Hidden beach

Of course I had to forget my camera on our first beautiful sunny summer beach geocache! We went to JFK Reserve, which is on Beach Road in Castor Bay. They recently put up a new playground, and what a playground it is! It's got a fantastic rope-y construction which you can climb. And even more fun, they've put in one of those old-fashioned roundabout things. Remember the ones where you all sit in a circle and you have to push it with your hands to go round? The kids had a great time!

After a long play, we did manage to get the kids to focus on the geocache. The walk took us through the park, past the bunkers and towards a beautiful lookout onto Rangitoto and the harbour. The park itself is on the cliff-tops, but there's a stairs (newly built) that takes you down to the beach. Hidden from view, and I guess, not many people know about it. After finding the geocache, we went down for a picnic and play at the beach.

What a great day we had and what a great beginning to our summer geocaching!

Such a shame I didn't get to take any pictures of the day :-(

Little Shoal Bay

Geocaches: Le Roy-Al, Princess of the Bay

The Queen of Little Shoal Bay

Great new faces trying out our weekly geocaching! The weather was perfect, warm and sunny, reminding us that summer is just around the corner.

Geocaching was great too. We had some real fun doing the multi 2-stage geocache and finding the final. But the first geocache eluded us, even though we tried twice, the kids not wanting to give up. Somewhere in the picture below is where it's hidden. We'll have to try again some day.

Afterwards we went across the road to the beach, watching one of our cute toddlers making sand angels in the sand and the other kids patting the cute little (handbag) dogs on the BBQ. No the BBQ was not on and the dogs were not about to get grilled either!

Next month will be a little busy with school holidays, camp and labour weekend. Not sure if we can fit geocaching in, but we'll try!

A muddy affair

Geocaches: New Life @ The Big Pond

Mr Smith's Backyard

Our wonderful group of geocaching kids!

Smith's Bush is a lovely little reserve near Smales Farm. And the top part is all boardwalk paths, great for rainy and muddy days. But not for us. The geocaches we were after, were located in the bottom part of the reserve, taking us over an old stone bridge, and a very slippery muddy slope. I'm sure we took more mud home on our clothes than we left behind. But the kids loved it and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

After our adventurous mud slide, we came to the pond and to our first geocache. We've been very lucky again with another great idea from someone for this cleverly camouflaged geocache. Can you spot it in the picture?

Someone had the clever idea to paint a magnetic box in the same colours as the fence!

We had a break from geocaching when we discovered one of our little ones had wandered off. I want to thank every one who helped looking and especially the mum who had the safety talk to our kids afterwards. It's understandable that the kids want to run off as soon as they get the coordinates, but safety must always come first!

So from now on, before we go off, we'll have a little reminder about this each time!

This is not the second cache. We discovered an abandoned tent in the bush when we were looking for the geocache.

This is the second geocache. And may the swapping begin!

After our hunt, we slowly walked back up another muddy slope and back to the nice and dry boardwalk path. Before we got back to the car park, I showed them a little hidden secret in the reserve. Two faces and some other carvings in a tree stump. No one knows who carved them and why. But it's a neat little secret to know about, next time you're in Smith's Bush.

PS I never did find out who Mr Smith is.

Sugar, sugar!

Geocaches: History of Chelsea

Sweetwood

Sugar Lump

We spent a wonderful sunny afternoon at Chelsea Heritage Park.

History Of Chelsea

In 1882 the New Zealand Government offered a bounty to the first company or group of individuals to set up a sugar refinery in New Zealand. Up to this time all sugar was imported from Australia.

The bounty was picked up by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia, which formed the New Zealand Sugar Company in a partnership between itself, the Victorian Sugar Company and a number of New Zealand businessmen including such well-known names as Horton, L D Nathan, W S Wilson and Sir Frederick Whitaker. This partnership lasted until the 1888 depression when it was absorbed by the Colonial Refining Company.

The original site of 160 acres (later expanded to 450 acres), was purchased because it had a large area of flat land for the refinery, fresh water from Duck Creek, deep water for a port, and building materials on site, all within four miles of Auckland city.

Construction started early in 1883, and took 18 months to complete. Clay from excavations was used to make 1.5 million bricks by hand - one million for the refinery and half a million for the dams across Duck Creek. Duck Creek was an ideal site for a sugar refinery. The Waitemata Harbour is at its deepest a few yards from shore. The Creek itself could supply the fresh water required for refining sugar, and there was enough land for the refinery buildings.

The refinery had hardly opened before the world sugar market collapsed. By 1887, after four profitless years, amalgamation seemed the only answer. Shares in the New Zealand company were exchanged for CSR shares. The legacy of this exchange are some 7,000 New Zealanders (more than in several Australian states) who own CSR shares today.

The name "Chelsea" came from the first customs officer at the Refinery, who named it after his home town in England-Chelsea.

Still on its original site, the New Zealand Sugar Company is one of New Zealands top 100 companies, and "Chelsea" has become one of New Zealands icon brands.

The Cache-of-the-Day took us to a little bush in one of the corners of the park. Can you see the cache in the next photo?

If you haven't spotted it, it's the grey rock in the middle. The rock is fake and there's an opening in the middle for a cache. Isn't that just a wonderful ingenious hiding place? I'm really amazed at the effort people go to for the perfect camouflage.

We spent a lot of the day walking around, enjoying the park and also getting a bit lost in the bush. Our very keen geocachers went ahead and left us stragglers behind to wander around in the bush looking for a path. Luckily there were parents in both groups so there was no real danger, but we were a bit dumbfounded when we couldn't find the path the others had taken and we decided to just wait for them to come back after they found the cache, which they did.

Now it was time for a bit of a break at the sculpture. This is an original old sugar grabber with a sugar cube (fake). Apparently there's a tiny microcache hidden somewhere on the sculpture but despite lots of searching and climbing, spiders and cobwebs, it eluded us. We wondered if it had been lost or maybe pushed in too deep for us to find?

All in all, one sweet afternoon!

Geocaching and coffee!

Boy, was the field wet! Hands up if you didn't get wet feet. LOL

We went to Windsor Park today for our geocaching afternoon. The first one took us through a very wet playing field, right to the very corner (which was also the clue). Some of us (including myself) were busy trying to keep our feet dry and it was left to the brave, daring ones who didn't mind a bit of water. Thanks!

There was also a geocoin inside it. A geocoin is a special made coin with a code, which travels from geocache to geocache. When you find a geocoin, you take the coin and log your find with the special code on www.geocaching.com. Sometimes the owners of the coin have a special mission for it, like reaching a certain country or place, but usually it just travels from cache to cache, trying to get to as many places as possible.

This geocoin was released in Germany on May 17th, 2009. To date it's travelled 13894 miles and it's been to Austria, Czech Republic, where it stayed a while,

then to France, Australia and now it's here in New Zealand. Who knows where else it will go to?

After the treasure swapping, the kids took the GPS with the coordinates for the next geocache and apparently this time it took them straight to the right spot in one direct line. The kids were running towards the tree even before they knew for certain if it was the right place. It seems that they're already spotting the likely locations where the cache could be hidden, before they even get there. Well done!

And look at the clever camouflage of this one:

After this little wet outing, we all deserved a treat at the Windsor Cafe. For a moment it looked like we were going to be out of luck due to the Fire Truck arriving, but luckily it was only a false alarm and we all had a wonderful afternoon chatting and drinking coffee while the kids played.

Thanks every one for a wonderful afternoon and we'll see you at the Chelsea Sugar Refinery next week!

Psst, forgot to mention that this was our 20th find! Well done, every one!

Under The Bridge

What a turnout this week! Every one was keen to see what the underside of the bridge looked like and for once, to walk underneath instead of drive over the bridge.

Auckland Bridge: built in 1959, took 200 workers 4 years to complete. They needed 6000 tons of steel and 6000 tons of concrete for it. Ten years later, they added the famous 'Nippon-Clip-Ons' to increase the lanes from four to eight. Two hundred thousand (200 000) vehicles drive over it in one day, which makes it over 6o million per year. The length of the bridge is a little over 1000 metres. In comparison, the sky tower is approximately 360 metres. So if you were to lay the tower on it's side along the bridge, it wouldn't even reach half way. The highest point of the bridge isn't in the centre, it's over the deepest part of the harbour. And with any famous monument, the bridge has its own urban myth. According to this myth (=untrue), a construction worker fell into one of the supports, the concrete set fast around him and it was too expensive to get him out. But as I said, this is just a myth. :-)

Photos from http://cmi.transit.govt.nz/html/cmi/history.htm

We enjoyed some of those little facts standing underneath the bridge before looking for the geocache which was hidden near by. We encountered one major problem though: no signal underneath the bridge. Our GPS didn't work! We had to rely on a map on my iPhone and the clues given on the geocaching site. And after some floundering about, and including being puzzled over a road which didn't exist, we managed to get to the right area. One clue gave us several possibilities, but with our ever keen and clever kids, it didn't take them long to find the right spot and the geocache!

With so many kids, the swapping part took a while and it was fun being in the centre for once, seeing how the trinkets kept changing as the kids took one and put in another. We had marbles, McDonalds toys, cars, even coins, erasers, stickers, bubbles, plastic bugs and lots more. And it was so good to see every one being fair and nice to each other! Well done!

After putting the cache back in its spot, we took the long way back to the playground, where we enjoyed afternoon tea and the kids had fun playing, while we, mums, got to chat. It was especially nice to see new faces this week!

Raining Cats and Dogs

Unlike the title of this post, the weather was great and sunny! Although a little bit on the cold side.

We discovered this neat little park, tucked away in a corner of Northcote. It's called Stafford Park and it's a great place for the kids to play: playground, huge fields, trees, toilets and a picnic table.

We had a fun all-boys group today. Four mums and 6 boys, including a lovely family who just moved over here from America. Welcome!

After a run around on the playground and meeting each other, we went off in search of the first geocache 'Raining Cats and Dogs'. The GPS took us to the toilet facility and using the hint 'where the rain goes', we checked all the drains and pipes. It was a very easy and quick find!

The second cache of the day was an even quicker find. I was lagging behind the group trying to look up the hint on my iPhone but our clever geocaching kids didn't need the clue. They found the cache before I even got there!

This cache had the obligatory toy swap which went on long into the playtime at the playground. Swapping, discussing, showing, swapping, discussing and more swapping!

Thanks for another fun afternoon!