Black Backs on Rangi Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
By kiwicouple on 14-Nov-09. Waypoint GC20Z95

TYFTC nice cache well hidden

Perseverance. Finally found on our adventures around the island tftc

It took a bit of searching to find this one we kiwitrecker1 and I eventually got there. Thanks for the information associated with the nesting gulls!

Worth a walk down to the point!

Was worried I'd need to log a DNF here, quite a lot of places to hide a cache at GZ here. Got a lucky stroke when I spotted some of the peeling tape.All in order here, thanks for bringing me down this side trail!

I love caches of this size...lots of room for goodies. Wish i could stay in this tranquillity forever. Also, i managed to see a few black-backs. Cool!

Find #622Found today on a beautiful day to Rangitoto, what a beautiful fascinating and wild island. It was about halfway through my time when I realised climbing the scoria field, finding all the caches and returning via the summit pass would mean I missed the ferry, so resolved to come back another day. Some logs signed as LBB to save space. Fairly quick find here, had skipped it on the way here but came back now I wasn't going to the summit. Cache is all good

No gulls and no cache, wonder if its gone. Nice spot though. We will try again on our next visit.

Had two people searching for quite sometime and not seen

What a wonderful view! Thank you

Unfortunately and with long searches not found

Sorry

Can’t tell if this one is here or not. Gave a thorough search to ever tree within a few meters but came up empty. Gave up after finding bits of a container and a blue lid laying around.

Tftc

Thx for the catch

This took a little looking, got there in the end. Thanks for placing your cache.

Ms_KR and I are in Auckland Auckland for a break and we are exploring the region while we are based here. A lovely frozen windscreen followed by a blue sky day we headed over for a visit to Rangitoto. First time in 40 years! A great place to visit.

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

This one was not easily found so it was a good job that KR was on to it. Best thing about this stop was the monster skull shown in my picture. Actually just a walnut. It's been interesting to see what non native flora is taking hold here. It would have been good to speak with some DoC people about invasive plants but we didn't see anyone. Tftc.

Full day Rangitoto caching mission with Sanne. Cache #3

Found it. Thank you

Found it

Awesome find. If you go there in the summer you will be able to see all the black back gulls nesting

Today is the day we explore Rangitoto Island. We won Explore Auckland vouchers and decided to do an outdoor activity (rather than escape room like last time). I was so excited to see 12 caches on the island. We might just miss the ferry on the way back and have to stay overnight in one of these baches lol. This place rocks!

Found it after looking at the wrong tree lol

Found after a little scramble. Cache safely tucked away. TFTC

Fabulous spot to stop for a sandwich. Tftc

Took a while but eventually found it!

Yess

We were lucky enough to be able to book one of the DoC baches on the island for a couple of nights so we worked on finding the caches around the bach and on the way to the summit (as much as the teens who are now reluctant cachers would allow). The cache was a quick find here, but then we noticed a soggy face mask near by and that initiated about 20 mins of CITO as we cleared the area of all the plastic and other rubbish we could see so it didn't get washed out again on the next tide. We didn't wee any black backs here today though unfortunately - it is not nesting season.

TFTC!

“Let’s go over to Rangitoto and play in lava field.” Someone said. “It’ll be fun!”

Well, yes it was loads of fun, but man oh man those lava stones are an experience!

Out with the group to Rangitoto today, for me it will all new for caches, so I had lots to collect, other less so, surprisingly didn’t have a single DNF on the island!

Good day, good company! Thanks to all the COs who placed caches here, especially the ones in all the sharp jagged scoria stones!

Specifics on this cache :

Everyone else had found this, so I quickly ran down here to claim this one!

Easily found and all is well!

Have been to the island many times before. Never been down this track. Thanks.

I had not time on my previous visits on the island to find this cache but today was a day for it!
Beautiful location and nice hide!
【T】【F】【T】【C】

A bit hard to find this one, but a good challenge! Thank you!

Wow... That was a quick find and log...

Thank you for the cache

My 1301. Smiley on the map

Nice easy find

Kayaked there and then hiked up to the top to view the sunset. Hi from Alabama

Only early in the morning we decided to set off for the island.
After the madness of Auckland it prooved to be the right choice!
A hot day but nevertheless worth the effort.
Last ferry out and in need of a lot of liquid.

Quick and easy

Tftc

I‘m doing the loop track around Rangitoto Island- What an amazing place! Easy find...TFTC!

I am one of the 30odd cachers and i am visiting from Tennessee , with muggles, and friends traveling to New Zealand and Australia. We signed or stamped the logs as NZGA2019 aka New Zealand Geocaching Adventure 2019. It is a 25 day adventure through 9 different cities between the two countries.

all is good, so cache on!

Found with the NZGA Group.

Nicely done! Traveling with a group of geocachers and muggle spouses from the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, calling ourselves NZGA2019 for short and to preserve log space. Stands for New Zealand Geocaching Adventure 2019 group. This was one of our stops along the way. Had a nice trip out on the ferry, some students missed their stop on the way back and the ferry turned around to bring them back. TFTC

I am one of the 30odd cachers, snuggle muggles, and friends traveling to New Zealand and Australia. We signed or stamped the logs as NZGA2019 aka New Zealand Geocaching Adventure 2019. It is a 25 day adventure through 9 different cities between the two countries.

Arrived in New Zealand from Vancouver, BC, Canada for a couple days before our cruise.
There are 33 in our group so we signed NZGA2019

Last day as we leave on our cruise today, but first a trip to Rangitoto island

Found with cachers from the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. The log was signed with our group stamp as NZGA2019 (New Zealand Geocaching Adventure2019). This afternoon we embark on our cruise to some other ports in New Zealand and Australia. TFTC

I am visiting from Beautiful British Columbia, Canada along with others from Canada, the USA, and Puerto Rico. We are signing logs as NZGA 2019 on behalf of the group. Thanks for placing these caches for us to find and for adding to our fun day

Found during my Australia/New Zealand Adventure With the group, NZGA2019. Thanks for the smiley and for adding to our fun by placing and maintaining this cache. Tumbleweed2 from West Richland, Washington State, USA

queenofscots & bobstaf will be geocaching & sightseeing for the next 2 1/2 weeks with over 30 other cachers from USA, canada & puerto rico....... we leave auckland on 11/8 aboard the celebrity solstice......cruise around new zealand and over to tasmania, finally arriving in sydney, australia, ......after that, the two of us will continue to explore southeast australia while we enjoy our final week at a time share before returning to virginia

today our group explored rangitoto island before boarding our cruise ship.....will try to post photos once i'm home & can download from my digital camera......signed logs NZGA2019......TCTF, queenie

10:58 AM, my 6th of 44 today.Found with the New Zealand/Australia Geocaching Adventure 2019 group. Didn't fancy the walk on the rough lava to this one, Finally it was found by one of our small group and we SL.

TFTC!

I am traveling with a group called New Zealand/Australia Geocaching Adventure 2019. We are from all over the USA and Canada. We are stamping the logs with NZGA 2019 to save time and space on the logs. If answers are required for this cache, at least one of us will be submitting them for the group. Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache for the rest of us from the other side of the world to enjoy finding!

tftc
Greetings from Puerto Rico. Signed as a group NZGA2019.

I’m part of the NZGA2019 tour and am visiting from Alaska. We took a ferry over here to cache, before heading to the cruise ship. Thanks for placing!

Our group stamps logs NZGA2019, which stands for New Zealand Geocaching Adventure 2019. We represent Puerto Rico, Canada, and my home, the USA. Thanks for adding to the joy of visiting your wonderful country with this nice hide:)

Out exoring the island. With the NZGA 2019 group. Having a great time caching New Zealand. Beautiful place.

I’m a Canadian Cacher with a group of 32 others we are from US, Puerto Rico and Canada heading out on a cruise ship today. This is day 3 of caching and enjoying our visit to Auckland. Signing logs NZGA2019 TFTC

I am visiting from Rhode Island with a large group (31) of Geocachers from USA, Canada, and Puerto Rico. We will be signing as NZGA 2019 (New Zealand Geocaching Adventure 2019) to save room on the logs. We are out caching on this beautiful day in your wonderful country. If answers or pictures are required one if us will send them soon. Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache!

One more not up the mountain and fairly easy to get to. Signed for the NZGA group. TFTC

Found and logged with group NZGA2019. Thanks a bunch for the cache!

Nice spot.
Greetings from Wales
TFTC

Our last cache for the day was quite a tough find. Really deserves a higher terrain rating! Found in the end and our pen decided now was the time to not work on us. Lucky there was an old pencil in the cache! A top spot really interesting. TFTC

A couple of tries before getting to right spot. Gorgeous place. Thanks for the cache.

With my brother and my friend Lea, I set out to discover New Zealand in a Camper Van for three weeks. It was a wonderful time. We were hiking a lot and enjoyed the diverse nature of New Zealand. It is exciting to drive on the curvy roads. We discovered great waterfalls and beautiful beaches. Bathed in thermal springs and climbed high mountains. It was a very special time. Of course, one or the other box was collected. All the caches I made were in exciting places. My travel companions always came with me and often found the caches rather than me. Thank you for laying and caring.


On my last day, there is a boat trip from Aukland to this island. A nice hike can be done there and enjoy a great view. We could only see this bird.

Leider waren nun keine Möwen mehr da, aber es ist trotzdem eine wunderschöne Insel! Best wishes from Germany

On our last week in New Zealand we visited Rangitoto Island. On the path to here we met several orange clad workers spraying weeds. At GZ we clambered around looking for the hint item which was eventually discovered. Tftc.

See Log from Wönny. TFTC

On our last day in New Zealand we visited Rangitoto Island. Nice way to end a wonderful journey.
TFTC

TFTC

A great day hunting catches and tramping on Rangitoto. Cheers!

Heute gabs einen mehr oder weniger spontanen Ausflug zum Rangitoto. Also die Fähre geschnappt (knapp noch die frühere geschafft) und los gings auf die Insel. Erst mal musste ich mich aus der ganzen Menge rauslösen, um überhaupt mal gemütlich laufen zu können und nach den Caches suchen zu können. Zu Cachen gabs ja vieles auf dieser Insel.
Am Nachmittag bin ich dann auch noch auf eine nette Gruppe Cacher, Neucacher und Muggels gestossen

Yay nice bit of scenery!

Nice find

For today a tour to Rangitoto Island was planned. The weather was pretty good. Had a great tour with many nice caches. Some of them I could easily find, some took a while and some stood hide. Many thanks for planting and taking care of all this caches
redfeger

I'd been eyeing up this area of caches for a while but living in Palmerston North makes it a little difficult to get to them. I was staying in Auckland for a few weeks with the family and discovered another lower North Island cacher, TwigNZ, also holidaying here. We made a plan to travel to Rangitoto for a days caching and walking when the weather was fine. In fact, it was a rather hot day but the cool breeze was welcome.
#3 of 22 today. We made the short detour out here to find the cache. After a little scrambling and searching several of the hint objects we came across the cache. Thanks.

I've been holidaying in Auckland for a few days now, and wondering what the heck has happened to the NZ Summer. And then you get a day like today!
I managed to bump into a fellow cacher from the Manawatu a few days ago whilst wading to an offshore cache, and she mentioned that she wanted to take a trip out to Rangitoto. Then lo and behold, a friend of my partner made the very same suggestion, so a plan was hatched to get both groups to sync their visits to allow Stardust718 and myself to have a crack at as many caches as we could get to in limited time on the island.

Once we got off the ferry, we decided to go in a clockwise direction which seemed to give us few muggles to have to contend with. Most of the caches were a reasonably quick find, but a small number of them challenged us.

This one was a relatively straightforward find, although having said that it was Stardust who actually found it. As I was to learn for the first half a dozen caches, I had a tendency to overthink the hiding position. But the log was quickly found and then we were back on the hunt for the next one.

Thank you for placing and maintaining this cache.

Living inland we dont see the black back gulls but there were plenty here on our visit. When we arrived we walked along to the old swimming pool which i remember swimming in 60+ years ago! when at the island with a friend who had a family Bach here. although i have been back several times and climbed the top several time with our own kids and now grand chn. Up in Auckland for the weekend and a few extra days staying with my sister in west Auck and trip over to northcote to visit a 102year old aunt on here birthday. so i was able to pick up a few caches around about and we even nhad a lovely day for our Rangitoto day.

Interesting history on the Black Backs. All of them must have grown-up since the summer and gone off on a fishing expedition and left us to do ours. It didn't take us too long before we netted this. Tftc!

We regretted not bringing the binoculars to the Island but I don't think any gulls were about anyhow. Cache was all in good order. Tftc

(3033) Out with the cache hound and 0B80B8 for a days adventure, caching on Rangitoto Island. We clocked up over 20 km walking the tracks and collecting the caches. Thanks for placing the caches on such a beautiful and unusual landscape.

With the Planetary challenge currently on and the need to get a good number of caches to achieve all the souvenirs, a plan was made a while ago with DaffyNZ, to make an assault on Rangitoto Island today. Planning two weeks out, we hoped the weather would be good and thankfully today, is was just about perfect, except for the squally front that arrived just on ferry boarding time at 5:00pm.

Rangitoto was a place I had never been before, so I was keen to experience the unique geology and this caching game gave me a good reason to make the trip from up north. With DNZ’s partner along as well, we left before 5:00am to make sure of catching the 7:30 early ferry and once we set foot on the island, it was all go to find as many caches as possible during the day.

All up during the 9 hours before catching the last ferry back to Auckland, we clocked up over 33,000 steps for a distance of 22km, including almost 2km across jagged lava flows. We actively looked for 40 caches and managed to find 39 of them, with just one DNF, and this probably due to the rapidly approaching ferry departure time.

Thx to all the COs for placing and maintaining these caches and giving us an extra reason to make the journey to this neat place.

Had to make a slower trip down this side track due to a group of muggles ahead of us, and thanks to the good hint, was able to make a quick find, whilst they were concentrating on the gulls. Collected the TB to move on. TFTC

Decided to take the detour on todays walk and managed to scramble across all the rocks even in my flip flops.took a little while to search but had a good time doing so and came across the cache.log was a bit damp but all ok

DNF

What a great rest spot TFTC

A return visit to Rangitoto Island was high on our list when planning this holiday in New Zealand and we had just as wonderful a time as on our first visit. Beautiful weather and views. A lovely big cache tucked safely away here and no muggles about on our visit. We saw plenty of the gulls. Dropped off Lorre the Parrot TB as it wants to visit islands and will enjoy the company of the gulls! Have a favourite point from us. SL. TFTC.

After all that scoria, I was very happy to be walking on some firm ground again, and headed out to see the birds. The walk was mostly pleasant and the final cache was not too hard to find, though there was a tiny bit of bashing involved. Signed myself in, and headed to the next one. TFTC!

Came to Rangitoto today with great expectations today but ended up getting very few caches. I would have liked to get a lot more but that's life I suppose. Blisters ruled my world today. Out and about with a good size group who have scattered themselves around the island. So at the moment I'm with urbangypsynz (and daughter Trina) and alunB, together we are wandering at our own pace which is considerably slower than some in our group. AlunB made the find on this one, signed ourselves in as 'sleepers' or 'sleeping' on account of our little group coming to Rangitoto at 9:15am instead of the others at 7:30am.

Carrying along the track with Gorby, Alun B and muggle Daughter on a beautiful day. Signed log as "sleepers" due to our decision to catch a later ferry. Not many Gulls in sight today.

Out with a group of geocachers attending the Relaxing on Rangitoto event today. 7 hours of walking and caching was not really relaxing but was good fun! A lot of muggles in this area today. Took a bit of looking around for this one. The hint helped when I really took a good look. Nice seeing the gulls nearby. Found a great fungi near GZ! Thanks kiwicouple.

Enjoying the walk along the trail with with Gorby, urbangypsynz and her daughter Trina. Nice quick find here, cheers

I was over on Rangitoto for an event at the top of the hill so added a few smileys with Aiden29, Once we found the right tree it was a nice quick find

Headed over to the island for Gorby's event "Relaxing on Rangitoto" (although there wasn't much relaxing to be had!). Wandered around the island with Merlot58. One in the right spot it was a nice quick find.

I searched the wrong tree at first so widened my search more and soon had the cache. An interesting side trip from the road.TFTC

Thanks for this cache, had a great time seeing different parts of rangitoto to where i normally go

Found this Cache during the world Masters Games. Thank You for showing us this beautiful island.

2nd of the day and a nice hide and cache. Good views from here.
TFTC

Spent awhile around the wrong tree :p
TFTC!

Have never walked down this way before, was a really cool spot! Found the cache after a bit of climbing. The log book was a bit wet. Found a travel bug, thanks!

Found on a days walk around Rangitoto Island. No muggle around except the gulls. In the end the spoiler picture got me to the right spot. Left TB.
TFTC!

Going for a walk around Rangitoto on a drizzly morning, looking for geocaches. This cache was previously found by the coastal clean up operation who signed the log & left the cache in place!

Fefe.adrien and I waited for days the sun to go to Rangitoto with the ferry. We spent all this beautiful day on the island. We did all the loop track (along the beach, across lava fields, the summit, lava caves etc. ).
So, we found as many caches as possible during this time. Unfortunately it is not possible to write a different log for each cache but most of them were easy to find with good coordinates and helpful hints.
One time again, thanks to this awesome game we could explore and discover further...

We signed on logbooks with our team name : Lekiprokos

Tftc

After waiting a few days for the rain to stop, Ninalila and I finally got a good opportunity to go to Rangitoto Island during a sunny day.
As we have almost all the day, we decide to start by the track along the sea before going to the summit, then to the lava cave and finally going back to the boat.
It was an amazing day where we could see really interestin volcanic features such as volcanic bombs, lava flows, the crater...
And the cherry on the cacke, we saw a few saddlebacks. We didn't expect to see this bird so we were more than happy to see them Really cute bird

To avoid wasting a lot of time, we decided to not search caches with a DNF before us.
All the boxes were easy to find and well maintened.
Not always easy to walk on the basalt rocks, but we managed to reach each boxes

We signed the logbook with our team name : lekiprokos

Thank you for the caches and the discoveries