Mermaid Smurfette (Canterbury) Darfield, South Island, New Zealand
By gracie7 + Mum on 11-Oct-15. Waypoint GC64C4T

Als ich zu Hause meinen Urlaub plante, bin ich auf der Karte von Neuseeland in der Umgebung von Christchurch auf eine Geoart - ein Puzzlestck - gestoen. Ich liebe Geoarts, also setzte sich bei mir die Idee fest, die Caches dieser Geoart zu lsen und dann im Urlaub zu loggen. Tja, was soll ich sagen. Ich hatte die leichten Wertungen der Caches vllig falsch gewertet. Etliche der Rtsel lieen sich gar nicht so schnell und einfach lsen, sondern nur mit Ausdauer und einiger Grbelei. Bei dem ein oder anderen Rtsel musste ich mir auch HIlfe holen. Schlielich waren bis auf drei Rtsel alle gelst; bei den letzten Rtseln halfen dann die Owner weiter. Vielen Dank dafr!Die ersten Schlmpfe habe ich inzwischen besucht. Leider hat es heute nicht mehr fr die ganze Runde gereicht, denn das Wetter wurde auf einmal ungemtlich, sehr windig und nass. Aber ich will mich nicht beklagen, denn der Rest des Tages war tolles Sonnenwetter, das ich heute morgen fr einen Besuch im Botansichen Garten in Christchurch genutzt hatte. Die meisten Schlmpfe waren gut zu finden. Bei einigen dauerte die Suche etwas lnger und bei aktuell drei Dschen hatte ich kein Glck. Mal schauen, ob die Zeit fr einen Zweit-Besuch ausreicht. Ich entschuldige mich hier fr den Einheitslog fr diese nette Schlumpf-Runde. Die Caches sind wirklich einmalig. Bei jeder Suche bin ich gespannt wie der Schlumpf oder die Schlumpfine denn wohl aussieht. Schlmpfe sind fr mich immer noch etwas besonderes. Als Kind war jeder Schlumpf eine Kostbarkeit, denn sie waren einfach teuer. Nur selten gab es einen geschenkt. Und das, obwohl wir in der Nachbarstadt des Schlumpf-Produzenten wohnten. Wie schn, dass ich hier Schlmpfe mit allen nur mglichen Hobbies, Berufen und Eigenschaften zu sehen bekomme. Die Suche nach den Caches und das Loggen machte viel Spa! Vielen Dank gracie7 + mum fr diese tolle Geoart!_________________________________When I was planning my vacation at home, I came across a geoart - a puzzle piece - on the map of New Zealand in the Christchurch area. I love geoart, so I had the idea of solving the caches of this geoart and logging them during my holdiday. Well, what can I say. I did get the easy scores of the caches completely wrong. A number of the puzzles were not so quick and easy to solve, but only with perseverance and some pondering. I also had to get help with a couple of the puzzles. In the end, all but three puzzles were solved; the owners then helped with the last ones. Many thanks for that!I have now visited the first Smurfs. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time today for the complete smurf-round . The weather became suddenly uncomfortable, very windy and wet. But I don't want to complain, because the rest of the day I had sunny weather, which I really enjoyed during my morning visit at the Botanical Garden in Christchurch. Most of the Smurfs were easy to find. For some I searched a little longer and I had no luck with three of them. Let's see if there's enough time for a second visit. I apologize here for the one-size-fits-all log for this nice smurf round. The boxes are really unique. I'm always curious to see what the Smurf or Smurfette I am searching for looks like. Smurfs are still something special for me. As a child, every Smurf was precious because they were simply too expensive. It was rare to get one as a present. And that was despite the fact that we lived in the Smurf producer's neighboring town. How nice that I get to see Smurfs with all kinds of hobbies, professions and characteristics here in New Zealand. Searching for the caches and logging was a lot of fun! Thank you gracie7 + mum for this great geoart!

D var det dags fr lite ventyr. Resan gr till Sydney i Australien och sedan vidare till Christchurch och Dunedin p Nya Zeeland .P resan ker Tigertassen, jag sjlv, ursus67, Lnganfans och Pidjas, vilket gr att vi loggar under det gemensamma namnet "Tulp". Tanken r att vi innan vi ker hemt ska ha beskt ett Megaevent, Geo Toroa.Hlsningar frn Sverige, sdra Lappland Then it was time for a little adventure. The trip goes to Sydney in Australia and then on to Christchurch and Dunedin in New Zealand .On the trip are, Tigertassen, myself, ursus67, Lnganfans and Pidjas go, which means that we log under the common name "Tulp". The idea is that before we go home we should have visited a Megaevent, Geo Toroa. Greetings from Sweden, southern Lapland

Four Swedish ladies driving around in NZ looking for caches. We log as TULP. Thank you

We are four ladies from Sweden who are visiting Australia and New Zeeland We are logged as TULP This was one of the caches we found Thanks from Sweden

We are four ladies from Sweden on visit in New Zealand. We log as TULP (tigertassen, ursus67, lnganfans and pidjas). Today is our last day as we are going home tomorrow. We had a lot of solved mysterys so we tried to log some of them.A big thank you to CO for the cache.

Day 5 of our Enzed adventures with Robmc. We couldn't find this one although the clue was specific and there seemed to be an empty spot. We have replaced it and left you a pathtag as thanks - if this is a problem then let us know and we will delete the find.Cheers gracie7 + Mum

Day five of our epic New Zealand Adventure with The Morris.Staying in Christchurch and spent the day collecting Smurfs!All the puzzles were solved before we came to NZ.We start the trail about 9:30am and finished about 16:00 (including coffees and lunch)A lovely mild day just right for caching.Most of the containers were in good condition except for a few wet ones.Thanks for this series, Robmc.

Not today

Buggar DNF

Having solved the Smurf series over the past couple of months, and the night before finding them. (amongst many others) a spontaneous trip down was made by Kiwi Does Stuff and team Reschedule to collect the series. We have headed out to set ourselves a personal best for a days caching. The perfect caching wagon (a rental car) has been acquired allowing us to go anywhere with ease.Apologies for the generic log, all caches signed are a mixture of Res, Resch & Reschedule - a big thanks to the CO for creating, placing and maintaining all of their caches. TFTC! TFTP!

Having solved a few Mystery caches in the area, a last minute decision was made along with Reschedule to fly to Christchurch for Queens birthday weekend.A last minute rush at home before flying to solve some more mysterys, but that still wasnt enough, so after finally arriving at 11pm, out with the laptops to solve a few more.Saturday morning we set out with a goal, to set a new personal best. Having seen what numbers others did in the area, that shouldnt be too hard. We had some targets in mind, Eclipse, Skelly, Smurfs along with any traditionals and other random mystery caches we come across.We aquired the best vehicle for the job, a rental car! Overall we thorouhly enjoyed it, but we did not quite complete it all, so we will be back. TFTC and thanks for giving us an excuse to head for Christchurch!

Trouve ! / Found it ! Deuxime partie de la chasse au Stroumpfs ce matin et de belles dcouvertes, quelques DNF et une impossible chercher (voisin prsent avec un tractopelle...). Ce fut donc une belle srie bien sympathique chercher, la totalit en environ 6 heures.Merci gracie7 + Mum pour la cache Second part of Smurfs hunt this morning and some great discoveries, a few DNFs and one impossible to search (neighbor present with a backhoe loader...). So it was a great series that was very enjoyable to watch, the whole thing in about 6 hours.Thank you gracie7 + Mum for the cache

Today we headed out to round up a few more of the smurfs. We have already done quite a few and have a few to solve but as the occasional one needs to be redone, we thought today would be a good day to collect what we had on the list so that they are done and dusted. Thanks to the CO for the series and apologies for the cut and paste logs. Another that has been solved for a while, finally found. tftc#7263

Today we did a big Smurf check daytrip, we werent too confident we would get them all but we could atleast make a start. We surprised ourselves by managing to find them ALL (bar the 6 we visited last month) and amazingly we had a 100% find rate. We couldnt have asked for a better outcome. (well maybe the weather couldve been cooler )This book was slightly damp. It wont take it long to dry in this heat so we left it here. All good here. Happy Smurfing

Down in the Christchurch area with woolwood9. Day 1, mainly the Smurf puzzle series. SL *tm/ww NZ**Thank you for the reason to visit this cache and location* Very nice to be back on this cache trail. In 2016 I had solved around 10 only of the series, and found them - today we found most of the rest, although still 7 I cannot solve and 2 we could not find.*Thank you gracie7 + Mum for keeping the trail going and even though they are not visited so often now, we found you had kept them in good condition, all containers still nicely themed and we appreciated the pretty good parking at the cache locations.*

Headed to Christchurch for a quick geocaching trip with tmann421.Enjoying the tour around the area finding caches some more challenging than others.Signed all logs tm/ww NZThanks to the owners for their efforts in maintaining their caches for us to find.Wonderfully themed series enjoyed all the containers. Nice to see maintainance had been done recently allowing the finds to be easier for us.

Sorry for the cut and paste logs but there are so many to do. Will note if something needs noting Signed as MIK in most cases or our own.

Out with Macpacmum and Ivss_xx doing the Smurf series in order to reach this month’s challenge for the month. I will need extra after we do all these though. The area farmers are a bit suspicious as several have given us the once over look as they drove past. However the day is good after all the rain. Some extra caches found for us all along the way.

Thanks Gracie7 + mum for all your hard work in placing these caches and the maintenance.

10:51
FITW MacPacFamily, Kiwicampnut, logged as "MIK"

Fifteenth. Murmaiden murmaiden murmaiden. That was all that was in my head for this one.
[https://youtu.be/60YYQZhBae0](https://youtu.be/60YYQZhBae0)

Smurfin' good day to complete the wheel of challenges and to upgrade my Busy Cacher badge!

Kia ora! Paldies!
Thanks for the cache, gracie7 + Mum!
#9542

**#18,041**
We had spotted a few other North Islanders make a personal 24hr find record so we took note of the general caches found and made a plan to try our luck, our previous best was 172, our aim was "more than Yeti", check out GC6PRMW once we have logged them all to see how we did...
The perfect colour for a mermaid...
Quick find thanks!

I've flown down to the Garden City with Itchyfeet2020 and NZ_B for the weekend, and what a weekend it has been! Cumulatively we had targeted so many personal challenges, individual caches we wanted to get, 'things' we wanted to do etc, that teaming up with these two caching troopers has been one of the best things I've done in ages. We've achieved so much in our short time here that my mind (and body) is still reeling. I'm sure the enormity will still be sinking in for many days to come.

All our signing of logbooks this weekend has been as T.I.N.T (for Team Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B, and TwigNZ) regardless of how many of the 3 of us are claiming any particular cache (as some of us may have found it previously).

Today was our big day, the main point of the whole trip down - trying to get 200+ caches in 1 day.
This turned out to be a huge success for us, achieved by targeting 3 geoart series (Eclipse, Metal Mania, and Smurfs) to give us as little driving as possible, and any other caches we would be literally driving right past at the time.

We started with the Eclipse series as that was closest to our accommodation in Darfield, then dropped down to the Metal Mania caches, finally moving back westwards so that we would be close to home when exhausted by the end of our day. The driving was shared, but was mostly provided by NZ_B, with an excellent job of route planning courtesy of Itchyfeet2020. A truly joint effort for which I'm very grateful.

Our main numbers for the day are;
Time we started: 05:30 (in the dark before sunrise)
Time we finished: 21:30 (in the dark after sunset)
Hours caching: 16
Total caches found today: 236
Total caches DNFd today: 8

I apologise for the generic 'cut n paste' nature of my logs. If anything individually stands out in my memory about our experience at GZ then I will try to mention it. Certainly the puzzles themselves were a mix of easy and truly frustrating, but between us we got them all solved in the end.

Thank you for setting up this series, and helping us achieve our goal

NZ_B, TwigNZ and I have come to Christchurch to complete a number of shared and individual challenges. Today is the BIG day - a goal of over 200. The puzzles have been solved (thank you CO's), the route has been planned and caches listed in order with hint, side of road and next driving instruction. Start time is 5.30am and we finished at 9.30pm with 230 for me.
We saw sunrise and sunset and had some great laughs as well. I cannot thank the CO's enough. I know you get cut and paste logs but I certianly appreciate the absolute blast of a time thanks to you and my travelling adventurers in NZ_B (espcecially since she had many of these and was the main driver) and TwigNZ. All caches signed as T.I.N.T - Team Itchyfeet, NZ_B and TwigNZ. Thanks again CO's a lot of work goes into these power trails and probably not a lot of thanks or respect for the puzzles - it is much appreciated.

Today I found in 10 hours 60 Smurf caches that are all I have solved, For the rest I would need a hint but dont get. The hint for the 60 was OK and I know already that the 2 ladies like to crawl under trees. I am 1.85 meter and had some problems and scratches. I am wondering that all the smurf survive but the most of them need a shower. All the logbook are ok. There where always space for parking.
Thanks a lot.

The idea of doing 200+ caches in one day had been one that I had considered for a long time, but not something I had made any moves on doing anything about until the idea was raised by others in a geocaching group I am a part of. As we were all based in Wellington, the logical place to try this was Christchurch with it's lovely flat lands, long straight roads, and wonderful art work series. Unfortunately the weekend that worked for most of the group was not one that worked out for me, so instead I came down here a few weeks earlier than they planned to and did the the trip by myself.

I started finding Geocaches at exactly midnight on Sunday. I kept finding Geocaches for the next nineteen and a half hours, when at about 7:30pm I decided that the tiredness was getting to a point where this was no longer a sensible idea. I found:

31 Traditional
180 Unknown
1 Multi

For a total of 212 Geocaches in 19.5 hours. That's a rate of 10.9 per hour. I am pretty happy with that. I focused on the Smurf series, the Metal Mania series (a set of puzzles that I very much enjoyed), and the Glossary of Geocaching series, with a few other sets and individuals in between. It was a fantastic day, very much helped by the wonderful weather and the use of a car that had no problem on gravel roads ('cos it was a rental).

A huge thanks to all the CO's that place and maintain these Geocaches. Despite the rushed day I created for myself, I did enjoy each and every cache I found. It is only with CO's like this placing them out in the world that this wonderful game continues.

#12,186. I drove down to Christchurch yesterday and stayed overnight at my sisters place near Leeston. Today has been chosen for my big day out. I was on the road by 5.30 am and finished right on midnight 18.5 hours later. I managed to find 188 physical caches and 22 adlabs for a total of 210 caches. Overall it was a fun day doing the Smurfs, Skelly and Eclipse tin power trails and a scattering of other traditional caches. Glad I did it and glad I wont have to repeat it. Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I think you can understand it was all about the numbers today.

This was cache No.62 for the day. An appropriate code for a mermaid to learn. Luckily I had some online tools to assist me as mermaids are in short supply up here in Wellington. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for hiding it here.

Quick find. TFTC.

Good to see a female smurf tftc

Awesome cache but aren't they all around here

Solved puzzles a while ago. Decided on day trip with Rayzr to collect. Tftc

She was very dirty from the last dive.
Thank you for this amazing mystery series
NathanS05

We are over for a daytrip for just 8 Smurfs today. Mostly for trivial reasons like checking the coordinates or that the cache was indeed in the correct place. Happy to report they were all actually present though, so a great outcome. This Smurfette was precisely where she was supposed to be so I guess someone may have moved her back to her correct hint for us. Thanks and Happy Smurfing

A quick find. Great cache containers. Thanks for setting up the series. Still have plenty to solve yet but they’ll have to wait till next time we’re in the South Island. Contents are fine.

A road trip was required to qualify for GLCS20 so I drove down via Arthurs Pass yesterday.
The Challenge is to make 150 finds in a week of which 20 have to have different D/T ratings.
I cracked 100 finds today. The 20 D/T may take a bit more planning!
My first job was to clean up the Smurf caches in the morning drizzle.

I'll add individual details when required otherwise they were all "quick finds".
Thanks very much Gracie7 + Mum for placing these hides and for keeping up the maintenance of the trail. It made for a pleasurable experience.
Some pretty tough puzzles to solve which has taken me years!
TFTC

Team G0LD: Geocachers 0B80B8, Lis's crew and DaffyNZ are down from Whangarei for a few days. We've all solved the 4 big geoarts so they are the main target for the trip. Of course there were many other solved puzzles that we collected as well. We've finished the Fresh Breath series and are now onto our second big series - The Smurfs. The kids loved doing the jigsaws and completed them many years ago. I had 2 kids going on 2 different computers. We took screenshots after they'd completed the jigsaw and I then had to solve the puzzles. Some were very tricky. Good preparation and a fantastic team to work with made this an enjoyable and successful day. Another massive series with really neat cache containers. Logic was the winner here in Feb 2020. I later discovered the appropriately themed code. Found but not where I first expected. Thank you for maintaining these caches so well

Team G0LD ( 0B80B8, Lis's crew & DaffyNZ ) on a caching mission to Christchurch. We had travelled down from Whangarei on Wednesday avo. Solved puzzles were going to be the main focus of our trip. We had spent a lot of 2020 and 2021 solving over 400 puzzles, so we had a lot on our list.

Today looked like being the best weather for our trip, despite a heavy thunderstorm overnight. We had a Big Day Out planned, with a perhaps optimistic target of finding 300 caches in one day. Working together well as a team, with a driver, a navigator and a jumper, we made good progress, but in the end, the bigger distances between caches, that we hadn't anticipated, meant we ended the day a bit short.

A fun day though certainly, and sincere thanks to the GeoArt & Trail CO's, and others, for placing and then maintaining such large numbers of caches so well. A testament to your dedication to Geocaching was the very low number of DNF's during the day. Apologies for the mostly generic logs, but be assured your efforts were truly appreciated.

Lis made the find here, although probably not in the largest one around.

Northland's Team Gold (0B80B8, Liz Crew, DaffyNZ) are in Christchurch for a few days collecting all our solved puzzles and other cache types as we drive past. This is our "Big Day Out" to collect as many caches as we can in a day. Sorry for the generic logs. Thanks for placing the cache. We are loving every cache we locate that adds to our tally for the day.
Found it in the slightly smaller hint location. TFTC

Mr Kiwi and I are getting into a routine now. He saves a temp log while I sign the log book, and he sets the course for the next cache.

Found on this beautiful day Great hide Thank you for the cache

A great day smurfing with 2 extra smurflettes, thanks for placing such great caches!

In the area getting some caches for a challenge. All good with the cache. Thanks

We'd solved these a number of years back and made a start on gathering some smurfs on a visit last year. We're now back to round up some more.
Thanks for setting up this trail.

Solved in lock down 2020 so time SJT_NZ and I picked these up while in the area visiting family. Solved of the series took longer than anticipated for the T/D rating but learnt some new puzzle solving skills so it was only a handful that I had to reach out to a friend for a nudge. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for the series.

TFTC

60 found today with kiscardi. always a celebration each 10 found thanks for the series for us to find up from down south for a few days caching

On a mission today to pick up 200 caches with NZ Bozzy. This is number 60 and cache number 5060 for me. Enjoyed solving all the puzzles and picking up most of the series today. It has been well maintained over the years which made our job easy today. Thanks gracie7 + Mum. Sorry for all the copy and pastes.
Scratched our heads lots with many puzzles and learnt lots of codes.

Find 10/22 on a mission to get 22 caches this afternoon for 22.2.22. Nice of the farmer to turn the water for this eater based Smurfette. TFTC Gracie7+Mum.

Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I usually don't like those but will make exceptions for serious 'power trails' or cache series - like this one. After a week in Christchurch catching up with our kids for Christmas, today it was time to start to head for home. I decided to take the long way home and find a few caches along the way. I had some vague memories of this series existing but hadn't made much of an effort to solve the puzzles or find the caches. A few weeks ago when I hatched my plan to come back this way I got down to solving as many of the puzzles as I could. I kind of ran out of time and brain power but decided I had enough solved to make it a worthwhile side trip. I had a lot of fun out and about, even though the weather was a bit dodgy. I didn't get too wet. #32 Smurf for me - TFTC, Biggles.

Found as part of team DAAWKS thanks for such an awesome series

A Labour Day weekend trip for a group of us from the south in leiu of the cancelled Mega was sorted. To try complete the Smurfs Series and grab a few others along the way.
DownsouthInv, AnnieLin, Abbykitt, Wombats_4, and KNCN combined as a group and signed logs as Team DAAWK's
A very long day but we managed most with only a few DNFs. A perfect series to do with grandson who was chuffed at every find! All caches found in good order, thankyou for placing and the effort made, also the maintaining of the caches..A big job!

On a trip to Christchurch for labour weekend.
Thanks to everyone for solving them.
Logged in a term DAAWK.
Abbykity, Annielin,downsouthinv, wombats, KNCN.
Tftc

Sneaked away early from work on a quick long weekend road trip. Time to capture some Smurfs!!! Lovely day for it, had fun working on the puzzles.
Logged as team DAAWK.
Downsouthinv, Abbykitt, AnnieLin Wombats4 and KNCN

A road trip in to uncharted territory so why not .
Loaded up the cache mobile and headed up the road and let's see what fun adventures awaite us.
Today we continue our adventures and head towards our targets for the day .
It a smuffi g good day to be out caching. With Annielin and Abbykitt and wombat4 and kncn
Signed as DAAWK

Getting out and about in to the out doors is my happy place so any excuse to go caching.

Life is short. Live one foot step at a time.Never say" I'm gonna "- Just do it!!
Thanks for the hide
tftc

We stopped here on the way to check Beer Smurf to replace this wet log. The logbook was damp but not wet but as we were already here we replaced it anyway. Apart from the Mermaid being abit grubby from being on dry land everything is all good here. Happy Caching

We are on the tail end of a trip to the South Island, a trip that had been cancelled twice because of lockdowns. I knew I'd have a full day in Chch, so I worked on these puzzles starting over a month ago. I got most of them, but got stuck on about 20% of them. I got some hints, pushes, and white canes to get me over the finish line. Thanks to the PFers for all the help.
This was a really nice series of puzzles and caches. I really liked the cache figurines guarding each container. TFTC.

There was a race to find this one. At a previous cache, little cacher got some straw in his shoes and was barefeet. Dad raced off for the cache, was little cacher was almost crying, I can't put my shoes back on, he will find it. He made the find, or a mermaid. The container was fine, but the logbook is a bit wet. We could still write in.
Thanks for the cache!

Solved back in 2016, finally found today while on our SI travels. We found this one with the lid off and the log a little damp, but otherwise ok, so put her back together. Thanks for another in theme puzzle and hide, gracie7 + Mum.

I solved these smurfin good puzzles during lockdown. Some of the puzzles took a bit of brain power to solve but I got there in the end. I went out to collect these as I was in the area. The containers were well thought out but they did blur together after the first hour. This series took me six hours to collect in total and I think I ventured into every single (flippin) hedge in the Charing Cross vicinity. Most stops resulted in an "Oh no another hedge". Most hides were easy park and grabs but there were a couple that were more elusive. TFTC.

Today was the day to round up about 20 smurfs that had been solved but not found. Little miss three and I headed out for the big afternoon. No DNFs today! Great teamwork, Little miss three loved looking at all of the cache containers trying to figure out what they were. Great time had by all. Thanks for the caches and puzzles.

#36. So wet you would expect a mermaid to appear.

Team BOP on another crazy mission down to the South Island. Lockdown gave us a lot of free time that we directed into Canterbury’s many Geo-Arts and with the Auckland 2020 Mega postponement, Christchurch was an easy decision. Team BOPs current incarnation is DavidsonClan, NZFlossy, McJandals and myself and we’ve signed all the logs as Team BOP to save time and log space.

So Labour Weekend 2020, it’s a numbers mission, the Cachly cut’n’paste template is sorted and while I unapologetically use this tool I am truly in awe of what goes into a series this large. Some puzzles were straight forward, others required a little more time but we got them all in the end. Almost all the hides were sorted quickly and without fuss but the tricky part about this series was trying to plan an efficient route as this series seems to be all over the place haha.

Thank you so much gracie7 + Mum for placing these and sharing with us such an awesome Smurf collection. We had a great time today, Cheers, TFTP + TFTC

As Auckland Mega has been postponed we decided to do a trip south to Christchurch. Four of us from Team BOP joined up to share a car and accomodation. I always love these weekends as the company is great and makes our days and nights out caching lots of fun. We have done lots of puzzles in preparation and did some long windy roads to get them. Found lots of great caches and thanks to all the COs for the effort that goes into these Please excuse the copied logs and I will try to make some individual notes on as many as I can This sort of trip is where I find the cachly app very valuable. TFTC

On a mission to the south after mega in Auckland was canceled. Team Bop booked airfares and here we are. Thanks all COs for your efforts. Due to numbers please excuse copy and paste logs in advance.

With the Mega Covid cancelled this year a part of Team BoP decided to come south and try get all our solved puzzles, and some others along the way. So here we are!

I am logging using the Cachly app template so please excuse generic logging along the way. It’s just my way of keeping track, but I do genuinely thank each and every one of you cache owners for taking the time and energy to place these cache. Many Thanks for bringing me here. Cheers.

Down in Christchurch with the Squirrel, ABCDF4 and eyespyben. During Covid lockdown, we solved a load of puzzles and decided that this would be a good time to visit. We've enjoyed a few days of good weather and seeing the Canterbury countryside. The caches have been in varying states - some good, some not so much. Our time here has been a blast, and we'd like to thank all COs who have made this adventure possible. Thank you and TFTC.

With ABCDF4, eyespyben, and Gap (of Fap and Gap). Logging all finds as Team HRP (Huntly, Rotorua, Papamoa - Our hometowns)... During Covid-19 lockdown, we solved a truck load of puzzles around Christchurch - Canterbury region. No use thrashing the old grey matter for no cause - We decided we should make good on this handiwork...

There are lots of interesting trails and geoart surrounding Christchurch. What you aren’t told is how far flung some of these caches actually are. Some beforehand advice would have been great, so here are some of my notes... You’re welcome!

1. Mobile coverage is patchy, especially in those quiet, rural areas where it was most needed. Saving caches to offline might show that you are prepared and organised...
2. There are many dusty metal roads on the trails. The car will get messy, and your hair will feel like cardboard at the end of the day...
3. Suitable clothing and footwear are essential. You will climb in and out of hedges, gorse, and other rough stuff. You might get scratched, cut to shreds, and bleed a lot. It’s not advised to wear your brand new jacket on the day...
4. Take lots of food and drink. You’ll probably be head down, tail up and not realise you haven’t eaten until late afternoon. There are very few shops or gas stations out there...
5. Make sure that you secure keys and wallet and know where these are placed for easy retrieval. A full box of pens might be useful too, especially if you’re inclined to free some into the wild...
6. Know the difference between left and right, and north, south, east, and west. Turning right and heading north will not get you to South Christchurch quickly.
7. Look with girl’s eyes rather than boys eyes... Some caches haven’t been found in a while and you might have to get down on your knees to pray.
8. Always be prepared for misleading hints. This is what turns simple caches into D5/T5 hides... “Head height” could mean the cache is positioned at your toes.
9. Have a sense of humour and like the people you go caching with. It’s going to be a very long day, and you might want to hurt someone during the journey...
10. Make sure you can operate your phone/device and it doesn’t crash when you most need it...
11. Learn to cut and paste logs because you’re going to repeat this function so often when logging all of your finds.
12. Above all else, have fun and be kind...

If recent days have been anything to go by, then today's activity is going to seem crazy. We have such a big game to play, spread out over a very large area - An early morning start in the north, with a late finish on the trails to the south... Let's go! We decided to make our way onto the Smurf trail. Despite the timing, we knew we had the bonus of Daylight Saving up our sleeves. We enjoyed the challenge of solving all of these Smurfy puzzles, and the cache containers were too cute. The logbooks were mostly in good condition, and there was evidence of recent maintenance with some. Nightfall - by torchlight. Decided to press on to the end... No problem with these hides - Found exactly as hinted. Thanks grace7 + Mum. TFTP and TFTC.

Great catching up with you Mermaid Smurfette. Cheers.

Thanks to The Seagnoid for his puzzle solving prowess.

Its a long weekend in Christchurch, with The Seagnoid, Zara and Toby, and Star Gazing on the radar. Unfortunately clouds put paid to seeing stars but great event meeting up with the locals. Enjoyed visiting Halswell Quarry, Lincoln, Port Hills and running around after the Smurf family. Cool, fine days and NO rain made for an awesome weekend. Will be back again soon.

Taybeedragon thinks this one is quite a cutie!

Came down on Thursday night with Taybeedragon for a three day geocaching trip and to collect a rare cache type - so rare that this will be the first ever for me - a 10-Year Celebration Event cache (now rejigged as Community Celebration Events). But that was yesterday along with some adventure labs and Halswell Quarry, and I still have a whole day and a half to muck about in Christchurch before heading home. Time to smurf some more caches!

Was back in the area with Shannonp1 to mop up the series most were quick easy finds. Apologies for the mass logs... Thanks for the effort that goes into placing and maintaining a cache.

Found with finzealand

Found with Demaniac

What a fun cache and certainly not the first hint we tried. Had a laugh when spotted the others not noticed before. We have been enjoying these puzzles during lock down. Today we went for the day with picnic to find some of this series. Chose this spot in the sun for lunch. Thanks for this cache gracie7 + Mum.

Another glorious morning to bike the area for more Smurfs, thanks

I have a 3 month sabbatical mostly traveling around the planet. My goal is to find and log 1000 caches. New Zealand is my 4th station traveling from south Christchurch to north Auckland, my first visit here, its far away. This riddle I solved already before my sabbatical. This is my sabbatical-cache #393.

I already solved this series in Sydney and had a lot of fun doing it.
As soon as I arrived in Christchurch the rental car was picked up and I drove straight to this smurf series.
During the search the joy was great - everywhere the matching Smurfs on the boxes - well done.
Thank you for the nice series
Team sissifalke

Another puzzle in a puzzle solved when I should be doing other things.

Coordinates changed from:
S 43° 31.047 E 172° 8.649

Coordinates changed to:
S 43° 31.304 E 172° 9.227

Distance from original: 2991.9 feet or 911.9 meters.

Updating Posted Coordinates at request of CO

Day 3 in Christchurch for the long weekend with the crew from Dunedin and South land. On the list for the day of finds to find. Found with KJR, Natalie247, CJ-Curry.. TFTC

With no Mega in sight for the weekend, a bunch of Otago and Southland cachers invaded Christchurch this weekend. Today I cached with Gadget169, K.J.R, and natalie247 to blitz our way through a bunch of caches in and around western Christchurch. Apologies for the C&P logs but I'll never catch up otherwise!

On day two we made it our mission to blitz the Fresh Breath series of caches that we'd missed, then do our best to clock off as many of the Smurf series as we could. I enjoyed the containers and was rather astonished at some of them to be honest, particularly one or two that I'd've thought wouldn't have been even considered to have been made. I didn't solve most of the puzzles beforehand, vowing to solve them when I got home, but I did crack open the only two that the others had missed.

Thanks for this series - I rather enjoyed this one and I'm glad that we (spoilers!) eventually got the whole lot. Cheers!

In Christchurch for the long weekend with some of the crew from Otago and Southland. Today was spent targeting the eclipse and smurf series with Gadget169, Natalie247 and CJ-Curry. All but one (the elusive Smurfette) were found with no problems at all and more often than not it was a race out of the car to see who would lay their hands on the cache first. Was great fun doing all the jigsaws and then working out the puzzles...some of which had us scratching our heads for a while and a couple needed a bit of help from our fellow cachers Thanks for this great series gracie7 + mum

In Christchurch for the Otago/Southland raid on Christchurch... as there is no Mega this labour weekend we decided to make our own mini Epic event. Jumped in a car with a few others from Dunedin (Gadget169, KJR and CJ-Curry) and having finished the Eclipse series earlier this afternoon we wanted to find all of the smurfs before we ran out of daylight and get back to meet up with others for night caches.



Thank you for the cache and laying on great weather.... well the wind meant we had to chase the bags and log paper down the road a few times.









***[======== 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!

We are down in Christchurch for a week, and our friends came down for the weekend specifically to pick up the Smurfs puzzle caches. We have spent many a winter's evening together working out the puzzles and it was great to be able to finally pick them all up in one hit today! We had them all geographically lined up so that we could move from one to the next without too much backtracking, and it went smoothly, apart from the odd hiccup. As mentioned below by Xmasbabe, Canterbury turned on a beautifully sunny day for us and the mountains looked spectacular. It was a memorable day, so thanks heaps for the puzzle series, gracie 7+Mum for an amazing series. Sorry for the cut and paste....

Down in Christchurch for the weekend from the waikato with fiends to collect this series of puzzles which we had solved earlier this year. Christchurch sure turned on a cracker day, warm and amazing views of the alps. A fantastic day and we managed to find them all. Thanks for a great series.

TFTC Doing a geoart run to get the 35 caches need to complete the museum mystery. These smurfs are bring back childhood memories.

So happy to get it after a few dnf tftpc yay found it

In Christchurch with ABCDF4 for zephyr club convention and tagged along to pick up a few caches.Alot of quick easy finds an tons of park and grabs.Thanks to the COs

On holiday in CH/CH for zephyr Car Convention
Weather was great.Up early to get a good day cacheing
Thanks to COs for your placements
Happy Easter

We found Mermaid Smurfette (Canterbury) on our South Island sojourn.


Thanks gracie7 + Mum for placing this cache and being a part of out geocaching adventure

Check all of them

A planned geocaching trip with specific targets in mind.
1: The final 2 caches to fill my D/T grid
2: The last 5 caches available (all in the South Island) to meet the NZ Jasmer challenge GC4R9Z6
3: Get as many caches as possible in a day (Solo)
I had no timetable and only a vague route (Christchurch - Dunedin- Invercargill). So after 20 days of sleeping in my tent/car I arrived home having traveled 4500km and visited some interesting places. Met some great people. I had found over 650 caches. That was a lot of park. Jump out out. Find cache sign and return. Then on to the next. All this done by myself. Also attended an event and had 2 FTF
Mission 1 and 2 were achieved and I had a best day of 153 caches. All this done by myself.
Day 16 Glentunnel to Waikari 76 caches found. I enjoyed this series. Love a good jigsaw. But some of the solves have not yet been completed. So today I came to collect those that I had. I again enjoyed the drive around these country roads. Thank you for the placement

Quick drive by; TFTC

After a quick refresh and feed in Darfield I headed out along some more Canterbury roads to make some more finds to boost my already prolific day. A handful of smurfs to round out the day and will return for some more in the future. Yet again T F T P and C g7+M.
Smurfing we we go then, onto the next trail. T F T series g7+M
Day 3 of our 4-day Canterbury trip and a day I hoped to get across the line for the hidden creatures souvenir thingy. Twas a mighty day for cache finds, treble figures all up and plenty of solved puzzles converted into smiley faces and reforming the Geo-art that they began life as. A ton-load of Gracie+Mum caches too and still time to head back to Riccarton to meet some of the Canterbury cachers for their event before finally tracking down my spend-happy family who'd been going around the Mall for hours followed by a bus trip to town (for them).
Dropped off my girls at 0945 and picked up again just after 5 PM so not a bad effort particularly as I had to drive quite a distance out West Melton way before I found my first cache of the day. The weather continued from yesterdays beaut day and I had plenty of sun to contend with - awesome and warm too with just a slight chill in the air. Following around in the recent footsteps of ricardinho.nz and Rosmar as well as Igotit whose name was in many logbooks from yesterday.
The day also involved meeting up with another cacher, the other Kiwi Nomad who was just replacing a Multi as I came alongside which saved me a few moments and I was able to help out with a frustrating Puzzle solution so some good reciprocal trading for all. I managed all of the Eclipse series except for 2 logged DNFs. I'd spent a little while the evening before plotting my optimum route to try and avoid travelling the same road twice and for the most part this was achieved whilst snaffling Eclipse mint tins.
I too have a slowly growing collection of this handy cache-sized 'container' which are not to everyone's taste (excuse the pun) I started on them after giving up smoking a few years ago now and still buy the occasional tin whilst friends also sometimes give me theirs.
I even had time to make a start on the smurf series after a drive out that way and stopped off in Darfield for some much needed sustenance after spending all day hoping to pass a dairy somewhere - I didn't!
Apologies in advance for the cut and paste logs - I will add extras at the top where something stood out or happened I have some basic notes somewhere.
And thanks to all the Canterbury (and West Coast) cachers for their hides - Nice one all.

Found during a long weekend cache raid of the area. Had lots of fun solving the puzzles and we enjoyed finding the well themed and maintained hides and logbooks on the quiet country roads, thanks for the fun TFTC.

We planned an assault on the Smurfs today. Unfortunately we only got half way around and do not have time to get the rest. Found 19 - DNF 2

Its the last day of Easter holidays and we put aside the whole day to do a maintenance run on this side of the hill before winter gets here. After stopping at the Month Spelling Challenges and ALL of the AFBs it was time to check on some Smurfs. Abit ironic that Mermaid Smurfette's log should get wet, eh? We didnt agree to that so a new DRY one has been put in its place. All good here. Happy Caching

Please see main log at Ice Block Smurf, as this is the last one we did. Apologies for the copy and paste logs but we have done several caches today. Thank-you gracie7 + Mum 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.

A quick on our smurf hunting trip. Puzzle took rather longer to find.

No probs finding this one but log was wet. We decided to sign, place silica gel in with log and put a plastic bag under the cache on the outside, so that when log dries out, a cacher can bag the log to preserve it. TFTH

Was in Christchurch for a long weekend as I had to come into Christchurch for a sales meeting Friday as well as I needed to attend our annual Christmas function on Saturday night. Decided to pick up a rental car and if luck would have it I would go around and pick up a few caches between my meeting and the Christmas function. Today was day 3 of 4 of my long weekend in Christchurch.

This was my next cache for the day as I was heading out to West Melton to pick up a few puzzle cache that I have solved and have had on my to find list for quite some time. Found my first cache at 05:57 and my last cache was found 16:15, had managed to find 130 caches and 7 DNF, not a bad day in the end and most them were puzzles caches.

After finding GC64DKQ - Rugby Smurf (Canterbury), it was time to hit the smurf series caches for this trip it was time to find next cache that I had on my list that I wanted to find today, it is time to go and pick up the rest of the Smurf series that I have managed to solve this puzzle quite a while ago as I have seen a few caches that a very similar to this one and knew straight away what was required to solve it.

Glad to be back on the tar sealed road again for another cache it didnt take too long for me to make my way to GZ, arriving near GZ, I was able to find a safe parking spot on the same side of as the cache and out of the way of the traffic, once at GZ it only took a few seconds for me to find the well themed cache container, retrieve the logpage, signed and replaced the cache back as found. Glad to get the Mermaid Smurfette which is my 13th of the series on this trip off my list of unfound solved puzzle caches. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for placing this series of puzzles caches really enjoyed solving them and finding them. TFTC TNLNSL (12756)

Found with EthNZ on an epic numbers run. Log signed as IE, TFTC!

My mission is to get as many as I can today before I drive back to Nelson thanks Gracie7 and Mum for all the hard work in putting this out, didn't know their where so many different types of Smurfs

A quick find on a numbers run day. Signed Team IE. TFTC.