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!

Too sick to go geocaching

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised by the quiet in our house. Usually I'd be woken up by sounds of "CRASH! BOOM! BANG!" Today, all was quiet. Worried, I went downstairs and found my usual very active, talkative boy, sick in bed with high fever. Looks like he got the flu.

Unfortunately this means that there will be no geocaching today.

Where are the goodies?

Geocache: Thanks Mr. Gull (GC13WBK)

I couldn't believe it when I turned up (late) and saw so many excited faces anticipating the next treasure hunt. I think that's the biggest group we've ever had since we started geocaching a few months ago! Awesome!

Because of the weather and not knowing what it was going to be like that day, I'd decided to do a quick geocache, just in case it was going to be raining. It didn't. And 'quick' was definitely an understatement. Our very experienced geocaching kids had found the cache even before the last of our group had arrived at the site. I think that broke the record of quickest finds for us.

The container was an old army ammo tin, but it was so rusty we nearly didn't manage to open it. Some hard tugging and pulling finally did the trick, but the disappointment was great. Such a huge container and hardly any goodies... I think we all expected a lot more in there. Thankfully the kids were all a good sport and swapped trinkets between themselves and we added some more into the container, so that the next finders won't have the same disappointment.

After our quick hunt we gathered up the kids again and some of us went to the playground for afternoon tea and others decided to explore the rock pools. And others decided to watch the construction work at the beach. Nice digger!

About the cache name: The person who hid this cache three years ago dedicated this one to another geocacher called Navigull. Hence the name :-)

Why it takes me so long...

.... to announce the next geocache?

There are so many geocaches on the North Shore and I have a really difficult time choosing which one to do next. I'd love to do them all and all of them now!

Some of the ones on my list are for example the one underneath the Harbour Bridge. Or the one called Raining Cats and Dogs - wouldn't that one be so suitable for a rainy day? I'd love to do some more along the beach between Milford and Takapuna but it really needs to be sunny for the beach, don't you think? Then there are two buggy ones, which sound like they have bugs (plastic?) ones as clues. Little Shoal Bay has a hidden path. We could look for Gollum's Lair in Centennial Park. Or we could find out where it all goes (sewage ponds in Albany). Or... or.... or....

One of my favourite hiding places is the geocache in Tui Park, Beachhaven. So clever and so undiscoverable! Around the North Harbour stadium we're supposed be looking for fake ducks. Albany Scenic Surprise takes us through a stunning but wild reserve. Wild as in lots of rocks and ups and downs.

I'd love to take you all to Rangitoto for a day of geocaching. There are nearly 20 geocaches hidden there. I bet there's one in the tunnels too!

And if I click on the North Shore, I can see there are over 300 geocaches hidden. Plenty to keep us busy for a while!

So now you see why it always ends up being Friday or the weekend before I put up the details for our next Geocaching Day. There are just too many to choose from!

Manhunt on the Caribbean!

Geocache: Manhunt on the Caribbean! (GCYPE0)

About 10 years ago, an armed suspect was seen entering Exeter Park, carrying what appeared to be a gun. This sparked a manhunt and the area was cordoned off with police helicopters circling overhead and the armed offenders squad moving in to capture the suspect.

This fun multi geocache re-enacted the manhunt and had us find various locations, pretending to be the armed officer squad.

LOCATION: EXETER BUSH TIME: 1:00 PM

MISSION: SECURE BUSH AND FLUSH OUT SUSPECT

1:20 PM - Suspect has dropped weapon - find it!

Definitely in charge!

1:30 PM - HELICOPTER RADIOS IN TO SAY THAT SUSPECT HAS BEEN SIGHTED ON TRAIL AHEAD.

1:40 PM - AFTER A LONG SEARCH, A CLUE HAS BEEN FOUND IN THE FORK OF A TREE.

1:50 PM - ARMED WITH INTELLIGENCE, OUR EXTRA-ORDINARY TEAM WITH POLICE DOG MANAGES TO SECURE BUSH, FLUSH OUT SUSPECT AND FIND THE FINAL CACHE.

Our highly efficient AOS, sorting through evidence

2:00 PM - DEBRIEF AT PLAYGROUND. POLICE DOG CHASES BALL.

Well-deserved de-briefing

A sunny winter's afternoon

Geocaches: Milford Reef (GC13DTE)

Milford Beach (GC276KR)

Giants Chair (GC1M02X)

Thornes Bay (GC29ZK6)

Compared to last week's storm we were greeted with wonderful sunny weather this afternoon. Perfect to go geocaching!

This week we did one of my favourite geocaching walks: the walk along the beach from Milford to Takapuna. This walk has geocaches hidden every few hundred metres and some with very clever hiding places. We decided to start walking and see how far we'd get.

Our first geocache was hidden in such an unlikely spot that it was ignored by most. One clever mum then decided that maybe there's something inside after all and guess what? A little magnetic box with dirt camouflage was stuck to the top of it. Our first find for the day!

Next our GPS took us to a wooden stairs and a lot of knocking and pulling on the wood. I had done this one before, so I knew that the geocache had to be there somewhere, but where was it? We then realised it was stuck - wood expands when it was wet and after some pulling and tugging we finally got it free. Another very cheeky hiding place.

Our walk continued along the beach, over rocks and stones and wooden bridges.

Our third geocache was the Giant Chair. For those of you not familiar with the Giant Chair, it's about halfway between Milford beach and Takapuna beach. The chair and the walls are part of Merkesworth Castle, also known as Algie's Castle, which was built in 1926, from locally quarried basalt, for Captain John Alexander Algie after he arrived from Scotland. Who would have thought we had a castle on the shore?

The chair and the castle also featured in a local children's book about a lonely, friendly giant Jasper who lives in the castle and builds the chair to encourage visitors. The children who feature in the story are all named after the grandchildren of the author Pam Laird. If you want to read the book, have a look if your local library has it. It's called 'Giant Jasper's Chair' by Pam Laird.

The geocache itself is another one of those very clever camouflages. It's in plain sight and literally right before your eyes, which is why I could never find it. Lucky we had a very perceptive dad with us who fished it out of it's hiding spot, leaving the rest of us to 'oooh' and 'aaah' about it all!

Our fourth and last geocache for the day was a typical nastly little nano. I call them nasty because they're very, very small and usually very hard to find as well. But as a group we are really fantastic, even the tiny little nanos can't escape us! Look at how small it is:

So that was our last cache for the day. Two hours walking, approximately 3.5 kms, and four geocaches. Not bad for a sunny winter's afternoon, eh?

Stormy weather

It was pouring down with rain when I got up this morning and it had been stormy all night. Normally a bit of rain wouldn't put me off from going geocaching but this morning even the dog only put his nose out of the door and went straight back to his basket.

To me that was a sign that maybe today going outside wasn't such a good idea. And so, with great regret, I cancelled today's geocaching. I hope you all had a warm cozy day inside today instead!

PS I did go out to Milford in case any one turned up (no one did) but as you can see from the picture, the weather really wasn't appealing.

Letters and numbers

Geocache: Battlefields (GC14XJ)

This was a tricky one. We were given a list of place names and numbers:

Suez, Senussi, 1

Sangro, Enfidaville, 5 6 1

North Sea, Arctic, 7 6

Flers, Messine Ridge, 8 9 1

Bapaume, Trescault Ridge, 8 9 10 11 1

Korea, Malaya, 7 2 6 11 9

Crevecoeur, Beaudignies, 5 6

Minqar Qaim, Sidi Rezegh, 6 7 13 1

Senio, Faenza, 1 5

Gallipoli, Gravenstafel, 6 5

Palestine, Favreuil, 3 5 1

Polderhoek Spur, La Signy Farm, 1 5

And those names and numbers had us stumped for a while. We did find the place names along the Auckland Museum walls but it didn't really make sense. Luckily we had one very clever mum with us who came up with the solution. And then it was just a matter of walking around the museum.

Once we had found all the place names and figured out the letters we were able to put together the final coordinates which led us to the final cache.

(Found it!)

Onepoto Basin

Geocache: Onepoto Observations (GCJ2FB)

It was a cold but sunny afternoon when we got to Onepoto Basin, and we were all ready to go treasure hunting.

The geocache we chose for today was a bit different from our usual geocache. It was puzzle geocache and we were given 5 pictures of objects we needed to locate and get the coordinates from.

The objects took us from the playgrounds all the way to the other end of the park, past duck ponds and over bridges.

But with so many keen geocachers, it took us just under an hour to spot all the locations. Then back to the playground for some serious maths. Amazing to see some of those kids doing long divisions in their heads. Luckily for us others, one mum brought a calculator!

Then following our two leaders with the gps, it was a short walk to the final location. From there 15 m due east to a schizophrenic tree. The spot gave us two trees with split personalities, but it didn't take us long to locate the container.

After swapping trinkets and placing our ducky travel bug inside it, we took a very muddy 'short cut' back to the playground. Sorry about that guys!

After some yummy treats and afternoon tea, and a run around on the playground, we all went home one treasure richer!

TFTC (Thanks for the cache!)