HRT Victoria Battery approach (Hauraki) Waikino, North Island, New Zealand
By vectis on 10-Dec-13. Waypoint GC4V8ZN

Found while returning to the Victoria battery from the near by waterfall. Took quite a lot of hunting around, first to locate the correct hint object and then to find the cache. Got close to giving up but found it I'm thr end. TFTC

Had a fantastic whnau experience over the road with dinner, beer and gin tasting, so popped over the bridge and had a hunt around for this. Mini and Micro McArgister tried to help, but none of us could rustle this one up.

Looked at a more obvious hint object with no luck. Later read logs providing further hints but didn't feel sufficiently motivated to return

The previous comments were helpful! Sneaky sneaky. Great hide!

Up from the deep South for a wedding, so out exploring the area. Nicely timed for the Cosmic Quest. A detour to Waihi on the way to Auckland. No luck for m either. Hopefully the very newbie didn't misunderstand the rules and collect the cache! 29 July 2024 2:25 pm

Out with the team SEAC crazies for a Matariki day trip. TFTC

Really well hidden

My very first cache

Amazingly 3 have found this one today. I have spent about 20 minutes so it's time to call it quits

Not today, will be back

Not today

Thanks vectis for the cache. Its #1958 for us. We found your cache on Friday 24 May 2024. Yup, exactly! Right under our nose and bang on GZ!! Just took forever to work out the obvious. Geotrails arent always the answer to success.

Took a lot more searching than we expected, and lots of .... that matched the hint. Then we discovered one disguised by foliage and voila!

We looked in the wrong place at first, burchten stump was close by, TFTC

Tftc

Away for the weekend to ride a section of the Hauraki Rail Trail from Waihi. This afforded me the opportunity to snag some caches en route. Found a stump but no cache there so left with the hump. Thanks vectis#5073Logged using Cachly.

Found the hint object 8m south of the co-ordinates, but no sign of the cache.

Run out of time

Found it while visiting victoria battery! Cheers from belgium

nice quick find

Easy find. Tftc

Lovely day out, nice hide

Checked out several stumps but couldn't find anything looking like a micro.

A nice quick find on a very quiet Saturday. TFTC

Thanks for the cache and greetings from Czechia

Lots of unnecessary fossicking around. However today we turned a frown into a smile. Has been here all along! Clever vectis

Yes I was thinking it might not be there as some parts seemed to be recently missing. It was a new log all well secured

Unfortunately couldn't find this one

Second time weve had a look. Spent quite awhile searching hint items. May well be there as Vectis is a clever hider.

found on holidays, late june 2023

First DNF tricky one as its pretty overgrown and lots of stumps

Pretty sure I was looking in the right spot but could not for the life of me find it. Thought I did at one point but was just bark hahaha. Nice spot tho!

Searched for a while but no luck! Lots of fallen trees so maybe it’s been accidentally moved?

Struggled in the bushes here with no luck. Many hint objects.

Chloe found it

24.04.2023 found it

Found! Made us go on a journey, but it was right in front of our eyes the whole time

Good find!!

As we visited this spot and learnt so much from the signs, the wherigo and the AdLab, we also stopped for this trad. But we just couldn't find it. There was quite a good growth of vegetation, but no sign of the cache. We found a hint object, within 6m of the GPS pointing, but no cache around. Not sure if we are looking in the wrong place or if cache is gone (on a bike ride?). Thanks for placing this here and maintaining so many caches in the area.

TFTC

Found it! Thank you

Found a few caches today between Paeroa and our overnight stop at Waihi Beach. Just one in the Karangahake Gorge, recovering from the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle. Apparently the gorge road was closed for a couple of days or so earlier in the week. Made slightly harder work of finding this cache than I needed to. Couldn’t locate the hint object, but Mrs tbird did – in a very easy to access spot. The cache was then a quick find! #5894. TFTC.

Tftc. Found it while on break from work.

Quick find on our way to explore Victoria battery. Tftc

Yay 1st one of the year

TaurusSix and I are in New Zealand for a three weeks holiday. We love New Zealand and have had lots of wonderful experiences here previously. This time we have decided to focus our attention on three destinations for one week each, all in the North Island. The Coromandel Peninsula, Waiheke Island and The Bay of Isles. We are very mindful of not focusing all our attention of the holiday on geocaching, however it will still play an important part. We are deliberately focusing on caches that involve some walking, great views, interesting attractions , history and general points of interest. And this will all happen in between exploring, swimming , walking, doing touristy things and relaxing .
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Day 6 - We are now based for the next little while at Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula. Today was a big day we set off quite early and explored Paeroa before heading to Karangahake Gorge and undertaking the full return walk to Waikino- Victoria Battery. It took about one hour to get to Paeroa and it was a nice drive at that time of day as the sun was rising , it was definitely a good example of the “land of the long white cloud” as we made our way through the mountains. Once at Paeroa we explored the town in the best possible way by undertaking the three Adventure Labs that are there. The third one being the legendary L and P one which finished at the L and P cafe where we had a lovely brunch . Next we parked up at the beginning of Karangahake Gorge ready for our big adventure. Along the way we also walked back and forward through the tunnel, checked out one of the waterfalls, explored the old gold town and industrial operations at waikino, really enjoyed the walk and collected all up 14 geocaches and 2 Adventure Labs. Total caches for day 17 traditional, multi, virtual and questions and 25 Adventure Lab elements. Great day all round.

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This is our fifteenth cache find of the day along with several Adventure Labs . What a fabulous area, amazing history and very well preserved. It was late afternoon now and very few muggles around so we really took our time in enjoying the area. Thanks for the cache vectis

Four smiles in this area.

Quick find on our return bike ride

I had no problem to find and log this one. The log book was wet.
TFTC

Nice easy tind

Thank you for this one! Nice little find!

I’m on a 2 day adventure with fellow cachers from Auckland, rustynz, Aiden29 and tramyard. Aiden is our driver in her car, and today we’re walking along the Karangahake valley, picking up trads and adventure labs. Tonight we’re staying at Athenree campground in 4 tents between us, then tomorrow Katikati and Tauranga. Great fun.

I nearly missed this cache due to the fact everyone in my team had done it! So nobody had it on their phones. Luckily for me, tramyard still remembered where it was and I was able to log a very quick find. Thanks for history of the trains vectis, loved it.

Yeah. Nice easy find. Many thanks

Stopped today for a beer at the remaining local hotel. And of course a cache or two as well. Thanks for placing and maintaining a cache here. Interesting history around this area. I plan to be back one day for a bike ride. Fingers crossed

In the area playing bridge and getting some caches. Found with Kiscardi. All good with the cache. Thanks

Down in Waihi caching.
On my way walking to the battery.
Would love to come back and ride the trail one day.

In the area today doing ad labs and tidying up a few caches. Didn’t take long to locate this one. Tftc

Found with Just_Jess! today as we took a quick wander. Quick find, everything is in order. Only wish we had more time to see more of the trail. TFTC

Would never have explored here without these caches! TFTC

TFTC. No pen so photo of container supplied.

No luck here for us today either…. Had a good search too

Stump looks the worse for wear. Think this one is a gone Berger.

Looked at the wrong stump at first. Closer to home is where I found it. Tftc

First find today, and enjoyed reading the description too.

Back at where mr rattll dropped me off this morning.
Tried the more obvious wrong spots before having success. Had to wait out some passing cyclist muggles before making the return.
Thanks for putting this here for me to find

Seattle’s Best located it today while I was disregarding previous logs and was searching up the bank a bit. Enjoyed our walk! Thanks for adding to it!
@Lui_thedog (instagram) enjoys exploring too!

Easy find once looking in the right place!! Stopped in at victoria battery on the way home from waihi so grabbed this one while we were here! Definitely plan to ride the hrt one day to get the rest of them!!

Miserable wet day but off on an adventure anyway.

Took a minute to find
TFTC

The Kiwiscot clan hired some bikes from Waihi and hit the rail trail. Found this cache thanks to other geocachers who were in the process of uncovering it as we rode past. Memorised the hides location so we could collect it on our return journey which we ultimately did. TFTC

Tftc.

no need to climb the bank [8]

This took a bit of looking, and like a lot of cachers I went to the obvious first. Had the aha moment heading back to the bike!

Ms_KR and I are off on a wee tour of the North Island. The weather was mostly dry today, a bonus. We cruised from Waihi Beach to Paeroa, me on the bike down the HRT trail. A really nice bike ride.

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

Bit harder for the kids this time haha

We came from the old Ore Kilns and started looking for the cache on the way down. It was clearly invisible! Change of perspective and there is was!

TFTC vectis

*** Out on our MEGA Roadtrip with Wilbywarrior. Who says this can only happen when the MEGA is actually held?! Greetings from Dunedin, caching friends
#292 ***

Went to the wrong hint object first but after reading a couple of logs we found it!

Malinkaly and I planned a road trip to go to the MEGA but Covid has postponed the event again. We decided to continue on with our planned journey making adjustments as we go with the ever-changing travel restrictions.
Greetings from Dunedin!
Thanks for the cache, vectis
#2531

2nd cache found for the day. Another one off the list.

Nice walk to museum fairly easy to find stump starting to get grown over

Nice dry cache. First for my walk to Waihi. Thanks.

Coordinates seemed to be pointing us up the slope. We found an abandoned rail track up there but no cache. Only when we came all the way back down and examined a likely candidate at the bottom did we find the cache. TFTC

Found today, TFTC

??

Got it

Found it

Out and about with the elder Future Finder today enjoying a Sunday drive through the country side. Having visited Martha, the pit mine in Waihi, our second target for the day was to check out the Victoria Battery. We parked up opposite the Waikino Hotel and took the swing bridge over to this historic site; the FF was most unimpressed with the "rocking" bridge. Anyway, there were too many muggles about after crossing the bridge so we decided to save this one for the return leg. This proved a sensible decision with no muggles about and a super quick find was had. Cheers for the cache placement!

Had to wait until people left but we got there in the end without disclosing the cache position.

First find of our long weekend with jizt magic!!

First find of the holiday with Grim Dragons. Forgot pen so had to pop back to accommodation. TFTC!

Second find on our bike from Paeroa to Waihi. Lovely to stop in the shade by the river

Nice and easy find here as we were about to re-cross the bridge back to the car after a visit to the historic mining site.

It's go home day today and we're travelling a really convoluted way back home, via Whangamata, Waihi Beach and K Gorge. Great scenery again and a few caches found in modest numbers.

Our last visit to the Coromandel was over 12 years ago so it was good to be back in the area after all of that time. We had spent Christmas away in Northland, and a quiet New Year at home before a 4 day/3 night stay in Coromandel town. We explored up the West of the peninsula up to Fletchers Camp, through the middle and across to the East coast of Whitianga and Whangamata, before heading back home 'via' Waihi Beach, where sadly that lady was killed by a shark whilst swimming, RIP. We found all available TMGT options, a few Earthcaches and saw some great sites and sights. Thanks to all COs for their caches here. We didn't do nearly as many as the Seagnoid and TB dragon whose steps we followed in on some days.

TFTC!

First find of the day, sniffed out by my niece Bella. Tftc.

There's just about enough vegetation to conceal the cache now. Cache replaced and enabled.

This one has gone along with most of the vegetation will re-think and replace.

Saw where it could have been - and looked all around the area too. DNF.

Found stump but didn’t stump up with the cache

Couldn't find. Think we found where it would be

3 looking but no luck

No luck - can see where a might have gone

Restrictions have been lifted so all good to go.

The Hauraki Rail Trail is closed while the Covid 19 rahui is in place. Anyone geocaching during this time is putting themselves and others at risk by handling the containers, stash and logs. So this cache is disabled until this present emergency ends. I reserve the right to disable any logs dated after the lockdown started.