Golden Circle Series "Neil's church" (Northland) Omapere, North Island, New Zealand
By butchie bum on 16-Mar-12. Waypoint GC3ENNP

TftcLocation pretty easy after reading hint

Good hint. Cheers

On a trip up north.Cute church.Quick find here.

On a caching journey up to the north with Supernannny and Net61 to find some caches. Many kilometres were driven over a few days and many caches were found. Thanks to all the cache owners for the placements. Quick stop here at this church and we were back on our travels. TFTC

Dieser Cache konnte heute erfolgreich geloggt werden.Danke an den owner fr's legen und pflegen TFTC Schmerzbefreit

Start of a 4 day break in the area and this was a cache that had to be collected. So very simple but obviously cherished and looked after. TFTC

Cute church. On a maintenance run with the CO; go around and behind the church to get to gz.
I’m on a roadie north to complete the PWGT and find other interesting caches - oldies, puzzles and ones at interesting places.
Kia ora rawa atu for the cache butchie bum.

First time to area, cool wee church thanks

Walk around, don't fight the flax. Easy find. Tftc. No gps in this valley. Coincidentally parked at Pakia Hill, consider geocaching, opened and viola, then back tracked to here. Now forward.

Roadtrip time, day 8.
I have used the Easter weekend combined with taking 4 days leave this week to get in a 9-day driving tour, hoping to get as far north as 90 mile beach in order to seek the recently published PWGT caches throughout Northland, as well as catch up with 4 different sets of friends.

Having spent last night at the campground in Opononi, I knew today would be a bit of a mad dash to try to get up to Pukenui and then back down to Kaiwaka by this evening, especially with the section of SH1 between Okaihau and Kaitaia still out of action due to a slip. I knew I would see a lot of SH10 today.

But whilst I was here I thought I would take the time to see how well I did with this "Golden Circle" series of caches. As it turned out, I had a very mixed set of results. Some were straightforward finds and others left me scratching my head.

This was the first one I attempted today and was effectively a quick park n grab for me today. I had no trouble parking close to GZ and walking over to search for the cache, which was an easy find thanks to the helpful Hint.
I encountered no issues with either the container or the log, which was swiftly signed before the whole lot was replaced exactly as found.

Thanks for setting up and maintaining this cache.

On our caching journey up to the north with EyeSpyBen to sort out a few more caches and a couple of series, many miles driven over many days and many caches found, not to many dnfs
but lovely weather, Thanks to all the cache owners for the placements

Park short walk and bingo, add another to the total, neat area with ABCDF4, TFTC.

Easy find

Drove past at first but it gave me an excuse to demonstrate to GeohoundandI my amazing ability to turn a Honda Odyssey around in the road.
Before finding the cache we did find a dead hedgehog. The phone gps was jumping a bit so GeohoundandI was ready to give up (there was broken glass in the corner we were looking), so I went for a look around the outside of the church. Lo and behold the phone gave me GZ just as spotted an obvious cache.

Found with flossieteacake. The GPS had us looking a completely different corner where we found a dead hedgehog and not what we were looking for. We decided to have a look around the rest of the building and eventually we found it.

Very nice spot, and a quick find. TFTC!!

Quick stop by to grab this cache. Lovely little church. Thanks

Found today

Beautiful wee church!

Beautiful little Church. We wouldn’t have visited this lovely place if it wasn’t for Geocaching

Mooi oud kerkje.TFTC

found got a bit wet

We wanted more finds for today's calendar date, so we planned a trip to Opononi to find some of the Golden Circle Series. Rain was forecast but it mostly held off until our last few finds, though the very strong winds were challenging at times! Some of the finds had us hunting for a while, but we had no DNFs until the last cache on our list.
Can't have been looking at the GPS too closely as we ended up circumnavigating Neil's Church. On the other hand the cache was easily spotted from this direction... Thanks for the hide.

Super cute little church

Great little series.

Today we travelled from Rawene to Whangarei and picked up several caches along the way. We didn't stop at all of them, we couldn't find all the ones we searched for but we found a view and loved the places shown to us. That's what geocaching is about! Thanks to all the CO's for hiding and maintaining them!

GPS was far of, but as there are only four corners it was an easy found anyway...

Nice little church not used much as there were a lot of spider web

Thanks for bringing me here. All good at GZ. TFTC

Stopped of at Neils Church for a quick snag and tag. Cheers. Its still raining so thats it for today.

Its Saturday - day eight -Kaikohe - area with The Seagnoid and Zara today. Toby and William at Motor Doctors again!

Its another epic 4 week geocaching adventure with The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and Willam to the Far North. What an amazing place to explore. Lots of walks, gravel roads and sand. Lots of amazing trees, beaches and interesting POIs. Lots of kilometers traveled by vehicle and foot. Vehicle breakdowns, making new friends and catching up with old friends and family. Snagged a couple of FTF's, lots of lonely caches and the odd event along the way. Lots of cache maintenance and replaced caches on this trip. But what an incredible adventure!!. Thanks to all the CO's who have made this trip so memorable..

Day nine of an awesome, tiring, long, three week holiday geocaching with Taybeedragon in the upper north. today it's Opononi to Cooper's Beech. The whole trip comprised of hours of walking on sand, sliding down sand dunes, hundreds of kilometres of unsealed roads, car breakdowns, paddling out to islands, dolphins, goats, events, FTFs, weird boulders. You name it, we saw it. Lots of bisons, lots of cache maintenance, lots of sunscreen. A month is enough. I am glad to be back home. Except that now I have to write up my trip. We averaged just 20 caches per day, but that is still a lot of logging!

Merry Christmas from the Seagnoid!

Northland Day 1: We drove up from Auckland to Hokianga today, passing through the Hibiscus Coast before heading across to Kaipara District and then into the Hokianga Harbour. Stopped by various beautiful regions along the way to take in the views, and of course, there was always room a few cache finds... well, not a few Thanks to all the COs along the way for showing us the lovelier parts of the Northland!

The following is the specific log for each cache:
Nice little church, but felt a little uneasy opening the gates. No one was around, however, so I made the find quickly and signed in before anyone showed up. TFTC and for showing us this nice place!

Today we had a trip from Kaitaia to Dargaville, thereby visiting many locations especially near Kauri forest and looking for caches, too. On this trip we searched, found and logged a lot of caches. The weather was good all day long, but it got more and more cloudy in the afternoon.
Almost no muggels observed us as they had other things to do than observing harmless geocachers.

Thanks to 'butchie bum' for showing us this location and for the fun we had at 'Golden Circle Series "Neil's church" (Northland)'. The search we had here today didn't take too much time.

Greetings from Germany and hope to see you soon in the forest.

TFTC says H_M_A @ 17. November 2018 @ 13:52 Uhr @ [#12538](https://coord.info/GC3ENNP)

828 What a lovely little church

Out on a mission today, to collect as many caches as possible toward the Hidden Creatures souvenirs. With very few unfound local caches, a decent journey was required. Left at dawn and covered over 300km through the winding gravel back roads of Northland, passing through Twin Bridges, Donnelley's Crossing, Waipoua forest, Omapere, Opononi and Taheke, before the heavy rain finally set in. This heavy rain, combined with the sunset, put a halt to further searching, so had to settle in the end for 29 finds and 7 DNFs for the day.

Continuing on, my next stop for the day was here at this neat little church. Was a bit hesitant about going to GZ, as there were muggles about next door, but once they went inside, I dived in to make the find. Signed log and replaced securely as found. TFTC

What a tiny church. The cache was soon spotted, log signed and then it was replaced as found. Thank-you butchie bum for placing this cache for our enjoyment. Out caching with Will of the Wisp on our “Round the World in 80 Days” trip to celebrate retirement. Signing logs with our names or initials depending on space. Greetings from England, TFTC.

Easy find. TFTC.

Very helpful hint.

Holidaying for a few days at Paihia; today I decided to go on a bit of a road trip to Dargaville then back up through the Kauri Coast, visit Tane Mahuta etc. An interesting day & now almost on the "home stretch".
Thanks for placing and maintaining this cache, butchie bum. There was a tree near the cache with particularly nice flowers.

Tftc. Nice little church. Good hint.

What a cool church . Tftc

Yebo butchiebum

A circle at the western coast with 2 handfuls of caches sounds very tempting- we're giving it a try

Off the circle to clear my up here, double-whammer view with The dunes and the blowhole, caught it at the right time - just marvelous!!!


Well found
Tftc

Lovely spot, loved the bell and the vegetation here
nice easy find this one

11.35am - DAY 1 of 3. This is our first full day of caching in the Northland Region on this trip. Plan was to travel up from Dargaville through the forest to Kaikohe and stop when we needed sleep.
Sorry to say a lot of caches on our first leg were missing and a lot needed repairs done to them.
Would advise future cachers to check the DNF's before wasting lots of time trying to find these ones.
Trip took us to lakes, boulders, churches, cemetries and a great array of other locations.
The kilometres just seemed to flash by with food and drink stops sometimes missed.
Don't know how we ended up in Kaitaia for our night stop but woke up the motelier at some unusual hour for a bed. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap) and Mr Davidson (of Davidson clan). Signed most finds as BGH.

Visiting Northland for Easter... The plan for today was to head up the Kauri Coast to Hokianga Harbour , then skip across to the Pacific Coast until we were somewhere near Kaitaia. We really hope to make a big dent into several challenges we are working on...

Another church to visit on our travels through the region. We didn't expect to find this one where we did... TFTC.

Up North for the easter long weekend with Squirrel nutcase and Gap from FapandGap making our way up to Cape Reinga.
Logs signed BGH
Tftc

Quick find at this quaint old church. Took a sneaky peak inside too. Tftc.

We enjoyed this place. Without geocaching we never would not found it.
TFTC

Today was another nice day for our holiday trip in new zealand were we of course also found some caches along the way.

Today we took a trip from kerikeri back to Auckland.

This is one of them. thank you for maintaining this cache.

A pleasant little stop. Good to be back, passing through butchie bum's territory.

A pity the church was not open as I am sure it a piece of New Zealand settler history in its decor. Nice straight forward find. The garden is nice this time of year with its flowers and colours. T4tc

Kaikohe to Opononi
We spent a delightful day driving through the rolling country side to the ocean. Finishing with a Golden Circle Tour.
A great variety of locations & hides were found.
Thanks for placing this cache butchie bum

Tftc,easy find

What a cute little church. Parked and wandered up. Soon had the cache in hand. TFTC

While Roaming NZ and encountering lovely landscapes,i found this cache.TFTC

cute little church.. they might get wet feet in winter crossing the little rain/stream area as you go up.
The summer holiday this year was to visit the far North. We decided to take our time and travel with just short trips and stop over to visit friends/relatives rather than one big long drive through to Whangarei, so there was a little time allowed for geocaching, although this was fairly restricted. We planned a couple of longer stays at campsites where we used our tent and at other times we were at friends or cabins/motels. Some of the caches took us to a little out of the way places but these were really worthwhile, while others we discovered and visited and as luck would have it there was also a cache! The logging of these cache has had to wait until we got to relatives, on the whole.
This is a fairly generic log with additional notes about individual caches that had something extra that remained in my memory. I may have muddled some or even left some out but hopefully I have it right.

#10982. Going by the name of the church, it was actually my church . Last of the GC series for this trip. TFTC.

Today we left Doubtless Bay after spending 6 enjoyable days here and took the scenic route to Whangarei - via Apihara, the Rawene ferry, Opononi, Kai Iwi lakes then Dargaville. A big day, so had to drive past caches, but a most interesting trip.
Nice wee church, but who's Neil? Cache was a quick find, then had a wee ring of the bell. TFTC.

Found on the way to the south. Thanks.

The person next door didn't seem to have any qualms about me poking around and just waved and continued with his business. I had to check two possible places as my GPSr was jumping around. TFTC.

Peaceful spot.

Easy find if you move some things.

Touring the North Island with laurienorton and JudithN.
Great spot, thanks for the cache.

With Judithn and cwnn on a tour around the norrh. Spent a bit of time exploring this beautiful area.

#21 Quickly found, no time to explore here today.

A quaint little church. TFTC

Cute little spot. A short search and we were signing. Tftc.

Nice quick stop on our trip to Opononi thanks.... Will be back to finish your series sometime !

Easy cache and a nice stop

Quick find between showers. TFTC from a pair of aussie cachers.

On a mission this weekend with Cats&Dragons, with a the main goals of reaching Cape Reinga to find the Virtual caches up there and the 35 and 36 degree South challenges, plus with anything else in between. We had a great time touring around Northland, and it is a pretty spectacular place. Being from Southern Northland, it has reminded me that I need to visit this place more.

The initial plan was to head up the west coast and on to Ninety Mile Beach (which was a huge highlight of the trip) and then down the east coast, but the plan was flexible depending on progress. We mostly achieved our ambitious plan, but due to time restraints had to cut back a bit from the planned list. If we had another day I think we would of achieved most of what we had planned.

Some of the figures for the trip were, 1600km's travelled in a 48 hour period, 37 hours of caching, 4 hours of sleep, and 7 hours driving up from Hamilton and back, with a total of 176 caches found!!

Thanks to all the CO's for placing these caches and showing us around Northland.

Quick find once we got the right corner. TFTC.

This weekends little adventure was in the company of HKCB (as we'd both been given leave passes by our respective partners) so off we set.
The primary goals this weekend were to collect as many of the earthcaches as time would allow, the two virtuals, and complete both the requirements for the S35 & S36 challenges. Mind you this did not stop us working to collect anything else that we could find as time allowed.
It was a great trip with the weather playing its part so that we saw a great variety of countryside between caches and far too little sleep.

THe result was 1600kms (over 48 hours), 189 caches (35 hours caching) & 4 hours sleep, not bad for a couple of beginners. THanks to all the CO's and those that maintain the caches for us to collect on our too brief tour of the north.

Into the first part of daylight caching and very pleased with that as it allows for more enjoyment of the countryside, having been possibly 30 years since I had been up here it was a shame I couldn't have taken more time to enjoy the scenery

Thanks for the placement

Nice spot, I was a bit uncomfortable going into the property in view of the neighbours but the cache was a quick find, TFTC.

A nice little church. Quick find. TFTC

Last summer the idea was born to visit [Green]'New Zealand'[/Green], together with [url=http://coord.info/PR3NXJG][red]'MimiNemo'[/red][/url]
After some important decisions regarding the beginning of our trip, the flights, the general route and the car were made, the most important question was still unanswered: which caches can we visit during our tour [?]
To get an answer for this topic I was fetching almost every cache from both islands [8)][:X]
[url=http://coord.info/PR3NXJG][red]'MimiNemo'[/red][/url] and I love [Teal]'Geo-Arts'[/Teal]...so we added all these cache series to our wish list
After this decision was made this list was more than 300 puzzle caches long...unsolved puzzle caches
Two weeks before Christmas it was getting time to start solving all these mystery caches
Even with the different language I could find almost every solution
In the case I was not so successful I was contacting some of the CO's...and was always getting help from them...many thanks for this support [:X]

During the following weeks our cache list was growing and growing...meanwhile more than 1000 caches long...too long for a simple bookmark list from GC
Time to get our route and caches in sync...time to save the PQ's to our Garmins...time to start this holiday:

Chapter 28: [blue]Kaitaia[/blue] to [red]Dargaville[/red]
On our trip to the south we were looking for some caches along our way

This was one of these caches

I would like to thank all the cache owners for showing us these great places and maintaining all these caches,
Dev46

Together with [url=http://coord.info/PR3BC8B][red]'Dev46'[/navy][/url][/red] I was on a 'sightseeing-tour' through lovely [Green]'New Zealand'[/Green]
During our great time we could see a lot of beautiful places and we also could find 'some' caches in the area...this was one them [:X]

Many thanks to all CO's for all these nice caches
MimiNemo

I love little historic churches they say such a lot about NZ's past
TFTC

Oops forgot to say I dropped a bug in this cache

easy find . exactly where we suspected.

A lovely little church. Great flowers alongside the path. The key was in the door so we poked our heads inside. Looks like a fun church. Cache was an easy find, thanks

thanks to all the owners for hiding and leading us to many special places. TFTC and greetings from Belgium.

"A church! Let's stop" I do proclaim
A cache we found, I'm glad we came
TFTC

#439 3:20 pm Beautiful little church. Watch out for wasps. TFT(pleasant)C.

Only in Oponini for the one night (somehow we managed to find "Ryan's Retreat" great place to stay) so it was up at 5:45 for me to attempt the Golden Cirlce while the rest of the family got up whenever and had a leisurely breakfast. Managed to get to the final bonus and back in time to leave at ten - snuck in a Kauri Grove and Hollow on the way too.

Cute little chirch on the roadside. Love the dunny:-)
TFTC

On our way back to Auckland we found this nice place. Greetings from Germany and tftc.

Nice quick find. I hesitated before going into the property as the door was open.
Its too quiet out here for me to know to be able to just go straight up to the cache and grab it.
Thought about it and then said, stuff it, walked up and grabbed it. Interesting spot for a toilet.

Found with Riser5 TFTC. Kicked Riser5 out of the door!

Nice easy find as no luck today with Golden Circle caches

Found this time around, nice church

Tftc

thanks for the cash

TFTC. Picked up the tb. thanks.

Spotted the little church on the hill before locating the cache with Yeetrees, TFTC.

Coordinates changed from:
S 35° 33.054 E 173° 23.521

Coordinates changed to:
S 35° 33.052 E 173° 23.508

Distance from original: 65.5 feet or 20 meters.
Have been in today to 'CHECK'' this as appears to be having a little cache creep happening. YES, a Church has 4 corners and yes the cache is under one of them . All high and dry just waiting to be found. Please look carefully and you will see. TB drop. Good luck and happy caching.

TB Drop today as stopped in to check and YES cache is still in place.

no people no cache under korners . sorry

Something going on there today, people everywhere.

cute little church TFTC

Hard find. GPS pointed us to wrong corner. Tftc

(897) Decided to take a trip up the West coast with Matttuc76 and pick up some caches on the way. Co-ords seem to be way out on this one. Try another corner. TFTC

This one needed old logs to be read. Thx