headed out. First on the list was Gum Loop Track and Gum Trouble, followed by ticking Alluring off the list. Two nice, easy finds to set the mood.
We then took what we thought would be an easy trip up the Tana Umanga Track to look for Tana's Track. Um, nope! Further investigation after we got home has told us we went up the wrong way - the steep way. No kidding! Not a walk we'll be doing with young kids again in a hurry, but the view was spectacular.
After a quick detour to find Sledge Stump, we carried on back down Sledge Track towards the Quintessential Cache, in the hopes of maybe finding it. The last couple of searchers had failed so we weren't too hopeful but figured it was worth a shot. After looking all around (including where it was supposed to be) we were joined by Tony, the cache owner, who was generous enough to let us sign the log of the replacement cache he'd brought.
We rounded out our trip by heading down to the spot affectionally called GC46, New Zealand's oldest active cache. Thanks to Tony's warning, we kept the kids back while one of us went into the gorse and blackberry in search of it. In the end, Nathaniel found it to make a total of 6 finds for the day.
Thanks to a wrong turn, we ended up walking back down the end of Reservoir Road before rejoining Gum Loop Track and heading for home. It took us 3 hours, but was a great morning out.
We took the kids on our first ever geocaching adventure today and found two caches. We stayed close to home in Wainuiomata and found an easy one to begin with and then went on a bit more of an adventure for the second cache.
The first cache was found at Brian Heath Park. This was a nice easy one to begin with and the kids had fun searching for it. A good introduction to using the GPS for the children and to get some idea of what sort of thing they might be looking for in future adventures.
Our second cache was found at Rotary Park. This truly did become an adventure once we discovered we were on the wrong side of the river. We decided it was easier to carry children (and dog - we had no towels!) across the shallow water than find an alternate route (which really would've meant going back up to the main road.
We let the kids control the GPS and lead the way. The person with the GPS was 'in charge' (but not able to suggest the purchase of ice creams - nice try MissK10).
All in all it was a great first geocaching adventure! The kids all want to do it again already and also hide some caches. They also want to make trinkets to leave behind.
