Ninox novaeseelandiae (Wellington) Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
By beanadventures on 25-Jan-16. Waypoint GC69XHH

Still no sign of Ninox, which is a great pity.
Sorry to archive this one, but it was a one of kind.

Keen to do this cache, is it to be replaced?

Someone has taken the whole cache ...... I'm speechless

Walked from the Manawa Karioi entrance near the Marae and exited at Murchison Street, a rather long but very pleasant walk.
Looked in the wrong spot at first but on returning from that I noticed something unusual from a distance and on closer examination it turned out to be the cache.
TFTC.

Out for a bit of a romp round the tracks and hills in this part of the city. Fascinating, my first visit in this area. Really enjoyed it.
Cache was a straightforward find. True to coordinates and the description and hint.
All in order, log signed and then safely re-hidden. A bit of muggle management needed and some time spent admiring the nifty cachengineering. Good one.
I visited here with team cacher zboy wonder.
TFTC
The Turtle strikes again!

Great little camo... all good at GZ, TFTC

Was out for a walk with a not so enthused ten year old when I thought I'd see if there was a cache around to make the idea of meandering through the bush on a Saturday afternoon better than sitting at home on screens. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed as when I checked we were only 80 metres away. Took a while to find as I only had my phone gps which was pointing to a very obvious hiding spot but after trying and scrambling around in the bush a bit I was about to give up. It wasn't until I came to stop at another possible spot just a few metres from first search spot that I found it. Super well hidden in plain sight and the first of its kind that I've seen, utterly genius! Will definitely give a favourite point for its originality and great excuse to go for a nice little bush walk in the area. I didn't have a pen as I wasn't thinking of caching so took a pic of the log book instead, not a spoiler though thanks so much for a fab cache!

great hiding place

#3391. Felt the need for some geocaching this evening so my daughter and I headed down to the south coast for a nice stroll along the bike tracks. Certainly a bit of zig-zag path and we ended up on the wrong track but seeing pink markers we headed into the bush. Well the cache was a good 50m away and down a steep slope but made it to the other path. I was looking around one tree and my daughter spied the cache by another tree. What a nicely constructed geocache. Well done. Signed the log and replaced as found. On to the next one.

While I was walking up the start of the track I observed a muggle who was clearly up to no good. I captured the muggle and discovered that he isn't a great fan of the Ninox Novaeseelandiae (or Ruru or Morepork) and was actually trying to remove the cache!
I gave the muggle a stern talking too, and let him go with a warning - I also reminded him he was lucky I caught him and not a Morepork!
As Waitit says in his log, this cache showed me a walking track thru native bush so close to my home; and it also gets a favourite point from me for the construction and camo of the cache.
*TFTC beanadventures #43*

I love how Geocaching take you to new places that you wouldn't have otherwise enjoyed or known about, this was another great example. Loved the hide as well, gets a favourite from us. *TFTC beanadventures, #9380*

A quick nab on our way to the ridge. Bit of an owl fan so this was another personally appreciated cache for the day. Loved the container! Cheers.

Really great instructions, well designed cache

Ruru are slowly moving in to the Owhiro Bay area although they haven't become permanent residents yet. Great to see them being joined by this cute little fellow. Found with Owhiro Ray and Rosie the patient caching greyhound.

This was a tremendously pleasing surprise. Finding the right track was fun in itself and I was ready to award a favourite point just on the basis of a great walk in a great location. These attributes were then surpassed by the cache itself - a simple but very effective idea (and perfectly appropriate for the environment). TFTC, beanadventures.

Heading the warnings of other finders we checked out the tracks before hand and while we could have been a bit smarter with parking given the day had a really nice loop walk. Loved the cache a relatively quick find although well camouflaged for the environment. TFTC

Found with TregearP on a Sunday afternoon walk. We'd intended to do this one yesterday for the 10+ Favourite souvenir but with the atrocious weather went somewhere that required a little less time away from the car.

Enjoyed the view on the walk in (and out) - we came over the spur line. At the GZ we felt there were so many choices, but after a short search found the cache less than a metre from where I'd dropped my bag.

Nicely done . All in good order, TNLNSL & TFTC.

I love it when a cache is more that a mint tin or a plastic box. FP awarded for this for the effort that's been put in. It took a while to identify the right track, but the only difficulty at GZ was my own fault - I'd decided I was looking for something much larger. Coords are good, and the hints are spot on.

TFTC

Definitely one of the more peculiar caches I've found.

It took us ages to find the correct track, even with a local who knows the park well. even though it wasn't the warmest of days, after our long, rambling circuit we had worked up quite a sweat and we're glad to drop back down in to the shaded part of the reserve. The GPS wasn't hugely accurate, so it was great to have such precise hints. Then it was a quick find. Super cool container - a lot of thought clearly went in to it! TFTC. With Yosser 9.

This cache is a hoot. We looked and looked and looked and then suddenly, literally standing next to it, we finally spotted it. Lotsa muggles about but our geodogs are great cover. TFTC. So fun!

Instant FP! Brilliant idea , and the hint is wonderfully accurate. 556m car to cache from the dog park entrance for the DGSC challenge. TFTC, now off to get some petrol and a coffee as both the car and I need refuelling.

Cache # 3,202 - after failing to find this way back in January (it was my last gasp to keep alive a mini-streak of consecutive months with a FTF, but failed as Huhugrub and a few others beat me to every cache in January), I had little call to come to this end of town since. Today heard the weather was going to be nice, and knew I had an hour of sunlight to try to find this one after work before my next commitment. I needed every minute of that time, as it still took a long time to locate. I was about to give up as I had run out of time when I finally spotted the sly creature. Was not what I was envisioning at all. Well done. Despite my frustrations on this cache, still worth a favourite point - and I'll take that coffee at some point! TNLNSL. TFTC!

Consecutive caching day # 1,118

Took a bit of a detour from the usual walk around the dog park today to grab this one. Took quite a while to find it - the GPS had me searching about 10-15 meters up the track. Once I was actually in GZ it was a quick find. Very cool cache, well done. Also recorded the track and updated OSM, so it will now show up on that. TFTC!

My last find for the day. Took a little while to figure out how to get there (the track wasn't on my GPSr map). Big grin on my face when I found the hide - awesome. TFTC.

Great cache beanadventures! And a nice bush walk I didn't know about — pity track isn't listed on my maps, would've saved some hunting!

Found with Wafflekitties TFTC

Last cache of the day, it took a few wrong turns before we figured out how to get here but we enjoyed seeing so much of the park Our dogs loved it too and got to meet lots of other canine friends along the way on such a sunny day. TFTC

Thank you for a fabulous and innovative cache. The bird life around here is fantastic.

Wow! One of our favourite finds!! Great camo. Forgot to bring a pen. Will sign on a return trip sometime. TFTC - awesome!!

Loved this one. very special thanks

This cache had all I love about geocaching - a hidden gem of a reserve, a track I had not been on before, glorious bird song (the tui near GZ were particularly raucous) and a fun hide. I actually had my hand on the cache before I realised what it was. TFTC

Found with Frances' help.
Very clever, I had walked past a couple of times and not spotted it.
Thanks

Needed some exercise after lying in all morning so I set off to Tawatawa reserve do do a loop of all three new caches.

Wasn't sure how to reach this one without gorsey bush bashing but soon found an easy approach. Slightly over complicated the search at GZ but spotted the adorable little guy soon enough. TFTC

Very cool container, thanks!

Found whilst Geokitten007 was at Brownies. Cool cache!
TFTC.

Off for a walk while daughter at nearby dance practice. A little bit of circling around before spotting the cleverly hidden cache. We have a few Ninox novaeseelandiae around our house also with their easily recognizable call. Thanks for the cache.

Brilliant cache! Can't help but love moreporks. TFTC.

Not what I was expecting. Cool find

Came for a evening walk armed with a powerful torch and arrived here in darkness after finding "Bunny's Hideout" nearby. The coordinates were leading me about 15 metres further down the path but it didn't take long to locate the nicely hidden little creature using the hint. Opened cache and realised that I didn't have a pen on me - most unusual So I photographed the log and then came back the next morning and signed it. On the way back to the vehicle at the top of Rhine St. I was lucky enough to spot a real Ninox novaeseelandiae sitting on a waratah post in the middle of the flat area just below the big concrete water reservoir. I had it in the beam from my torch and it flew off silently as I approached it. No sound of any morepork calls while I was here this evening although most nights I can lie in bed at home with the window open and hear them in the distance in the Zealandia sanctuary. Just occasionally they come very close to the house and then they really do wake you up! Thanks for an enjoyable cache!

Took me a few minutes to spot. It blends in quite nicely with its surroundings. Cheers and TFTC

Found whilst showing others the joys of caching.
Love this one!
sorry for the late log.

Tftc

Found it! Love this one

After huhugrub posted a DNF, I thought this might be my only chance at an FTF in January. A quick walk to GZ this morning, but 45 minutes later after scouring the area and widening the scope out to about 25 metres in all directions, I gave up for now.

Bugger. It's still here but coords are shot. I'm so sorry. We checked before publishing. I'm guessing trees are messing with gpsr and phone. Once again I'm sorry. I'll figure something out, in the meantime I'll disable it.

#7491. {FTF} @ 12:06. After our DNF yesterday, we decided to return to Tawatawa Reserve this morning to have another look. Despite the slight dampness, it was still an enjoyable walk. At least it was much cooler than yesterday’s heat. Many other folks probably thought today was better walking weather too, since we came across even more people on the tracks than yesterday.

Mrs h thought she had spotted some other potential hiding places along the Tawatawa Bush Track as we went past after our long DNF search at GZ yesterday, but we did not have time to check them out fully. So with a bit more time today, we tried to find these spots as we went back. We took the loop walk in the opposite direction to see if we could identify any likely spots from a different perspective. Having checked several places up the slopes on our way towards GZ, we finally spotted something of interest on our way back down to the track. It turned out, yes, that was the cache nicely camouflaged and staring at us. Wonderful, and we took an averaged GPS reading at this spot … which was some 97 metres from the published coordinates.

We were glad that yet another walking party had just gone past this spot. So it was all quiet when we were there. The cache was very well put together and in excellent condition, all nice and dry inside. Loved the creativity. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

| = = = = = T h a n k s _ f o r _ t h e _ c a c h e = = = = = |

Coordinates changed from:
S 41° 19.895 E 174° 45.775

Coordinates changed to:
S 41° 19.845 E 174° 45.754

Distance from original: 318.7 feet or 97.1 meters.
Moved to a better location. Coords with thanks to Huhugrub.

Moved to a lovely new spot with spot-on coordinates (with help from huhugrub - thank you )
Apologies for those who searched already. Happy to shout you a coffee to try and make it up to you!

Enjoyed walking the Tawatawa Reserve loop this afternoon. Searched for some time at GZ, and widening the area ... but didn't find it.

I'm sorry you had no luck Huhugrub. I've changed the description of the cache and will go and check on it right now. Hopefully it is still there.

Will fix and repost. Sorry to drag you up here huhugrub and wandering dragon

Published