It's a Wonderful Cache (Papakura) Takanini, North Island, New Zealand
By Agazo on 20-Dec-14. Waypoint GC5HQB8

Despite being archived I was hoping the cache would still be here given the effort I spent in solving it (with the CO's help) and the fact that it's so close to the old mega venue. However, what was on satellite view then and what's on the ground now have no relationship to each other, so it's definitely gone.

I am leaving the area and couldn't find anyone to adopt this cache, so I am archiving it.

Found

Final number 5567. Decided that today's mission is to try and clear some puzzles I had final coords to. This was the first for the day. I had called to find it some months ago but the old GZ was a construction site. Despondent I went home and forgot about. Recently I noticed that it had been moved and new calculations were required. This visit I was able to quickly locate though I had to wait for a lady and her mutt to pass before I could grab and sign. Pleased to finally tick it off. Thank you for the placement.

Found 7pm
We had visited this location some time ago and it was all fenced off to the public. Had some intel that this work was complete and worth another go. Area has changed a lot and with a good size container, didn't take us too long to find. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)... We planned to be in Auckland this weekend. But a mystery illness has proven to be a proverbial ‘fly in the ointment...’ Heading northward tentatively...

After a hasty supermarket visit, it was time to head to the beach for the night. We might actually arrive during daylight hours...

We invested a lot of time on this puzzle during the recent holidays. Our interest in the movie came after discovering an online gravesite tour of the actors and actresses involved in this film... Although we were methodical with our initial calculations, we were slightly out with our counts. We ended up comparing notes with a previous finder and making some corrections.

Our first attempt to get into ground zone came to grief because the area is now a construction zone. After contacting the CO and on his advice, we recalculated for the new final... Today’s visit was a formality. After a quick sweep of the possibilities, Gap found this sizeable hide. TFTP and TFTC.

Started looking at this puzzle a long time ago, it took quite a few views of the movie and some cross referencing of the scripts to get what we thought was the right answer, but no the CO confirmed that more was required. Back at we soon found we had missed a couple of numbers so back again to the CO with what was now surely the correct number; again the answer was no - where to next??? So the puzzle languished for a while until another attempt was made. This time with a little help from the CO the final two numbers were found - one barely audible and the other we had discounted as it was different from what we thought was required.

With the correct final figure we were on to the maths, first couple of stages no problem but then another block in the way - how do you do that again? So we decided to collaborate with McTui and we worked out the final solve together.

After a little celebration we jumped in the car and off to the final. As we pulled up we could see quite a bit of work was going on around GZ and was hoping it hadn't affected the cache, fortunately at this stage it hasn't. Took a few minutes to find but cache is in good condition and TB taken. Thanks for the challenging puzzle.

Major earthworks have occurred at GZ and it is now behind a fence. I have moved GZ to a new location and updated the puzzle to reflect this. The cache has been replaced with a new and improved container. Please hide well.

When I replaced the cache, I dropped off the Chasburg Haz TB which was in another one of my caches which was just archived.

Tftc found with abcdf4 what a great puzzle in aucks for the day

Pick this one up today.
Before the Event
Had a group of as working on this one.
Watched the movie over and over again.
Boys at the camp had good eyes and ears thanks guys
I email CO and yes we will right

Belated find after a long discussion with TW on solving this. My biggest issue was watching the movie. Just watching the movie has to be a difficulty 5! Its not likely to be on my classic movie list. However, I was very happy when Ryan from TW came up with the maths, I would still be using my fingers. Thanks.

We'd never watched this movie before, but now feel we know it very well! You certainly do need to watch it a few times to get every last number. And even so, having submitted our list to the CO for checking, we found we had missed one or two. Many thanks Agazo for your help. Once we had the correct tally the maths steps were sorted more easily than we had expected. Very happy to see some recognisable coords emerging.
It took us longer to find the time to get to GZ than we had hoped, but tonight we planned a visit after a Mt Wellington flower delivery. All quiet at GZ at this late hour, and we began our search. Needed to expand it a little before spotting the container. Delighted to sign off on this one. It is indeed a Wonderful Cache. Thanks, giving this a Favourite Point.

This is a classic Xmas movie that the Welsh family have watched many times. With Mr TW out of the country and some pretty wet Auckland days it was a good time to rewatch it (many times) and came up with a pretty good number. Once that was accomplished the maths work was handed over to Ryan (4th year engineering student) who does this type of stuff in his sleep. He sent me his workings and my eyes glazed over at what he had to do so glad that he was able to assist. In the area today and avoyager and I made a nice quick find. TFTC and the puzzle

Out caching with Team Welsh today (signed as TWA).
Worked partially with TW on this puzzle. Got to the nitty gritty part & well, cant say l got anywhere other than spending a couple of hours trying to learn where to even start. Thankfully Ryan came up trumps with the magical answer. In the area today & after checking a few spots, found the right spot. TFTC

Team BOP ( myself Philip.Perry and TNXPRO ) have a few solved puzzles in Auckland so planned a trip to Auckland to get them.
Well that was an interesting movie which I had to pay for I thought YouTube was free but I wasn't able to find the free copy although I have watch it before with the kids and it was free but lost the numbers so had to start again. Lucky for us we were able to get some assistance on the maths from the kids as I don't think.we would have got the solve otherwise.
Cache quickly found and log signed Team BOP.

Tftc

With a bag full of solved puzzles around Auckland, I teamed up once again with Davidson clan and Philip.Perry. Team BOP were reunited once again to gather as many solved puzzles as we had time to find in the two days we had allocated.

Its has taken me a couple of weeks to get my head into logging these and my memory is fading, so am relying on a combo of field-notes and the other logs from Team BOP...

I hadnt had a chance to solve all the puzzles on our list, including this one, but as I was along for the ride and found the log book, I can log the find.

Thanks for putting out the puzzle and thanks for bringing me here.
TFTC.

Team BOP have descended upon Auckland with a pocket full of solved puzzles. When I first looked at this one I honestly thought 'no way' - thankfully that wasn't Davidsonclan's response Good work on outsourcing that maths solve too... lol. Got a pretty convenient park at GZ and made short work of the formalities. Cheers Agazo, TFTC.

Was part of the Team Westies Group that huddled around the tv to watch a "classic"

In hindsight, watching was probably the easy part, then it was the backwards and forwards of messages. Then a glimmer of hope, but on a closer inspection more questions, than answers. Thankfully the CO helped different members, until eventually the maths where done. Amazing work

So a big thanks to everyone in "Team Westies" for the solve and the find

PS: went out to sign the log today, after a "long" search resorted to a PAF and at last I found the cache. But once I got back to my car, the starter motor started playing up again grrrr and so I was stranded - what is a cacher to do? yep PAF and with that geocchi, gorby and Aiden29 arrived and gave the car a push! yippie I was on my way to meeting some "Team Westies" for a kayak trip to a cache in the mangroves - thanks again great teamwork, you guys are awesome

I don't think I would have got past stage 2 if I'd gone solo with this cache. It takes good friends to help make one's life wonderful, and too much thinking often hinders that. I never realised how famous this movie was until I saw this cache. I see tvnz played it this xmas and I neven heard an interview/review on radio RNZ regarding it's cult status as a famous xmas movie. I could take it or leave personally, but it was an education nonetheless. Needless to say, my maths has not improved any since [;) ]
thanks Agazo

Westies spent some time going ff and rewind on a movie evening,and drinking vino of course. Today we where in the vicinity so came by to do the honours Tftc

Ummm I think it was my idea for the Westies to solve this puzzle which turned out to be a wonderful experience. With excellent company and some puzzle solving essentials we watched the movie and dutifully recorded the spoken numbers, turns out we may have all been hard of hearing and a few were missed. Jag50 were determined not to gave this puzzle beat them and put exceptional work into solving this, the rest of us contributing where possible. Mr jag50 tackled the maths and got the result. Looking at his workings and having the calculus for exceptional dummies 101 I have an understanding of how it was done. Thanks agazo for this interesting puzzle, FP for the effort and complexity.

Wow....I can't believe we were finally able to go with the coordinates and look for the cache today!
It started a while ago, when urbangypsy invited some Westies to her home to watch this unusual movie ....and we all faithfully noted down many numbers....none of which seemed to tally or agree ..
Since then some of our group ..mainly MrJag ...have worked tirelessly in an effort to make a solve .
The CO also was helpful in telling us where we were going wrong...
Eventually we had the correct numbers !
Down that way today for an Event...so a quick find was made by 6 of us !
Thanks Agazo ...and Jag50...what a supreme effort...and a very complicated mystery ! Fave point !

I looked at this puzzle months ago and decided that my maths knowledge was nowhere near up to the ability required to get a smiley face so I put it in the too hard basket. UGNZ suggested a group solve so after a Westie movie night watching the movie and counting numbers and with the bright sparks doing the math, we failed to solve as we hadn't counted enough numbers. Oh dear, we need to watch the movie again! Aiden29 found a script online, but we discovered that wasn't entirely accurate, but then after a lot of perseverance and hard work from Jag50 and help from the CO we made progress. Mr Jag50 did the hard yards with the calculus and came up with some likely co-ords so on our way to the GiFF event we stopped to check and yay, found the cache! Team Westies are very proud to claim 3rd to find, and now I'm off to have a Wonderful Life.

Yep! It was finally solved as mentioned by the others, A team was organised, it certainly took much longer to solve than the group thought it would take, well done Jag50 for doing the bulk of the work, thanks UGNZ for inviting me over (as such....). It's always a relief to find the final after a puzzle cache solve then as a group (Jag50, supernanny, Aiden29, merlot58 and myself) signed in and we carried on caching up to the GIFF event. Thanks Agazo.

This started off with urbangypsynz suggesting a movie night at hers to work on solving this cache. With all of Team Westies present to make a note of numbers we thought we would catch them all. We had some help from Jag50's children and BertieBlowfish's nephew with the calculations, however neither were able to come up with logical co-ordinates.

With some back and forth emails with the CO and re-watching and workings, we finally got the correct number to plug into the equations and the final co-ords were confirmed.

A group of us stopped by here to find and sign as Team Westies on the way to the GIFF event nearby. It was a relief to get this one finally turned into a smiley as it was becoming the bane of Team Westies life over the last couple of weeks.

We had not really looked at this puzzle but when UGNZ suggested a group solve, we agreed to join the Westie movie night, watching the movie and counting numbers. At the end we all agreed that we had the numbers and so then set about doing the math. Mr Jag50 was having some trouble recalling his calculus of years ago so called upon our daughter to provide some assistance. After sitting down and studying the sums, he was reminded of the calculus rules and he decided that we probably had the sums right but the numbers were probably wrong. Advice from Bertieblowfish who also had access to a budding mathematician nephew confirmed we were on the right track. Damn we needed to watch the movie again! Advice from the CO was that we had a fair few more numbers to gather up and he gave us a few hints. Aiden29 found a script online, which was helpful to find a few of the missing numbers but even then we discovered that wasn't entirely accurate. Repeated attempts and email with the CO followed from Mr Jag50, and after a lot of hard work from Mr and Mrs Jag50, advice and support from UGNZ, Merlot58, Bertieblowfish and Aiden29, and further help from the CO we made progress. Mr Jag50 had the nod from the CO as to the list of numbers found in the movie and so the night before our big cache hunt in Papakura Mr Jag50 decided to give the calculus a go on his own. Lo and behold the numbers and co-ords came up. On our way to the GiFF event we joined up with a number of the Westies and stopped at this location first , early in the morning to check, and yeeehhaaaaaa, found the cache! It's a Wonderful Cache. We signed in as Team Westies and 3rd to find, and now we too are thankfully off to have a Wonderful Life. Thanks Agazo for the challenge and all of your encouragement and help.

Out and about this morning collecting a few hides before making my way to work down south this afternoon--well not this far south. As is my habit, from time to time, I looked at this puzzle from a unique, non-linear, perspective. Opening my mind to creative solutions I soon had a fuzzy logic answer. Well, at GZ my logic confirmed its fuzziness but also proved its efficiency as I was able to complete the formalities on this puzzle after several minutes of searching. Cheers for the puzzle cache placement!

I was busy when this cache was published and forgot about it until today about lunch time. Took a bit of a look at it and set it aside as too much work (for the moment). Had another look later in the afternoon and decided to give it a go. I know the story but I'd actually never watched the movie. It is a great story. I headed out shortly after solving the puzzle and parked up in the vicinity of GZ - headed over to the spot and made an immediate find on the cache. Opened up to find... An empty log book Bert! What do you know about that? Merry Christmas! Turns out every time a bell rings, FMZ gets an {FTF} FTF #1699 TFTC!!!

Published