Silica Rapids (Central North Island) Tongariro National Park, North Island, New Zealand
By sveppi on 14-Nov-15. Waypoint GC66TEH

Nice place, I am happy to explore and learn something new about the nature here. I am visiting New Zealand from Czech republic, it is completely different countryside. Thank you for the cache.

Nice walk to here and a really interesting place to soo the river. Earthcache answers to follow.A day trip out during the Xmas has become a bit of a scene these last few years for daughter Liv and I. Weve been Richmond Ranges overnighting in a hut, Te Aroha for an oldie cache, and this years iteration was a trip up Whakapapa for a trip out to Taranaki Falls, Silica springs as well as another couple of other side walks. We managed over 39 finds for the day and looped back via the Desert Road after heading in via Ohakune and helping a couple of SOBO TA walkers.Thanks to all COS for their hides, there were a few wet LOTR ones but managed to add a mark here or there.

We walked up the Silica Rapids track and I had forgotten about Earthcaches in the area until I checked the map when we got back to the ski lodge. I managed to recall enough details that Sveppi allowed the successful log.
We walked back via the Bruce Road route and saw a great range of landscapes and geology. The road walk was a little dicey, but we safely got back to the car.
Thanks for the cache!

We are visiting some nice locations during the month of august : Singapore, New Zeland, Hong-Kong and Macau.A fantastic touristic and geocaching tour in these different countries. Thanks to all geocachers for all their geocaches.------------------Nice Earthcache geocache easily found Thanks to sveppiSilica Rapids (Central North Island)Greetings from France

*Filser1* sent the answers for this earth cache. They were quite spectacular. Well worth the walk.

T4TEarthcache

TEMBO! and I traveled to Motuopa. On our way there are a lot of geocaches to visit. We visited the "Silica Rapids" and found the requested answers. Very interesting!

Thanks to sveppi for hiding and maintaining the cache.

T4TC Filser1

We had an excellent hike on the Silica Rapids Trail today at Tongariro National Park. The falls were fantastic, and a lot less busy than the Taranaki Falls, and we saw some great birds while hiking, including the Whio. Great spot, and loved learning the geology of the rapids. TFTC!

We enjoyed this walk with 3 generations, first time for all of us despite having been to Whakapapa many times before. Nice science lesson!

Good walk from the top down . lots of daisy's and orchids along the track as well as the stream colors to enjoy. tftc

We love it Nice place

After a nice hike to Taraniki falls we also hiked to the Silica Rapids to look what is this. This is a very nice walk over many boardwalks, with nice signs for information and views. Thanks to the owner for the cache!
Greetings from Felsmaus from Germany.

Enjoyed this walk, and wondered why I had never done this walk before. Interesting learnings along the way. No GPS photo as use phone. Thanks

In the North Island with a school trip, got a bit of down time so time for a bit of caching.

Walked around the track, what a great place

Answers to come shortly.

TFTC

Nice to tick this walk off my list. The track was closed when I was here last year as they were building new boardwalks. All finished now so a great walk to some interesting rapids.

Great earthcache to make me notice points of interest! Fascinating area to visit!! TFTC!!

We had a lovely walk along the Silica Rapids track this morning.
The scenery just kept getting better and better and we we’re lucky to have the whole place to ourselves.
The Silica rapids were definitely a highlight and were amazing to see.
Thanks for bringing us to this stunning place.

I was supposed to be hiking the Tongariro Crossing today but the weather wasn't playing ball, so I decided to do some other hikes instead. The Silica Rapids walk was nice and quiet which made searching for the caches easy. There certainly was some interesting colours in the rocks and rivers around this area. Answers have been sent to the CO, TFTC!

Found this spot on our way around the Silica Rapids track. TFTC

Went with Tara ted to knock off the LOTR and ended up do Eighteen k with loads of fun walk up to the rapids and then back to way point 2 to get the information then carried on to Taranaki falls loop as we are both from Taranaki this one get a favourite thanks for the placement and the sharing TFTC

Been wanting to walk this trail for a long time (and redo the nearby Taranaki Falls walk to get a few missed caches). Great walk with lots of different scenery on the way, and not too difficult for the younger cachers (9, 8 and 4). Managed to find all the traditionals except for 2 on the way. Lovely spot, TFTC

Had our first bush walk in months today due to the Covid-19 lockdown. We hiked the Silica Rapids loop trail and the kids had fun collecting geocaches along the way. Had a good day for the time of year and many others were enjoying the walk too. I've added a couple of photos of some neat rock formations that we spotted on a ridge above the trail. Thanks for this Earth Cache.

Nice day for a walk to this interesting area. Answers sent to CO.

First day of autumn: the original plan for today was to try Tongariro Alpine Crossing, but we felt it could be too much. And we were not sure about the weather as well.

So we changed plans and chose the easier hike to Silica Rapids, which was a very good idea. It was a pleasure to hike that trail to the falls - the stages were easy and fair to answer and the nature was at its best here: water, rocks, trees, ferns - you name it!
We met only few muggles and all of them seemed happy being out here. We had enough time to explore and watch the rapids, then we had a lunch break and were happy here as well.

Thank you for the fine Earthcache! Answers were sent to the owner vioa Message Center. And we will add FP for sure.

Did this one on a very hot day ,as many of them have been this Summer/Spring. A great little loop walk with great views once out of the bush, especially of Ruapehu's crater rim, Pinnacle ridge (which I have climbed in Winter) and Mt Doom - Ngauruhoe. Thanks to the CO for setting this earthcache. Always stimulating to read about the area and work out the answers.

Found with MrsC on our travels in NZ. A fantastic walk tftc.
Love the colours. Answer sent to co.

Found with mr c on our travels from the UK thank you. Mr c has sent the answers

I visited this Earthcache today and the answers I sent the owner.
It was a beautiful hike.

Thanks for showing them.
Many greetings from Cologne from Pöni.

Lovely walk today. Too hot in Kuratau and too cold and windy higher up, perfect balance at the Silica Rapids today

This was the cache I planned my activities around today on what was my first full day away from home of my Christmas/New Year break. This was an overdue first visit to this part of the world and I thoroughly enjoyed the walk and the viewing of the interesting features highlighted by this earthcache.

For us the weather was not good enough for the crossing so we decided to make a smaller loop. This one was really nice with a view to the volcanoes, forest and so on.

Greets from Germany.
TftEc. Danke fürs Cachle

just arrived at the camping area we planned an evening walkout for some middle earth caches
Thanks - team bycycle

After the Tama lakes and the loop, we still have some energy left. We go again at the end of the day to do this beautiful tour! wow.

---
Thanks sveppi for the geocache [^]
Greetings from Belgium,
Frank et Muriel travelling in New Zealand

Happy geocaching

Found while hiking on the track. Because the weather was not very good this afternoon, I was nearly alone on the whole track. Answers were sent.
TFTC
twin trapper

It was a beautiful clear day as we walked along the silica rapids track. We all found it very interesting reading and studying the natural features in this area so thanks for encouraging us with this earth cache.

Managed to pick this one up as we trundled round the LOTR series.

TFTC

Really like this area - fascinating colours. Visited with Sp8sm8, nice day for a walk.

Beautiful and interesting info. The trail is very popular between families with kids

So this was a special one. When we go up we are here, but don't know, that a cache is here. At red crater we see this cache. On our way down we go the second time to this cache, but without pencil.. wow... what shoud we do... we make a foto for the log and hope it is ok?
Today was a very special day for us. We make the hiking tour to the red crater. The weather was perfekt and so all was Amazing.
On a road trip north, enjoying the day and pic up some caches. TFTC

Greetings from 2 Austrians  
Die_Asseln

These are really interesting. Especially the merging of the two. Answers sent. Tftc.

Answers sent to CO. Given a favourite for bringing us to this area.

Day 12 of our NZ trip. What a fabulous day we had exploring the trails and seeing the sights. It was great to learn something about this amazing area. TFT Earth cache! Greetings from

Out and about with little blue hen and yeetrees with the intention of visiting and maintaining all 49 of the LOR series in one go. Managed to sneak in this Earth cache and one other but left the puzzle #19 until the next day. (50 in one day and close to 20km was enough for my old knees) Really enjoyed this Earth cache and dallied at gz just soaking in the info and atmosphere. Fortunately I had read the info at wp1 so completion of the requirements was fine. Yeetrees sent the info for all of us. Favourite added. Thanks for the experience.

Completed with yeetrees and bkj97. Great photo opportunities and the weather was amazing. Favourite from me to for this interesting cache.

Saw the series of caches when they were published and really haven't had the opportunity to ever look at coming up here to attempt them. When the opportunity arose that this series was up for adoption, I decided to contact the CO and sent yorkshirekiwi83 an email saying that we were happy to adopt them as we didnt want to see them being archived. Yorkshirekiwi83 was happy and willing to let me adopt them, decided that we should go and find the caches before adopting this series of caches .

A plan was to come out here and spend the weekend near the start of the track, so a plan was hatched on Christmas Day 2018, we checked out the accommodation and Mrs Yeetrees said that she had always wanted to stay at the Chateau Tongariro, as her family was a legacy visitor, but that is another story.

After the accommodation was all booked it was just a matter of planning the trip, and saving the funds [xx(], well a plan was set in motion..... and the start of the journey from there and back again.

We meet up with bkj97 and the Little Blue Hen while we out and about and had mentioned that we were going to go up the mountain attempt this series, they said that they were happy to come along as well if we didn’t mind the company, well twos company more are cachers, why not as two eyes are better than mine as I am know to be blind, so the plan was amended for a team effort [^].

Today was the day one of our two day visit on this lovely mountain and we decided that we would attempt the LOTR series, having made our way up here last night with bkj97 being our most gracious chauffeur who go us to our accommodation safely last night [^].

After finding GC6J6BW - LOTR13 - Eomer, this was the next cache we had to find as we were making our way along the Silica Rapids track and continue on our journey towards the next cache of the series. As we were making our way towards the final waypoint we finally found the last piece of information that we required.

Managed to email the CO all the answers and was given permission to log this earthcache. Thanks sveppi for placing this earthcache series here and for bringing me to this spot, TFTEC (14318).

Now it is time to make our way to the next cache in the series, the adventure and journey continues ....

Disclaimer:
This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author.

Otherwise, what one says may be construed as being what the entire one believes, thinks or condones, and this may be very inaccurate and damaging, or just complete fiction......

A wonderful hiking day in Tongariro National Park for D4nielB and me. We walked the Taranaki Falls Loop, the Tama Lakes Track to the lower lake and a loop track to visit the Silica Rapids. It was awesome. On our way we also looked for some geocaches.
On our way to the Silica Rapids we came past the waypoints of this earthcache - nearly forgot and missed the first one.
We gathered all the information needed and D4nielB sent our answers to the CO. Thanks for this great earthcache!
Greetings from Hamburg, Germany.
Juliane

Today Jul1ane and me used the day for a lot of hiking in Tongariro National Park, starting with Upper Taranaki Falls Track, Tama Lakes Track to Lower Tama Lake and Lower Taranaki Falls track, followed by a round trip along Lower and Upper Silica Springs Track. Of course we also used these for a big load of cache finds.

On the second half we came past the waypoints for this earth cache, where we gathered the required answers, which we sent to the CO.

With Lemmer in New Zealand at amazing caches. Thank you for showing all that beautiful places. flatrate

Great walk at silicia rapids. Amazing. Thx

What a beautiful walk this one is. Great to see the signposts with their info, and thanks for this earthcache - always good to learn more... Have e-mailed the CO with the answers, TFTC

11213
At first we wanted to do the Tongariro Crossing this day, but the weather was so bad that we had to decide differently. Instead we made a hike in the surroundings of the visitor centre. We were drawn here by the trail LOTR, but also some other caches were found, including this earthcache. The rain was pooring down, but we kept on going regardless. We were glad to have seen this awesome place.
Thanks for this earthcache!

One day before we would like to do the crossing we had a little round to getting warm. One of the round was these earth cache. The spring were impressive in the evening light. Thanks for the cache!

Found this on an outing with our youngest daughter. Thank you for luring us here, we would otherwise have missed interesting sights. Greetings from Switzerland.

On our trip thru NZ we visit a lot of places and see many spectacular locations.
This cache was one of our stopps thanks a lot to the owner for showing us this nice place.
TFTC
Schmerzbefreit

Really enjoyed the walk and the information. Amazing how many different colours can be so close together. The walk was part of the LOTR cache series and therefore a nice walk to get up the numbers for the year (not much time left). Answers sent to the owner, thanks for the work that has gone into creating this cache.

Thanks for the interesting information and the beautiful walk. Fascinating spot at GZ
TFTC

TFTC! This was the absolute best walk - so many landscapes in two short hours.
Logging the find to maintain my trackable journeys and will provide final answers to CO to replace interim responses in time.
Many thanks
IP

Enjoying the weekend in Whakapapa Village to get some hiking training in for my upcoming big hike of the Green Gully Track in OZ. Great weather today to be out in the area to enjoy the scenery. Enjoyed this earth cache with its very interesting stops along the way. TFTEC

The weather was not behaving ...it was an enjoyable and interesting walk to finally get to way point 3.The unique colour of the stream really stood out ...I tried to rub some of the colour from the rock ..but no it was stuck on real good ...for setting the cache

What a fantastic walk up here. So much variety in landscape. The weather wasn't that marvelous but I still enjoyed the whole trail. I nearly stuffed up this cache as I didn't read up on the requirements until we were quite close. Luckily I read the information boards and hopefully retained the required information. Thanks very much for setting up this Earth Cache for us all to learn from and enjoy sveppi.

What a hike!
Perfect and super cool.
We enjoyed every single moment.
The great weather was the bonus
Thanks for the information.
ViT4 Steffi & Peter from Germany

The constant drizzle and the cold wind did not spoil the fun of doing the beautiful Silica Rapids Walk today.
We not only enjoyed the tramp but also learning about the geology in this area. Thanks for placing this EC and providing all the information!

Today we had our second day in National Park Whakapapa and made a trip around the wonderful walks here. Special emphasis had we on the vulcanic mountains around us. On this trip we searched, found and logged many caches, too. The weather was good in the morning, sunny, but it got worse all day long, until raining at noon and later. Only sometimes then there was some sun to be seen.
Almost no muggels observed us as they had better things to do than observing two geocachers.

Thanks to sveppi for showing us this location and for the fun we had at Silica Rapids (Central North Island). The answers are almost on the way, almost.

Greetings from Germany and hope to see you soon in the forest.

TFTC says H_M_A @ 29. Oktober 2018 @ 13:51 Uhr @ [#12216](https://coord.info/GC66TEH)

It was quite cloudy this morning and so I decided to hike the short round to the Silica Rapids. I am always happy when a round is motivated by a few caches. So here too!

The necessary information was easy to find

tftc

So the stream bed is building up instead of wearing down? Fascinating! A good spot for lunch - but can't hang around too long because it looks like it's clearing up; reasonable skiing weather now!

Awesome walk - thank you for the EarthCache - we had a blast!

On our Route through New Zealand we found this Place. Thank you for showing us!
A very nice walk. However the weather was unkind and it rained a lot...

Yours Slashgirl

During our Journey through this beautiful country we had time to look for some caches. This beautiful place we visited too. Thank you for showing it! Many greetings from Germany! - Willow

Stunning

TFTC. First earth cache

Our first earth cache. With Aquarius_Heart and Team_Stockley

I had a great walk up from the camping ground through the bush. Took lots of photos on my new Sony compact to see what it can do. There were many interesting photo opportunities. The rapids were a really interesting colour, so I hope this came out in the pictures. Many thanks for bringing me to this area and setting up an earthcache. The requirements to log were not onerous, and of course, I gained some new knowledge. TFTEC

Wir haben eine sehr schöne Wanderung unternommen und auch noch viele
andere Caches gefunden. Die Natur ist aber das beeindruckenste

A very enjoyable walk on the Silica Rapids loop track. All questions are easy to answer thanks to the excellent information signs dotted around the track. Thanks for bringing us here!

Nice walk in Beautiful Tongariro Nationalparc.
Thanks for showing and greetings from germany Team Stierwade

Find number 3782. I had a plan today to collect a First to Find in Owhango, Complete the LOTR series and end up in Taurmarunui to have dinner with my brother. So it was out of bed at 5 am and straight on the road. I arrived at Owhango at 7.40 and achieved the First to Find. Stage 1 completed. Then arrived at Whakapapa about 8 and decided to shout myself a big breakfast before starting. I did the 3 loops in numerical order 1-19 then 20-33 and finally 34-49. I managed to find all the caches (Stage 2 completed) and a few others as well. In the end I achieved a total of 56 finds with only 1 not found and that was "Naki Splash" (too many muggles round). Total walking time was 8 hours. And still made it to dinner by 6 pm. (Stage 3 completed). Thank you for all the placements.
This one was an extra. I was passing the way points so gathered the necessary information as I made my way up. Interesting facts. Makes you wonder what the "Pink and White Terraces" must have looked like.

Found this cache together with my family (Sibuk and Finn). For details see the log of Sibuk.

Thanks for the cache, Lupid

During our wonderful vacation in New Zealand Lupid, me, and our little geocaching apprentice managed to find some caches.

Today we visited the Tongariro N.P. As we thought the Tongariro crossing would be a little bit too much for the little one, we decided to go to the Silica Rapids, and so we did
A nice hike through a very varied landscape. At the rapids we had a nice pcinic, the informations were easily obtainerd on the way.

Thank for creating this EC and greetings from Germany, Sibuk

Visiting from Taranaki. Excellent Earthcache and great walk. So good to learn something new! Answers sent to CO & FP awarded.

A brilliant fine day to do this cache and do the other traditional caches as well.A fascinating area and an excellent Earthcache.Answers sent on to CO.Gets a fave from me!TFTC!

I'm from Norway, escaping the cold winter and travelling around New Zealand for 7 weeks, using geocaching as my tourguide. Today I drove from New Plymouth to Ohakune, stopping by the Tongariro-nationalpark to do some of the LOTR-series. I came here a bit later than expected (because of geocaching), so I only had 2,5 hours to play. I decided to go for the Silica Rapids-circle, and along with all the caches, I also found the answers to this earthcache. I really liked this earthcache, it was easy to solve, the information was easy to understand and it really showed me lots of different geological features. If it wasn't for this earthcache, I would probably just skim through the info-panels, but now I read them and understood what they meant. Tftc

Found during a mammoth LOTR power trail walkathon. A great walking track, an interesting earth cache, great sights and wonderful wilderness environment. Geocaching hardly gets better than this - it gets a fave point from me.
I visited here with team cacher zboy wonder and submitted answers to the EC questions to the CO on mine and zboy's behalf.
TFTC
The Turtle strikes again!

We had time for a walk today and decided to follow the first Lord of the Ring caches. So, it was quite logical that we also tried to find the answers to this earthcache. The tasks were very clear and good to find. This made it nice and easy for us to enjoy the beautiful waterfalls. We were lucky with the weather. Only some slight raindrops and then a dramatic cloudy sky. Wonderful to walk and to enjoy the landscape.
Answers are on their way, thanks a lot for hiding the cache!

Answers sent to CO, found on a big walk day via the whakapapanui track. TFTC

Found during a day in Tongariro National Park. Nice walking tour to the Silicia Rapids.

Answers sent via message center.
Thanks for the earth cache.

@ 19.00

Yesterday I walked the PT-ring. At the coords of the Earthcache I saw that I should collect things on the way . Ok 350 metres back... the other information I will get on the next day perhaps... yes, and I did

Thanks for the cache says

eggepfuedi from Switzerland

We set out on Tuesday to spend a few days at Whakapapa to do a few shorter walks, enjoy the scenery, hopefully find some alpine spring flowers, and to do as much of the LOTR series as we can manage. This will depend on our energy levels, and the weather!
Today, was our third and final day here and as the weather continued to be good to us, we went back to try for more of the LOTR Heroes series on the Silica Rapids walk. Starting from the Bruce Road end, we very much enjoyed the walk in through a heath-like landscape over lava jumbled rocks. There were many fabulous views, both closer and expansive.
We also very much enjoyed our visit to Silica Rapids and learning how this natural phenomenon has developed. TFTEC. Gets a favourite from us.

This earthcache was part of my big LOTR tour today! Really cool hike and a very interesting area here!

TFTC! #1436

Out with Red Roaming as we tour around NZ, what a lovely country. As we were doing the LOTRs trail we were able to fit this one in too. Unfortunately it was raining and very misty so the views were not much. Red Roaming has sent the answers to you on both our behalf. Thank you for getting us to learn more about this area. TFTC and a good earthcache

Logging as found having visited gz and emailed our combined answers to the CO which we hope are acceptable. Many thanks

Favourite point - excellent earth cache to explain how and how these silica rapids or falls are created, which I hadn't understood before now. The Rapids were impressive even in the rain today!

Travelling around the world with Dartmoor Deliverer celebrating her taking early retirement!

NB Dont forget our Devon UK Mega 2017 GC6JZNY this August in the beautiful East Devon area of our county. UK Megas are over one week full of events and geocaching - a wonderful way to enjoy our county!

Found on fairhall school, Blenheim, tramp. Liam O found it. Great walk to silica rapids!

Really enjoyed our walk from campground on a clear sunny morning. Seems the wind may be getting up a little now. Answers sent. NINO TFTEC

Logged with permission.
Shortly after we arrived at the lookout it became muggle central. It was a beautiful afternoon to be walking the Silica Rapids track gathering the information required for the earthcache, finding the LOTR caches along the track and taking lots of photos. TFTC.
+ a favourite point.

Tftc

Tftc

The family Tognisserne ( can be translated into Train Pixies ) is on vacation from Denmark to New Zealand.

Went on a walk to find part of the LOTR series of caches - and also cames across the information needed for this cache.

Thank you for a nice Eartch cache. Favorite Point awarded.

During the "Middle-Earth-Round" we also made this Earthcache. It´s an awesome spot here. Red the informations, took some photos and enjoyed the landscape. And thanks to sveppi for the positive answer to log this EC .

TFTC
jekejaerfi

CZECH
super podívaná na všechny ty barvy v řece... a pěkná procházka k tomu

Day # 14 in New Zealand on a geocaching holiday-trip covering Thailand, Australia and finally my beloved NZ .
Today was supposed to be a very special and extensive caching-day
Around and of course in the wonderful Tongariro Natiol Park everything was extreme :
- The weather went from 'slightly sunny' to 'close to awful' [B)] over the day.
- The walking-distance on my two feet counted more than 22 kms, burning more than 1000 calories (Did not count the elevation-meters ...)
- Counted 65 (!) finds over the day, including the complete LOTR-series (only 1 DNF [xx(]), a beautiful earth cache [^], a mega-mystery , a cute letterbox [^] and several handsome traditional caches at the side of the road .
My personal highlight of this great day came on top of it all: I made my find **#10,000**
- a multi-cache with a great name: Chateau Tongariro [:X] - wow! ...
How lucky I am [:o)] ....

On the Silica Rapids trail with LOTR#1-#18, i took the chance to go for this awesome earth- cache . Enjoyed the walk in the spectacular scenery . And learned a lesson about how this colorful scenery evolved. [^] Thanks, sveppi! [:X]

Hey - dear owners around Tongariro - you have cool caches [^] !
A big thanks [:X] to all Owners involved [^] for hiding and maintaining .
And of course a special thanks [:X] [:X] to yorkshirekiwi83 for providing the great LOTR-series **AND my #10.000-multi** - this is awesome! [^]

Cheers from Germany

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is certainly a great thing to do, but we weren't up to it. Too many kilometres and not enough caches. We chose the Silica Rapids Track and the Fellowship of the Ring instead.
The walk along the stream, through the beech forest and the swamp was very pleasant, we even met a fantail who followed us for a while and we found 20 caches. We found all our heroes, collected the information for the earthcache and discovered the nearby puzzle cache.

Thank you for this earthcache pointing out some very interesting phenomema!

Day 3 of caching and tramping around New Zealand.

Our second earthcache in as many days. Enjoyed our walk up here. Collected the required information and emailed the answers to the CO.

Thanks for the earthcache!