Westward Ho! Past Civilisation (North Otago) Danseys Pass, South Island, New Zealand
By erninz on 22-Sep-12. Waypoint GC3XAJ2

We started our beautiful journey through the South Island in Christchurch. Here we went on a big sightseeing tour and visited lots of caches. We then travelled via Lake Tapeko, Dansey Pass and Moeraki to Dunedin for the MEGA event. In Dunedin we visited the MEGA events and together with many other cachers we found many caches around Dunedin. A few days later, we travelled on through the Catlins to the southernmost part of Bluff. We then visited Te Anau and the tourist town of Queenstown. In Wanaka we went on another sightseeing tour until we reached the west coast via the Haast Pass. We hiked to Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier.We continued along the west coast up to Westport, stopping at various sights along the way. Richmond and Nelson, the sunniest cities, were also on our list.A few days later we reached the east coast again in the wine region of Picton and Blenheim.After a few days, we travelled back to Christchurch via Kaikoura.We visited many geological sites, completed many adventure cahes and found many caches along the way.We travelled almost 3500 km and had so many great experiences.Many thanks to all the ownersTeam sissifalke

I'm ditching dad again and heading down south for the Mega in Dunedin. During this trip I managed to do many things and meet many people over the 2 weeks I was away. Thanks to all the cache owners and other cachers for making this trip enjoyable.Day 4 of the trip. Todays adventure is Danseys pass. A great lot of caches but I struck a large hurdle towards the end of the day with not only 1 but 3 punctures. So had to get into dunedin via a 2hr tow truck ride. A nice quick find. TFTCAll logs on this trip were signed by any of the following:Taybee NZ,TBNZ,TNZ,TB/D (When I was out with mother)

Found it

Finally getting a chance to stop for caches through the pass! Lovely day and no one around. TFTC!!

A quick find here as per the hint TFTC

Stopped right on top by chance. Tftc

Quick find by the obvious rock

Continuing on my way. Nice easy find. Thanks.

Found on a night away to danseys pass with family and farmerkeith. Awesome geocaching along this back road. Thank you to all who keep these maintained. Parked further along the road and walked back as there was sudden rush of traffic (7 cars and bikes haha). Easy find

Good find TFC

Found with coconuts3 on a great day along the Dansey. Log soaked but we managed to write our names - just! TFTC

On an adventure with busy paws to explore Danseys Pass. Packed lunch and drinks for a big day. Found cache but log was soaked, wrote very gently and managed to get our names in. Thanks for the cache erninz.

Bit of a search but found at last - TFTC

Boneybruce and I are stranded south of the Rangitata with both bridges closed, so making the best of a bad situation and checking out some back country I've never been through before, but had my eye on for some time. Not too tricky a find here after having to skip a rew caches, either not great parking (and there are a few vehicles on the road today) or muggles about. TFTC!!!

***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](http://nzmega.com) - you won't want to miss it!

No issue to find this one. TFTC

Decided to make a trip to Duntroon over the Dansey Pass. Lots of logs to find and sign and this one was one of them. TFTC

#16874. Lots of rocks in this part of the country! TFTC.

Found with StreetWalker on a big day, starting in Duntroon at about 8:30am, and finishing in Clyde, via Danseys Pass, nine hours and 62 caches later . A fantastic trip with great views and interesting places.
Spotted a likely hiding location as we pulled up, but Murphy's Law meant that the hiding place was circumnavigated before the cache was found. SW wiped the dust off the back windscreen as it was affecting visibility. TFTC.

We are getting along the road in good time. The car is rather dusty but we are past the last houses so there is nobody to see us now.

Quick find number 8 today last one was a DNF so good to find one quickly after spending quite a bit of time looking for the last cache.

I'm from Norway, escaping the cold winter and travelling around New Zealand for 7 weeks, using geocaching as my tourguide. Today I drove from Glenavy to Dunedin over Danseys Pass. I really really enjoyed this powertrail, the scenery just got more and more spectacular the further I got!! It was a good place to have a powertrail, there were hardly no cars, and the caches were hidden in spots where it was easy to park the car. All the caches were quickly found with good hints, that's the way I like powertrails to be. I only had dnf on two caches, that's because I didn't allow myself to spend time searching if I didn't find it instantly. I would never have known about this pass if it wasn't for all the caches that showed up on the map, so thank you sooo much for placing and maintaining them. I really enjoyed this drive. I'm adding a couple of favourite-points on the caches I liked the most. Thank you for all the caches!

after a couple of maintenance dives on my bcd caches it was time for a few caches , on a mission to finish off the westward series nice quick find tftc

I guess that means that I'm about to head into civilisation then. I have been surprised at the number of vehicles that I passed (well actually that passed me while I was looking for little containers) today. TFTC # 11,511

My 2000 cache - Yes. Geofest Oamaru is over but our (The Seagnoid, Toby, Zara & I) epic adventure continues - Day 4 Danseys Pass - another 'must do'. The weather is drizzly, so its raincoats and gummies for the day.
Another snag and tag along our way. Cheers

A enjoyable days drive through Danseys Pass and down State Highway 87 to Mosgiel. Lots to stop and look at along the way. Not to mention a few to stop and look for as well. Cheers and TFTC

The Geofest ended yesterday, but Taybeedragon and I are still going strong. It was raining, but not anymore. Rather than get walking or cycling somewhere, we are getting wet driving Dansey's Pass, the slow way.

With a small amount of drizzle we were able to still visit many caches and see areas we have not yet visited, thanks for the placement we have enjoyed each cache and where is has brought us.

The (major road trip was about to begin) that was for the Oamaru Geofest trip in the company of HKCB and iammrwalker for a bit of a road trip across to the west coast, through Haast and in a roundabout way to Oamaru.

My trip stats were as follows: 617 caches (214 Puzzles), 3300kms, 500 litres of Petrol, 21 hours sleep, 100+hours caching time. THe weather was wonderful and apart from about a 6hour period on the sunday we had fine weather all the way and feel that we made a bit of a hole in the region.

Firstly thanks to all the CO's that put in the effort to to set up these caches and to all the CO's whose caches we did not find this trip, well we are already planning our next trip.
We worked hard at getting specific caches (especially the Geo Art around christchurch and hence our concentration on this area for the preliminary 24 hours. So after a couple of running repairs to the rental vehicle (fuses not working) we were off knowing that all ports could be charged and that sleep was for the weak.

Sorry about the copy and paste logs but that is what tends to happen with a number run of this size. Last came through here a couple of years ago as we worked towards starting a 24 hour run to secure the NZ 1day/24hour record. Nice to finally get to finish this trail through here before heading back and up to Oamaru

**************************************************************

Did you know that planning has started for a Mega Event in Wellington in 2018? Check out the details on the [WENZ Website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's page on [FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/) and don't forget to log your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page](https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellington?guid=23f451a2-08ac-4374-883f-ed6814687147/)

***************************************************************

Signed as TIE. Tftc.

13:54. Tftc, team TIE appreciated the quick and easy find, number 4927

We continue to rock. Signed as TIE. TFTC

Came down this way from the North for the Oamaru Geofest, and decided to add a few more days to the weekend trip and turn it into a bit of a Mega mission, starting 5pm on Wednesday 18th and finishing 3pm Monday 23rd! Teaming up with Cats&Dragons for the first 24 hours then with Iammrwalker joining the team for the remainder.
Just a few of the stats for the trip were:
- 700 caches found, including 270+ puzzles (thanks to the Christchurch Geoart)
- 3300 km's driven, using over 500L of fuel $$$
- Just over 20 hours of sleep (about 4 per day on average), and about 100 hours of caching time.
Certainly a Mega Trip!

Day 4: With the lack of sleep starting to take a toll we finished Day 3 off early and got a few hours sleep before getting back to finding about 2am this morning. Todays mission was to find caches around Tekapo before heading South through the Mackenzine Country via Hakataramea Pass, and onto Dansey's pass before coming out on the coast and heading to Oamaru for the Geofest and caching around the area.

Sorry about the cut and past logs, but that seems to happen with cache runs of this size!

I found this Geocache on a Geocaching mega mission along with Cats&Dragons and HKCB. With only just over three and half thousand Geocache finds I was very much the over achiever in training. We were in the South Island to support the Oamaru Geofest event, hunt down some Jasmar and D/T harder to find Geocaches, lonely caches (those not found in more than 6 months), virtuals and try and meet some milestone numbers. We signed the logs HIC, an abbreviation of our respective Geocaching names, (H)KCB, (I)ammrwalker and (C)ats&dragons. A huge thanks to all the CO’s who placed and maintain the Geocaches we found.

I arrived in Christchurch late Thursday evening having left straight from work and was picked up by my intrepid companions in our four wheel drive rental to find they had already grabbed about 270 finds in the previous twenty four hours. I wonder if the rental company would have still let us have it had they known we would travel 3300km in it before returning it four days later? Our trip took us to Greymouth via Arthurs pass, Ngahere, down the west coast to Haast across to Hawea, Cromwell, Twizel, Aoraki Mt Cook, Tekapo, onto the east coast up to Oamaru and back up to Christchurch via Akaroa and countless diversions and small towns along the way. We slept in the car for the first two nights, grabbing some shut eye between cache finds, taking turns to drive. We rented a small place in Oamaru for the other two nights and appreciated a bed to sleep in and a hot shower. It was an amazing trip, in which I discovered the South Island has some of the most incredible scenery in the world.

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)… Our journey to the bottom of the South Island has been almost two years in the planning. We were determined to make it to Oamaru Geofest. We decided to also factor in completing a couple of missions (JASMER and Virtual challenges), and the wheels started turning...

Day Four: Naseby-Danseys Pass-Oamaru

Our plan for today was to be in Oamaru by evening. We wanted to be ready for the opening of Geofest tomorrow. We began stirring early this morning... A long haul to the top of the Danseys will also require a trip down the other side... Just when we thought we were over the worst of the road, the other side was more of the same... Another quick find here (Apologies for cut and paste logging). TFTC.

DAY 4
After a good cafe breakfast at Naesby our mission was to complete the other side of Danseys Pass. Some caches were wet and damp and a couple of DNF'S. SLTFTC

Have messaged the CO with answers, now logging to keep th order.

Heading to the Oamaru Geofest with a group of like minded people, and collecting a few caches along the way....

Travelling with NZTravellers, UncleSamNZ, and KeyLev we signed in as 'SEAC17' to save logbook space.

Thank you to all the CO's for placing caches along the route.

TFTC.

Another one off the list to do and more still to come as we head down the track towards Oamaru - been a good day for driving but the car is looking a tad brown instead of silver. Car wash or groomers - what to choose or as in the past a bucket and cloth and do it ones self.

Greetings from an Auckland Cacher. In the area for the “Almost Mega” event.

Started off at Dunedin Airport. Enjoyed our drive.

Sorry for the generic logs. Thanks for taking the time to place this cache.

All logs signed as “Team SEAC”

In the area driving to Geofest Oamaru....

Nice quick find.

Enjoyed the views on an awesome day through here....also liked the safe parking at each cache location!

Thanks for the cache.

Signed as SEAC 17 (South East Auckland Crew)

We arrived in Dunedin today and traveled to Oamaru for the 2017 Geofest through Ranfurly, Nasbey and Danseys Pass. We attempted many caches throughout the long hot day and as it was the Geofest we bumped into fellow geocachers as well as a few muggles along the way. We were travelling with Keylev, UncleSam, Stik-a-Crane so to save log paper signed as Team SEAC 17.

Thanks to all the COs for the caches along the route.

Day 3 of my Oamaru GeoFest week. Naseby to Oamaru with KCN today.
Expecting dust, dust and more dust.
One of the few for which I made no notes, but we have enjoyed the day so far.
Thanks for the smilie.
1619 20 October 2017 15:35

tftc

Found on our Labour Weekend expedition over Dansey's Pass. Although it wasn't sunny the weather was mild and still and the scenery stunning. We enjoyed finding all the caches and appreciated that all of them had convient safe parking spots.
TFTC

Checked today and log changed.

The second weekend of planned caching trips for Chelzea and I. This one started caching near Temuka and then on down to Timaru, Oamaru over Danseys Pass and then back to ChCh from Palmerston the next day. Long and winding trip in places but managed a good number of caches with only a few DNF's. Too many to remember in detail so sorry for the cut and paste logs but thanks to all the owners it was a great two days of searching new places for a good variety of caches.

Found on our way to Danseys Pass.tftc

I'm currently hitchhiking my way around the world and geocaching everywhere I go. My first stop was in Ireland where I spent a couple weeks touring the country. I then flew to London and spent a couple weeks touring the United Kingdom. From there I made my way through the tunnel and up to Amsterdam and then back down to Belgium. After that I headed for France. Then from there I headed to Portugal for a mega event that was happening. After that I headed for Denmark to attend another Mega event. I then made my way North into Sweden and then even further North to Norway. After that I proceeded to work my way back down South through Finland and then ferry hopped my way through a few of the islands to arrive back in Sweden. Next I made my way to Germany for another Mega event and then back to the Netherlands for still another mega event before heading for Luxembourg. After that the next stop along my journey was Switzerland. I then made a quick detour up to Belgium to grab a July 2000 geocache I had overlooked before making my way to Croatia passing through Austria and Slovenia along the way. After that my route took me East to Serbia and then through Romania into Moldova. I then couldn't resist going North and crossing into the Ukraine. After that I began heading South passing through Romania once again. I then passed through Bulgaria as I raced for Turkey in order to catch a flight to Australia timing it so that I could attend a mega event happening there. After that I made an extensive 2 month tour through all 8 states of Australia before flying over to the North Island of New Zealand. I then gradually worked my way south to Wellington and took the ferry over to the South Island. I then continued hitchhiking my way around the South Island via Blenheim, Murchison, Spring Junction, Leithfield Beach, the bypass around Christchurch to Ashburton, Dunedin, Brighton, Bluff, Queenstown, Danseys Pass, and then Christchurch airport.

Staying at Danseys Pass Holiday Park as a guest of the owner and figured I'd walk along the road and grab a bunch of geocaches before hitchhiking back.

Thank you so much for placing this geocache!

TheLoneBaker

Found it

Interesting trip through Dansey's Pass, good find.

Sunroller, my caching partner for the day, and I decided to go over the Dansey Pass collecting caches on the way.

Cheers for the cache and the series.

TFTC

Another great find while slowly heading to the Christchurch Mega.
Thanks for adding to the enjoyment of this trip.

Another lonely cache!

SL TFTC and the series erninz

Found it

Found with Chosen1978, Thanks for the placement of the caches through the pass. Great area.

Thanks for the cache, had busy day geocaching through these parts.

Working at Danseys pass, getting caches on the side.

Adam Steele USA

We did already some of caches from Oamaru, today we came from Ranfurly to complete the series. We managed to find nearly all -just one without any luck and we spent quite some time there. But considering that some coordinates were out by about 20m we should have widened our search even more. Most caches well done, but the hints were sometimes more confusing and not helpful. We are glad that we completed the drive - but have to come back for one. But this is just an excuse for another great drive over the pass. Thanks for placing all the caches.

could imagine how lonely it would have been in the past.
TFTC

Day 3 of our 5 Day end of year geocaching trip. Today was our biggest day with 75finds and 4DNFs with most of them being park and grabs. A quick find the container was nice and sparkly in the sun. Sorry for the late log but Thanks for the cache [purple]Our cache find: #3245[/purple] | [green]Cache of the Day: 17/75[/green] | [blue]Cache of our trip: 84/235[/blue]

Steep drop offs around here. TFTC.

tftc

Hasn't been much civilisation anywhere

Wild country all right

Quick find with TwoSharpe. TFTC

Went through a civilisation of sheep to get this cache!

Ended up driving this in the dark, so only chose caches I felt safe - lone female cacher....
Thanks for the trail & the cache.

I have been across Dansey's Pass a couple of times before and have always enjoyed the majestic scenery. The last time was with the family and there was a general veto in place which stopped any serious caching. This time caching was the objective
I started the trail at about 6:30 pm and took a few pics along the way which have been uploaded to the Glimmer cache.
Many thanks

Not really anywhere good to stop in a 2WD so I just did the best I could. Needless to say that it was terrible. Tftc

Found on way over the pass. Great weather today

Enjoying the pass caches

We enjoyed the day caching in this area

Tftfun

Arriving at civilisation for us as we are heading East. Found on our way from Naseby to Oamaru, warm sunny day and not much traffic. SL TFTC.

Enjoyed another find as part of our 24hr caching cruise through North Otago into the Maniototo and back. TFTC

Thanks for the cache, love the danseys pass!

13271… We’re into the Wild West..... way Past Civilisation, TFTC.

Out and about with Karma Reprint on a weekend down south. Thanks

Found with Kiwi Moose on a big weekend of caching. Thanks for the hide.

Another one where my memory has let me down. Can't recall it as a write this log 24 hours later. TFTC

It seems more civilised over the Danseys than it did 40 or so years ago.TFTC

Found at 2:59 PM
Quick find

TFTC erninz

pipedream

We had been waiting for a good day to take the BMW on a long ride and we had had on our mind to do the Danseys Pass for some time. So we got up early and decided to go clockwise because that is just how John likes to do things. This is the 17th find of 31 today.

This entry was edited by Guzzi Riders on Monday, 07 October 2013 at 20:57:03 UTC.

Bleak landscape, must have been a hard life in the mining days.
Found with DebsNZ and Aoraki Sheep.
TFTC

Still no where to stop for lunch but we found the cache so we're still smiling. Found with Aoraki Sheep and Woody104

Enjoying the views and also grabbed another cache. Found with debsnz and Woody104

We didn't expect to see such a nice house out here in the middle of nowhere, I'm sure they must wonder why cars park on the side of the road near their place. Cache quickly found but still nowhere to stop for lunch.

This entry was edited by dakotacats on Friday, 05 April 2013 at 05:22:10 UTC.

It might be civilisation but it is not as I know it. The cache was close to the road so it was a quick grab and run.

This entry was edited by fluffyduck38 on Friday, 05 April 2013 at 23:36:01 UTC.

easy enough find on a hot day.had a quick drink as well.TFTC

I thought I was entering civilisation?

quick find TFTC

Another quick find. TFTC.

A quick easy find again. TFTC

Quick grab...final caching day for 2012 going for a record finds in 12 hours for my personal best..having a blast! Havent been over the Danseys in 20 years!

Decided to take a diffrent route to Central and pick up some cache. TFTC

Great gorge and a favourite from us.

TFTC

TFTC - found with WGHS caching activity

Found with WGHS caching activity. Thanks for the Cache.

Another find by the 'WGHS Pink' group, TFTC! Loving this power trail series, glad I seized the opportunity to do it!

Found with WGHS Caching Activity, TFTC!