Rarangi Rocks (Nelson/Marlborough) Rarangi, South Island, New Zealand
By bumandworker on 13-May-15. Waypoint GC5VEK0

Home from SA jobCollecting caches of high value along the way to CHCHThanksAll is wellDropping traceable CAJ5PG

Fun find

Found after a bit of bush bashing when taking the wrong entry point. Got there in the end. TFTC

After dinner popped over to try and find this one. Camped at the campsite across the road. Slow and methodical search yielded results.

Trouve ! / Found it ! En partant du camping, cette petite matrice tait manquante pour ma matrice no-zlandaise, je me suis donc arrt ici pour la chercher et la trouver ! 4533me cache trouve.Merci bumandworker pour la cache When leaving the campsite, this little die was missing for my New Zealand die, so I stopped here to look for it and find it!4533th cache found.Thank you bumandworker for the cache

Needle in a haystack but get your geo goggles on and perseverance pays off. Tyftc

Another exciting find on my birthday!! An interesting spot, tftc

First cache with our grandchildren, they were so excited TFTC

Surprisingly quick find.TFTC

TFTF this could have taken a lot longer than it did. Not where I was expecting to find it

Took a little while but worth the hunt . With Kaz53

I think I fluked this find. GPS bouncing around. You could dinette spend a long time looking around here.

Nice and quick

Gave up after a few minutes since there’s a whole bunch (more than of pest traps around and I didn’t want to stick my hand in any places that I couldn’t see.

Yahoo. Was not expecting to find this one considering the D rating. GPS wasn’t too far out. A friend suggested I use my hiking stick to probe nooks and crannies And when I got a different sound I was so excited to have found the cache. TFTC

I spotted this just before the WhereIGo, and thought this was a spot that I'd need for my DT grid. I did! I went for a wander and located it after about 5 minutes as there were a few options. Cool!

TFTC bumandworker, the cache was found in good order Signed, sealed and returned to GZ. 4 find(s) of 4 today, making this find #3137

I think I might try and fill my D/T grid this year. This seems to be one of those combinations that a few others have needed too. I decided bumblebee would be suitable for this location. After grabbing a lonely TB just up the road I came back here and was surprised to find I could ride to within 10m of the cache. I can see why the location gets this name. I reckon it took longer to get my helmet and gloves off than it did to find the cache. The coordinates, as expected from this CO, were perfect. I got 1 or 2 metres at GZ. Now for the long way home....

Since my original plan of being in Auckland this long weekend is not possible, I decided to head South for a couple of days. Took the ferry from Wellington yesterday morning, picked up a cheap rental, and off I went. I was targeting some specific caches for a personal goal as well as some fun mystery solves and some just 'cos. This was one of them.

Having DNF'd the last two 'easy' caches I'd looked for, I wasn't feeling great heading into this one. But, perseverance and trusting the previous logs regarding the GPS being good paid off. After probably 15mins of searching 'round and 'round I finally lay hands on it. All good here, TFTC

Figured my chances here were slim... and I was right . Another time...maybe.

Gusty cold wind, gps showing all corners
Will be back on sunny day
Looks like a cool campsite

Perfect weather on my day off this week, and I've been itching to take the motorbike for a ride around Port Underwood and collect as many caches as I can along the way.
It rained through the night and yesterday afternoon, so the whole place is muddy and wet still, making riding a roadbike challenging on the slippery surfaces. Luckily, being a KTM, my bike has plenty of offroad pedigree hidden within, so it rose well to the opportunity to get some mud action. I've even bought a couple of trackables along for the ride, an NZ travel tag orange track marker and a laminated hidden creature.

Wowee, I surprised even myself finding this one. I arrived at the GZ rather concerned, as I'd interpreted this as a T4.0, not a D4.5, and began climbing unassisted up the rock face in search of a T4.5 hide. I was overwhelmed by the possible locations the hide could be, so I opened up the cache page again for more info, and realised I'd got the D/T around the wrong way, and that the Terrain rating wasn't that bad. So I descended from my rocky perch, and began hunting in every rocky crevice, and after about 5 minutes of that I spotted a geo-trail leading to a particular overhang. I was rewarded with a decent sized cache hidden very close the the co-ordinates. Like many before me, this will help fill in my D/T grid.
TFTC

No luck for the 2 of us hunting for a while.

A lot of nooks and crannies to pock from but we found it, tftc

Heading further north with NZ Bozzy so just had time for a few before sailing away
TFTC

Yes I found it quicker than I expected but still took a bit of time to find. This fills a space on my D/T matrix.

Day 9 of my 2020 NZE (New Zealand Experience).
(My apologies for the delayed logging but I'm in catch-up mode)

Seeing as I can't be in America right now, I'm touring around the South Island instead. During my time here I am aiming to find as many of the TMGT caches as I can (preferably all 41) and also as many Virtuals, Earthcaches and Letterbox Hybrids as possible, plus any Trads or others that will fill a hole in my D/T grid, my Jasmer grid, or else the last 3 remaining Hidden Dates on that grid.

Having arrived at my rest a few km short of Picton last night in darkness, today's plan was to get to Picton and then work my way back along the coast ending up somewhere near Kaikoura tonight. It's a journey I had made on my very first day visiting the South Island back in 1988, and I was keen to do it again and also see for myself what has happened to the coastline after the Earthquakes almost 4 years ago. That was a hell of a night, even for me some 150km away at the time.

As I couldn't stop at every cache on the road (otherwise I'd never have done everything I wanted to get done on my tour) this cache was picked at random mainly for its proximity to the highway and where I hoped to have a quick find.

Parking near GZ, I knew that I didn't want to take an age to find this cache as I had a lot to do today, but I hoped that some caching geo-sense might help me here. Lots of ideas, and lots of rummaging around later, I had to call it quits and move on.

Just another walk in the morning

I started my great and unique round trip over the South Island in Christchurch.
My first major stopover was at Lake Tapeko - here I hiked up to Observation Mountain.
I then planned two days in Mount Cook NP with some unforgettable hikes. My big goal was the Mueller Hut - on a super strenuous hike I reached it.
I continued my journey over the lonely Danseys Pass to Dunedin.
Afterwards I drove along the Southern Scienic Route via Invercargill to Manapouri for some days. On this route I visited many sights and enjoyed the beautiful nature again and again.
I already booked a tour to the Doubtful Sound in advance - another highlight on my tour.
Afterwards I drove on to Queensown and Wanaka. From there I continued over the Haast Pass to the lonely Jackson Bay with storm and heavy rain. Afterwards I drove along the west coast always in pouring rain.
The rain stopped the whole west coast, but I had good rainwear with me. Only high up in Nelson the sun shone again.
Soon I reached the east coast again in Picton and Blenheim and the sun was shining again.
After a few days I travelled back to Christchurch via the beautiful town of Kaikoura.
At the end of my round trip I spent a few more days in Christchurch and its surroundings.
I visited many geological sites and found many caches on my round trip. In Rangiora I visited an event.
I travelled 3418 km and take home a lot of positive experiences.
Thanks to many beautiful caches I was also shown unique locations, historical sites and geological features.
I am overwhelmed by the fantastic and ever changing nature on the South Island of New Zealand - I will definitely come back.

Many thanks to all owners
Team sissifalke

After checking the movement of rain clouds, we packed up and decided to head north for a few days' adventure! I had all active geocaches I have not found yet in the South Island loaded on the GPS, but not particular plan as we only decided that morning. We ended up finding quite a few cool caches and had heaps of fun! Some unfinished business here, as i spent some considerable time trying to locate this one here. It looked like this will be pretty much the same, when all of a sudden...!!! It was there!!! Very pleased to have gotten this one!!! Now onto the caves! TFTC!!

This could have taken some time but come across it fast enough. Tftc

Didn't expect to get this one due to previous logs. GPS was spot on though and lo and behold I had it in my hands in a few minutes. No tb here though sadly.

Found this cache on Saturday while rock climbing here and in Monkey Bay. Though I lost my pen from one cache to the other. So unable to sign the log. I did collect the TB and put it safely with the others that I am carrying around which proves I found the cache.

Our third cache for today and probably the easiest. The dogs welcomed? us to the area with their barking and continued on and off. We hunted around and when Andy rechecked an area I had already looked he spotted something I hadn't. Logbook signed and TB dropped off. tftc

TFTC

A great 2 weeks of travelling the south island it's been amazing great weather only 1 half day if wind and rain nearly 500 caches found over the time incredible views tftc a quick find here I thought I had it sorted by the hint prior to approaching and yes I didnt but then it was an ahha moment tftc great place and area to explore hope to visit again the Sourh Island soon. No muggles around only traffic zooming by none caring what I was up to tftc signed the log and placed it back exactly where I found it. Took us about 15 minutes but we found it yay us then it was off to have some lunch at the reserve near by

We came out this way to take photos for the Ko Te Rauparaha ahau virtual cache. I noticed there was a cache here that I hadn't found so thought it might be a good time to stop and have a look. I noted the difficulty rating and read some of the logs so decided as the SoBads had already logged this one we'd move on after about 5 minutes. Well what do you know, 3 GPS devices, 3 pairs of eyes, the reading of a few previous logs and 3 minutes proved to be all that was needed. Thanks for the hide. Good one .

Sidewaze found it!

Find it in less than 25 minutes ! This one was cool to find ! Thanks !

Jo was on early finishes tonight, so we decided to get a small handful of semi local caches before heading off to our normal Wednesday quiz night obligations.
So an hour or so up our sleeve, we headed to Rarangi.

This was an easy find due to the fact I had stopped by here with Capperz earlier this month on a return trip from another cache further up the road. Capperz could not remember where it was when he found it ages ago, but somehow I fluked the find. So many options, glad to get so quickly ..... TFTC Bum, we got some dogs across the road barking, but no issues. Nice spot.

On the final leg of my road trip on the way home! I gave this one a good go, but luckily some rock climbers arrived, other wise I might still be there!! Fortunately I collected some kawakawa leaves while searching as then I looked less dodgy when they arrived... I'll be back!

A second more successful attempt. A downed tree obscured where I thought I should be looking but it turns out the cache was not a problem even with this new obstruction. Just a case of looking in the right spot.

Fills a hole on my D/T grid.

Wow, this took a while. We stayed at the DOC campground in Rarangi and had quite some time to look for it. We checked a lot of spots but no luck. So we checked out the caves and another cache. But back at the camp it bugged me that I couldn’t find it. So I asked a previous finder for some help. With these informations I came back today and searched another 30 minuets in the rain. I almost was at the point of giving up when I spotted the container. I couldn’t belive that I actually found it. A fantail bird was inspecting very closely what Inwas doing there. And sorry to all the spiders which I disturbed through my search. Thanks to b&w for this challenge. Fav point from me.

Checked again today, all good.

Missed this one. I was encouraged by a recent cache check but no luck on this one. I might bring back some climbing gear and wrestle the rocks next time - I had no idea there was a wee climbing area.

Gps was pretty steady and keep going the the same tree but no luck today and I had the place to myself to look too

Checked.

And BTW, my shit GPS took me to within 2m before going ape in here.

Gave it a good try. No luck. Cool spot!

Brought the Ferret back here today is her name suggests she is good at hunting. Still no luck but enjoyed the fact that I could be standing on the Alpine fault. TFTC

09:37. Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran... And still couldn't find it! But there was a much appreciated coffee cart nearby.

checked...nothing changed....earth-quake...bah!

A hint would be helpful, especially as the landscape could have changed since the quakes.

This cache sounded rather ominous, and although our GPS jumped around a bit, it was reasonably consistent in where it ended up, but despite 25 minutes searching, we were defeated today.

My wife and I looked for half an hour, but couldn't make the find. Maybe we'll come back to New Zealand in a few years and try again!

Had a quick look but no find today. 8 pm so time for dinner. Gps bouncing around. Could be in so many places a hibt would be good having driven out here

Where entertained by the Rabbits and then when they were spooked by locals we went and got the cache, was thinking that it was going to be a challenge but seen something not quite right and bingo hello we have a cache, Logged another thank you

This could have been a tricky one - luckily ML looked in the right spot after a couple of minutes tftc

Found on 4th go with help from Moneydork

Fortunately I got lucky fnd found it quickly

The kids loved exploring around here, with Maikenkids, who found after quite a bit of exploring!. tftc

This one was fun. Great place for the kids to clamber and slide around and wonder what the shiny things in the rock face were for. Definitely took a bit of a search with Annacons but made a lucky find eventually. Tftc!

I am so pleased to be logging this as a smiley as I didn't think I would be back to claim it and that proves again a couple of DNF logs does not mean it's not there tftc B&W

2nd hunt....give up

Had an interesting day cleaning up unfound caches in the Picton and Port Underwood areas, there were some extremely good ones. I really surprised myself with this one - I was expecting a long search but I turned it up in just a few minutes in about the fifth place I tried. I had tried unsuccessfully to find the previous cache here so good to have this one off the list. Last time I was here was quite a few years ago and in comparison with the patchy readings I got then, the GPSr I use now was giving rock-steady readings with lots of both GPS and GLONASS satellites in view. Quite a change from the previous occasion! Signed log, thanks for the cache!

I had an ever so quick look, wasn't expecting to find it and I didn't.

I have searched unsuccessfully for this before - high and low! Somewhere in the interim I have checked with a previous finder on where to look on the high/low scale so that narrowed down the search a bit.We were supposedly heading home but I wanted to stop off here because I had additional support to help with the search. I told him it might take a while and then we started a grid search but surprise surprise in the second place I looked I heard that hollow plastic noise that wasn't rocks and when I investigated further found the cache. Fantastic! TFTC #8210

I just scrolled back through history - I didn't find the predecessor of this one waay back on 20/3/2009. Something about the rocks???

No luck for us here today.

I give up no clue GPS as goood as teats on a bull and not enough time and way to many places it may be.... will not be attempting this one again

I can see how you might spend a lot of time looking for this one, the key is not to overthink it!

Second day of caching with my daughter, TFTC

Hmmmmmm, a few options here. I was lucky to show up when no one else was climbing so could make a good hunt of it. After a play on the big wall (fun) onto finding a cache which was luckily uncovered after only a few minutes. Phew. Cheers

Visiting Rarangi and Monkey Bay with a relative visiting for Christmas. Said visitor and Miss 4 share an interest in caves so this find was done while searching for 'nooks and crannies' to explore. Heading home early before the onset of our record temperature day ... I wonder if it will happen? TFTC.

Found quickly this time. Have looked before but this time gps took me to a different spot this time

Co-ords turned out to be very good for me here today, close enough that it didn't take long to find the cache.

TFTC

Turned all the rocks over and raked the leaves many thanks

Greetings from West Sacramento, California! Papa EGTH and I are on Day 16 of our 19-day caching honeymoon in New Zealand. Today's travels are taking us from Christchurch to Picton where we hop onto the Interislander Ferry and we'll stay overnight in Wellington.

This one took a bit of searching due to the cliffs interfering with reception. I located the cache after a few minutes of searching here and there. No rock climbers were here this morning. Thanks!

HockeyHiker19 and I were on Day 16 of our Geocaching honeymoon in New Zealand. We were traveling from Christchurch to Picton in order to get onto the Interislander and head to the North Island.
HockeyHiker19 saw this cache was near where we needed to drive. So we pulled off and made our way to GZ where we were getting a lot of signal bounce. We both began to methodically search the area and she ended up making the find.

We remembered the previous cache here, but had to check the logs to see that we had been lucky to have a quickish find. We were equally lucky today. We arrived just as a climber had finished his climb and were able to make random comments about the wall as he left. It was cool out of the sun so we had decided it had to be a reasonably quick look as we know we will be back in the area again for other caches. However we don't have to come back for this one as the GPS had indicated two promising areas and we had success in the second.
Thanks.

Collecting a few caches on my way to the Christchurch Mega.

Found after a bit of a search.

SL TFTC

Found while out with ME, tftc

I remember the other cache here which took me two visits to find. Stretch0 was the culprit from memory. This one though was rounded up in less than a minute. That was a relief.
Thanks bumandworker for the cache.

#9393

Came with HamishJ we had a thorough look and finally found it. All dry, TN LN SL TFTC
Cheers from Polynesia
nzkeko

Took us 3 goes to find this one. It wasn't really that hard in the end.

This was surprisingly quicker than I was anticipating, more due to good luck and narrowing down the search. Gps was moving up to 20m with reflection from the rocks. I recall abseiling down this rock face a few years ago. TFTC bumandworker

There's the lure of the last souvenir of the 15 years Road trip was the lure for me today. I'd flagged any hope of going out for a mystery cache yesterday, there are only 5 near by ones to me, all in the same area and weather dependant too. I'd got the solutions to all of these Attribute caches a while ago and have sat patiently waiting for the right moment to make my move. Today was that day. The threatened rain and poor weather had been hovering all day but after lunch today we decided a family trip out this way was the order of the day. Managed to grab a couple of b&w Traditional caches too whilst in the vicinity too.
Had nightow19 along for the trip today and she enjoyed the diverse range of terrain encountered, as I did too.
Cache number 2 for the day and much easier than the last time I 'looked' for it. Straight to the hide this time and away in no time. Explored the deeper cave in the next bit of bush after, interesting yet narrow
T F T C b&w

Found with capperz on a caching day (refer to capperz log for more detail) T F T C {log may be signed as no19 & capperz, nightowl19 + capperz or a combintation }

Paddle chick and I spent ages looking for this cache, a lot of good spots to hide a cache and admire the rock wall after you find it.Tftc
This log posted with CacheSense for Android!

How did I not know about this crag. I vaguely recall hearing in my early climbing days that there was some place to climb near Rarangi but never heard it mentioned again. I haven't climbed in a while now and have lost a lot of confidence but it looks like some nice routes here and having looked them up online now are still within my ability. Thanks for showing me this location. Cache took ages to track down but I was determined not to DNF it. TFTC

#3447

This was one of several caches we found in the area today. The co-ords weren't too bad at all and led to a fairly quick find. Still a lot of frost about this afternoon, suspect it wasn't going to melt today. Thank you bumandworker.

There's enough steel hammered into the rocks here to make a scrap metal merchant make his eyes water What a great playground! A bit reluctant to get down low with a knee prob I checked the places where the cache wasn't. Thank you Bumandworker.

After attending the event at the River Queen we had time to find a few caches before heading back over the hills and home. This was the first one we came to. I see that I found the last cache that was here over 5 years ago now. How time flies. Anyway, after I overshot this one by a few metres I backtracked a bit and had a better look at the surroundings. I had a strong feeling about where the cache would, put my hand there and hit plastic! Love it when that happens. TFTC, Biggles.

Heading out for a walk on the track to Whites Bag to grab a couple of new caches... This ones first.
GPS went a bit haywire - but managed to settle it and find the cache.
TFTC

Is was early afternoon and all the weekend chores were completed when NZDi (aka Mrs Kiwimykl) said lets go for a walk somewhere. So I suggested the walk from Rarangi to White's Bay so that we could include a few caches along the way.

This turned out to be the sixth cache of the day and one which probably took us as long to find as the previous five caches put together, not that that was long. In the end NZDi found this one (three each today) not too far from where the GPS coordinate said it would be and definitely not +/- 16m as mentioned in the cache description.

There was a fair amount of rubbish around here and the area would definitely benefit from a CITO event.

TFTC B&W

Found with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

#9571. With a frosty start it was still pretty chilly at GZ at lunchtime (must be cold here in winter). When we got out of the car we spotted a white cat at the top of the climbing area. I tried to encourage it to come down for a chat, but it didn't like the look of me. We made hard work of finding the previous cache in this location, but this one was in a quick find (I just checked where I think the previous one was). TFTC.

We can remember the cache that was here before as it took us quite a bit of time to track down. We were prepared for another long search today, especially with the difficulty level, but the co-ords were surprisingly good, considering the accuracy mentioned in the cache description, and it took just a few minutes to locate.
Can imagine how busy the area would be over the weekend, so a workday was ideal for a visit. TFTC.

[green] {FTF} I had just finshed building a puzzle cache focusing on teamwork and was looking for the right place to put it. These rocks seemed like a good place. When I arrived here to check it out I found some people getting into scaling them - there were rings mounted on the rocks for attaching carabiners. So I climb to the top, find an awesome place to place a large size cache, then start on due diligence. Get the coords, paranoia check on nearby cache distances. My gps only has my unfound caches in it, so I get out the cellphone and download my found caches. Yup, the memorial cache is a long way off. Hello, what's this? A cache 35m away? This wasn't here yesterday! Have a look... no logs! It *is* a new cache! How come there is a brand new cache and I haven't received a notification of it? Well I am here now, so I may as well find it. Slightly tricky, but I got there. Okay, back to the car to find another home for my cache, when the phone goes - new email - new caches! This one! Wow! First time I have found a cache between being published and the email notification!
Went and checked out the cave here. It is 40m long, requires belly wriggles to get to the end, really awesome place for a cache, but now the memorial cache is too close. Darn.

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