A Byte and a Half at Atiu - 011111(Auckland) Tapora, North Island, New Zealand
By Tufty on 29-Oct-11. Waypoint GC36VHR

I was still busy texting friends and trying to concentrate on my own finds here. My friend suggested after seeing the last sign I should change down a gear. I told her that I was walking and I might actually be going backwards soon. In fact I was coping well with our 11.5km walk. My regular morning walks must be paying off. I was getting weary by now and counting down the last few caches. It was nearly 2pm when we got back to the car for lunch. Another quick find and we did keep under the 30km speed limit. Thanks for all your hides in this reserve

Headed to Atiu Creek regional Park today to collect some more of the caches. Continued our walk down the hill and arrived at GZ and made this our second find of the day.

Phone signal died but good old fashioned catch Ng and I came up triumphs. TFTC

No 17 today.Nice easy find now.

Due to time and rain constraints we only got a few done, but enjoyed the walk. All good here, tftc!

Coordinates changed from:S 36 19.998 E 174 22.262Coordinates changed to:S 36 20.020 E 174 22.290Distance from original: 191.8 feet or 58.5 meters.Original site became unsuitable.

Getting away for a few days with a friend Jac488. we decided to grab a few geos on our travels. A great park to visit.

With permission of CO I hid a new one in an easier location. Its behind the local, opposite the 30 km mark. New coordinates S 036 20.020' E 174 22.290

Update:Seems we found the original cache & on the day of finding this the CO had given approval to another cacher to relocate & update coords. Leaving this cache as Found. Nice to have found the original though!--------One of my two hardest for the day. Spent 45mins here. The spoiler pic area has changed significantly to be almost unrecognisable. Met Merlot58 later in the day & so we revisited this one. More time looking & by good luck M58 found it almost buried. [TFTC]

Will need to come back after I have the spoiler!

While perusing the map, I spotted this mass of caches in a regional park, so was drawn here like a moth to a flame.
Mr rattll went for a jog to Kauri point and grabbed some caches out that way while mrs rattll headed out on the 'byte and a half' trail.
Only a few dnfs between us, and a couple of caches were on a closed section, because of tree felling, but otherwise a great day, and some enjoyable walks.
Thanks for putting all these caches here

It took me a while to find this one as I didn’t have enough reception to download the spoiler

Here this weekend in our Camper, this is Day 3 & our last day before heading home.
Needed the spoiler pic here as the landscape has changed a lot.
Thanks for this Series.

I had DNF here before. It is nice to change it to "yellow smile" on my my map.
But still it was not a quick find .... No as per hint , rather like by luck
TFTC

Last arvo find as a park and find, needed to drive to signal to get help with logs and spoiler photo. Therefore did third on way back to camp

Spoiler pic saved the day

Thanks for the spoiler photo. I don’t think I would have found it otherwise. TFTC

Great coordinates here had me on the hide fairly quickly, I reckon that's not always the case here. Added a new log sheet as the old one was very wet. On to the last byte of the cherry next.

Decided to do a clockwise loop around the trail, with some occasional backtracking (such as Reservoir Walkway) and managed to do most of the trails on offer. I didn't do the Kauri loop after a couple of early DNFs.
Todays entertainment was for me to head out to another of Auckland regions awesome Regional Parks. Tawharanui yesterday and Atiu Creek today, nice little couplet. Whilst I was out and about I decided to find a cache, or two, of fifty plus. My target range was Tufty's Byte and half series, and any collateral extras when passing. A good day to be on the trail, 21kms walked, glorious Spring-time sun came to play and some fantastic scenery. Nice and quiet in the park today, just a few ladies doing some orienteering/Rogaining and a small select few walkers/cyclists. Thanks to all COs for their caches today.

Found it with help of the photo! Bit of a tricky spot. TFTC.

We searched for this thing majob and finally found it after looking at spoiler image.

The cach log book is wet.

Found with the help of the spoiler image! Tftc

Found as a part of a previous group TanjackMüley, aka WanderingSparrow. Now I'm continuing on my own. TFTC

Found quickly without the photo. Tftc

Did a maintenance run today on the A Byte and a Half at Atiu power trail caches today and replaced caches, if required, and log sheets, if required.

Completed the byte trail today.
Main log at #1

TFTC
Tim and Viv - ddm

MacyC found this one. Nice hide

Thanks for the spoiler photo, as it would have been very difficult without it. Even with it, we had a bit of a struggle trying to locate where things were. Eventually found with a bit of luck involved. tftc

After driving down from Dargaville in the morning we arrived at the Atiu Creek carpark to meet with Agazo, Darby&Joan, and TheWonderStuff to walk through the park and find a few Caches. Since Darby&Joan left after we ate lunch at the Courtyard House, Agazo, TheWonderStuff and I continued to find a few more Caches.
Another Cache on the way back to the carpark and a quick find here. TFTC.

Nice log. Tftc

Unfortunately no luck for us today with this one. There were so many potential spots that matched the hint and we didn't have access to the spoiler photo as there was no coverage on our phones at GZ. We have now looked at the photo and will be back to try again sometime soon.

Took a wee while to locate this one - was in the spot I initially checked too. Another cache which we had to pour water out of. Added a new log in a small ziplock bag. Just as well we are almost at our day's end because I think there is just one replacement log left - will have to restock before our next trip!

Well this weekend was going to be a biggie.
Along with 3 work jobs we decided to see if we could knock off all the caches in Atiu Park.
First there was the any event in Papakura along with a bit of a bribe a puzzle which we had no idea as to solve.
All park caches were found by following Co Ords and hints given. Some caches were very wet and need maintenance done to them.
The park involved a lot of walking to tick off. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)... When Gap signaled that he had work at Port Albert, we were immediately inquisitive. Where is that? After a brief explanation, we learned that this small settlement is west of Wellsford, on the Kaipara Harbour. Our eyes swept over the Okahukura Peninsula and we spotted the massive collection of caches at Aitu Creek Regional Park...

Aitu Creek Regional Park: We arrived shortly after 3PM. According to our calculations, we should have roughly three hours to make a dent in the trail of caches. From this hide onward, caches followed the same basic pattern... We had a little trouble with some coordinates (using our completely 'reliable' iPhones...). But all of the caches could be found as per the hint. Some just needed a few sweeps and good eyes to find (especially those that were listed as DNF prior to our visit). A few logbooks were damp or wet, though we managed to scrawl our handles with good pens... TFTC.

We had no spoiler photo .... missed this one for balance ... DNF here

Dear Cache Owners,
I am a German guy who stays in New Zealand for eight months.
My English is not perfect, so please don't wonder if my log entries sound a bit strange. Thanks!

----------

A few days before I planned to visit Atiu Creek together with tramyard. The weather was nice, so we met in the morning and started our trip.
The area was great for hiking, at the end we walked more than 16 Kilometers and found 50 Caches and had only two DNFs. Most of them were easy to find, so we had a lot of fun together.
Second DNF here, couldn't load the Spoiler Picture...
Thanks for hiding!

Yay...another find for us! Tftc

Hardest one yet... A lot of looking... Found it!

Had to use the spoiler pic when it finally loaded. second day down here. Tftc

Doing the trail on a cold wet blustery afternoon today. Caches are getting harder as I near the finish. Without access to the spoiler photo, just had to use good caching sense and mtach the clues to the surroundings, so took 4 or 5 minutes before cache was in hand. TFTC

Cache found though it took longer than it should have, as we missed it initially...searched elsewhere...came back and then found it! Such is life!!! Please see MAIN LOG at GC36V8W for full details and apologies for cut and paste logs but nonetheless we enjoyed and appreciated the trail and views! Many thanks

Travelling around the world with Dartmoor Deliverer celebrating her taking early retirement!

NB Dont forget our Devon UK Mega 2017 GC6JZNY this August in the beautiful East Devon area of our county. UK Megas are over one week full of events and geocaching - a wonderful way to enjoy our county!

please see main log at: A Byte and a Half at Atiu - 000001(Auckland). again no problems here, TFTC

A year ago almost to the day and we were out here again. Returned to this beautiful Park to capture some new caches released about a week ago. It was overcast but the conditions meant we did not get too hot and in fact made for a more pleasant day. Discovered that we were now chasing Vistra and Yorkshire Kiwi out here as they had got an earlier start in the day to us. This time we were able to find this cache which previously we had to log as a DNF.

Last one to find today, what a beast! Phone App wouldn't let me see the Hint and then died, out with the trusty Garmin which narrowed down the area and then thankfully fluked it! Just as well as Kay had dissapeared up the road towards the car and night was descending, will leave the others to do next time, thanks Lou!

Part of the Westie crew signing as TAP - picking up a few bytes as we head back up to the carpark (while Rusty hitched a ride...and sailed right on up the hill past us, with a cheeky grin!)

We were heading back to the car after our successful ftf raid. This could have taken awhile but thankfully Aiden29 checked out the spoiler photo and pointed us to the cache

Thankfully Aiden29 pointed us in the right direction, as by now my phone is completely dead. Thanks for the fun series today.

These caches were on the route back to the carpark, so we took turns making the finds. Signed as TAP to save space (for rustynz, harisree, Gorbygorbachov, supernannny, Alunb, merlot58, Bertie Blowfish and I).

This was great cos it was different to the others....we spread out and Aiden spotted the reclusive cache !
Good one Tufty .

FIT as part of TAP (harisree, rustynz, Gorbygorbachov, supernannny, alunb, merlot58, aiden29 and bertie blowfish)
This one took bit longer than others for obvious reasons. We did find few samples according to the hint, but then Aiden found the right one and there by the cache. tftc.

Holidaying in the area so collecting this power trail. More comprehensive one at the end unless we come across some issues. TFTC

Out and about today enjoying some detection of plastic containers in the north west part of the greater Auckland region. The primary mission was to complete a wander around Atiu Creek Regional Park. Well, it is almost mission completed. Time to make the final grind up the last hill section. Gpsr was a bit laggy under the tree cover here. So I took my time before leaving the track. Paid dividends as I found it straight away. It was a little exposed so I recovered with some natural camo on replacement. Cheers for the cache placement and the exercise!

We had a grand day out with Ozwalker and found all the 37 caches that we had hoped to collect. A huge thank you to Tufty for an enormous contribution to our day of fun. Cache all in good order.

Thanks for the cache Tufty. Cache found while visiting Atiu Creek Regional Park with Oz in NZ on a geocaching trip. Cache was a little damp. Log book is OK and we tried to dry it out as much as possible.

did a small loop with my 78 year old father, he still amazes me. all caches found and intact.
this cache i would have found impossible without some help from the spoiler photo

This was definitely the hardest of the geocaches we looked for today (well apart from the one not in this park we didn't find). At first I was looking in the wrong place because there's several hint items. Had a sit down for a bit for a rest and then started again. That did the trick and managed to find it hidden by natural camo. Signed the log and put back again. I'm looking at the spoiler photo now for the first time since I was using the GPSr - didn't need it since the hint was useful enough. TFTC.

All the caches on this trail were quite easy apart from this one. We didn't downloaded images (also had no phone service) and our GPS was the most of the time +/- 10m. Took us a while to find this one. :-/

TFTC

Tftc

The main goal for Ninalila and I today was this trail and the Gannet Rock.
It was a good walk with beautiful views despite the mud and the showers during lunch and an other one before the end of the trail.
All the boxes were easy to find, well maintained and the coordinates were really precise.

We signed the logbook with our team name : lekiprokos

Thank you for the cache and the discovery

A very nice walk with fefe.adrien in the Atiu Creek regional park. We did all the loop track via the Oruawharo river trail and the Clear fell track. It took almost 4hrs, taking our time. Quite muddy at this time of the year but still possible.
Thanks to very precise coordinates and good hints, we found all of the boxes.

Fefe.adrien and I signed on the logbook with our team name : Lekiprokos.

Tftc

This is a great place. Had no idea it was here until I came to do this series of caches. Thanks for bringing me here. Managed to find all caches but will still have to come back to revisit just for the walks. Took a bit longer to find this one but got there in the end. A respite from the hill.

What a beautiful walk an nice hidden caches. Some were more difficult then others, but we found them all. Thanks for the entertainment!!

Very nice walk. Finally a round we did in NZ with a lot of caches!! Thanks!!

Emptied out the rubbish and replaced the log.

Found the cache was still in place. Have redid the hint and supplied a spoiler photo.

Many of the hint items around but all very rotten and non hiding a cache that we could see.

Lots of rotten stumps. No cache in sight

No luck for me either. All I did was agitate a bumble bee resting in the stump so quickly moved away.

Was pretty sure we knew where this should have been but a lot of searching failed to unearth this one.

no luck, no cache

GPS was pointing in all directions, a bomb may have gone off in a number of Stumps, but alas no Cache...

A long weekend, a new year, the sun was shining and a plan was hatched to spend the day at Atiu Creek Regional Park walking & caching with okayness, snarsha & mojitoma. We had gradually been losing phone reception after the campsite & by the time we got here our last phone had died. We searched & searched but without GPS it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. So many options.

Perhaps out gps was pointing us to the wrong spot, but even with four of us looking, and every site we could see searched, we just couldn't find it. Oh well!

A group of caching friends decided to congregate for New Years celebrations on a camping trip to Atiu Creek Regional Park. It wasn’t until late in the day that someone happened to check the forecast and we realised there was a civil defence warning for high winds and rain in the north! For once the weather guy was right and between wind gusts and down pours all tenting was abandoned and we all retreated to the park cottage! As for caching, we weren’t going to let a little weather stop our caching! On a rainy new years day a few of us braved the showers and wind to do some quick park and grabs along the park road a to get some fresh air and work off all the food! This one took all of our eyes and as there were many options for the hint we eventually found it not too far from the road after all! TFTC!

Well after one night in the tents we had to evacuate due to the severe weather and damage to tents. Still managed some caching so that we did not get cabin fever though. As it was still raining pretty hard we drove this road and jumped out when nearby.

Thanks for the cache.

A group of us from SEAC decided that it would be a good idea to go camping at Atiu Creek and grab the caches on offer up there. Most of the group were roughing it, but our family and another decided to take the more "established" dwelling, opting for the cottage at the park.

As it turned out, due to some rather unfriendly weather, everybody ended up in the cottage. But we were not going to let a little thing like the weather deter us, especially as it seemed to be abating a bit. So during a break in the rain, a rep from each team went out and braved the elements (mainly the wind) and tackled those caches that were easily accessible by road, leaving the hike for the next day when it juuuust might be a little more favorable.

So off we went, eight intrepid cachers from Team SEAC with rain-coast donned (just in case). Tenth cache on the list. It took us a quite a while to locate this one compared to the others we had already done, but it was eventually located and logged as SEAC.

Onto the next one...

Was staying at Atiu Creek Reginal Park with some other cachers. All logs signed as “Team SEAC”

A group of 15 had set up in the camp ground along with another group of 6 in the nearby Takahe Cottage. Being in the tents was just amazing, waking up to an awesome view yesterday, but today, after having seen in the New Year and the rain coming down constantly we decided on getting breakfast sorted, then gate crashing the group in the cottage.
The rain was still coming down lightly, so a plan was hatched to pick up the caches that were drivable, this being our tenth after checking on the camp sight.
With many eyes searching the find was swift.
Thanks for bringing us to this idyllic place


Signed as SEAC (South East Auckland Crew) to save space.

TFTC.

Was camping nearby at Atiu Creek campground with a group of caching buddies. I use the term "camping" lightly, because by the time we found this cache, it had become necessary for those of use who were camping to abandon the tent sites and go and gate crash the few members of our group who had opted to stay in one of the campgrounds baches instead!

So after lunch, the rain and wind had eased a little, and we decided that it was safe to go caching- some of us were attempting a 50-day streak, and at the very least, we needed a cache find for the day to continue our streak. So we decided to attempt the caches in the park that were driveable, after checking on the abandoned tent sites. We piled into two cars and set off, leaving the kids behind with a couple of extra adults- the "other half" of some of the caching teams!!!

This one was challenging, and took us a while.... many options here..... but we had several people looking, so we got there in the end!!!! Sure we had searched there before.... clearly not well enough!

All logs signed as team SEAC (South East Auckland Crew) in order to save log space.
Thanks so much for placing this series of caches!

We arrived in the park on the 30 December for a few days camping, a day early for the event to celebrate the new year. As we were here we decided we couldn't leave without finding the caches in the park as well. The weather today was not pleasant, it was quite rainy and windy. All logs signed as SEAC (South East Auckland Crew) so as not to fill up the log. A fun few days was had with darthcacher1, purply, stik-a-crane, unclesamnz, newlynfam, keylev, craggar, laval, nztravellers, Auckland reindeer, chrisandmum. We were also joined on new years eve by rustynz and rebel98. Some of the group had cleverly booked the bach in the park - fortunately as late on 1 Jan we packed up the tents and moved to camp marae style in the bach garage due to most tents suffering damage from the wind.
Thank you for setting the trail.

I think I look a bit at this one, but missed the cache, so I searched in many places before I returned and slapped my head. TFTC.

OMG! So many stumps! I just got methodical about this, searched from L-R, down hill from there. I was so glad to find it before I got too frustrated.

No luck today for this one.

It's still there.

Number 2 of 2 on the trail that Velcro and I were unable to find.

On tour with handraweil.
Thank you for showing us this nice Location and the nice hike through the ATIU CREEK regional park.
The weather waas the best for Caching, a little bit of rain, a little bit of clouds and no one else was in the park.
Thank you for that Cache.
Regards from Bavaria
CR

Found it by a walk with JJ idll CR.

We spent about ten minutes searching the many stumps in the area before giving up.

While I was up here replacing a couple of caches I checked on this one as well due to a couple of DNFs. It was still there in place.

Nope! This one stumped us.

Made it up here thanks to Mr GY's lolly stash, but no luck with the search.

#328 TFT(battery just holding)C.

Trust the coordinates.

All the rotten logs and stumps in the area have had the geocacher treatment so GZ looks like a bomb has hit it but I got lucky and found in the first place I looked.
Many thanks

Puff puff.. just as we where leaving GZ along came horse riders who though they would ask that safe question.. are you enjoying your walk..... wrong question... a flat out NO.. comes from Mrs Alligators! ( they dont usually do Hills, and blazing sunshine...) Still the extra food that was supposed to be in the pack for lunch was virtually in reach now.. so no one was killed in the making of that answer ....

This entry was edited by alligatorsnz on Sunday, 23 March 2014 at 04:54:14 UTC.

Neat hide ahh so many hint items....

Over from the UK for a holiday and thought we would try and add this to our collection of finds. What a great spot for a cache. This is a MUST DO series for every cacher.

We have signed the log as T2 (Team 2 = B.D.I's & Sir and Lady Harveyjj)
Many thanks for the cache, brilliant series and bringing us here

Found today with Sir & Lady Harveyjj.

Please forgive the generic log as I'm logging as & when I have access to wifi so details of individual caches have become hazy, however that does in no way detract from the time and effort you as CO have put into your hide - that's very much appreciated.
We're in New Zealand on an extended holiday and have loved every minute of it.
We're very grateful to you for placing caches which have led us to some of the most beautiful places on the planet.

The logs have been signed either in our individual caching names or as T2 (being Sir & Lady Harveyjj plus B.D.I's)
Cache returned safely from whence it was found.

Thank you and greetings from the UK

(Ang, Chairperson of the North Wales UK Mega 2016)
https://www.facebook.com/northwalesmega2016

This power trail was on my to-do list from the very beginning. Combining a walk with some caching was the inspiration behind this idea. The entire way is mostly easy to walk and follows mostly the perimeter fence of the old farm, thus showing the vast size of the real estate. During the walk you can enjoy the various views over the meadows, forests and the nearby estuary. Thanks for showing the former farm and now regional park with its beauty and history by providing this trail.

Thanks for the cache. Here with my Dad on a geocache driving tour. Very happy to have made this stop. Doing a mad dash to try to get Dad his first 100 caches. Also CITO where we can.

TFTC

Decided to tackle this in a clockwise direction, really nice walk and great weather, found all but one in the series. TFTC