A Basic Cache (Smoke and Mirrors I) (BOP) Tauranga, North Island, New Zealand
By tryfyn on 05-Nov-16. Waypoint GC6WK97

The cache has finally gone and, with the lockdown, it seems more appropriate to archive rather than replace.

No luck for us! We're pretty sure we're looking in the right spot, but we can only find roots and dirt! We will have to try again on another day.

After travelling down from Whangarei to do the Taupo Ultra marathon yesterday, headed over to Tauranga for a few days caching, before returning north.

Got on to the solve on this quickly which was pleasing. As I drove toward GZ, I had an idea where it would be, but then the GPS was pointing me elsewhere, so I followed that and soon made a quick find at the indicated coords. TFTC

#17415. This one took a bit of ferreting out. TFTC.

Found with StreetWalkerNZ on day 3 of our four day long weekend trip to Tauranga and yet another gorgeous day to get out and about.
We overshot GZ, and had to walk back. First, we thought it was hidden in a geocaching cliche spot, but then realised the GPSr was pointing further afield. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, found the cache. TFTC.

Over in Tauranga for the day while Mrs Dragon had a cake decorating class so used the opportunity to collect a few caches about the area before she finished.
Lucky enough to get through the day without getting wet which is a bonus, and not too many others seen out and about on what was a chilly day.
Thanks to all the CO's for the palcements.

Checked. All goo.

Down to Tauranga to find some caches with Bennett24 and this one was on the list to look for as a solved puzzle. My kind of puzzle, not too hard to solve and once at GZ not too hard a find either. In the absence of the hint there were some tempting places to look but being on a deadline we went to the hint and found the cache after a short hunt. Nicely tucked away here. Thanks for the cache, all good here.

Nice simple puzzle solved quite a while ago. Out with Tuolei to grab as many as we could in this area this was one of only a few we managed to find. Tuolei made the find here after a little probing around. TFTC.

School holiday trip to Auckland/Coromandel with the family. After a couple nights at Hot Water beach time for a few days in and around Tauranga. Staying in Matua...a quick find between traffic in a morning jaunt to the supermarket before heading out for the day. A fun puzzle. Thanks!

Solved this while ago, nice and straightforward. Headed out at night for a few caches. Didn't take too long to find. TFTC

In Tauranga for a conference this weekend and making the most of my late evenings & early mornings to grab a few caches while I'm in the area. Thankfully it was quiet when I pulled up here, so didn’t have to worry about the muggle factor. The find was straightforward, with the helpful hint, and the cache all good. Thanks for the puzzle & for the cache

What a fab hiding place! Good coordinates brought me right to GZ and I had a couple of ideas about where it might be hiding. Once I was on the right side it was fairly obvious to me where it might be hiding and YES it was there! I wonder how many muggle walk past this every day and have no idea it's there. Luckily there were no muggles around today thanks to the drizzly rain. TFTC

Nice hide yes a Basic Cache,still nice and dry thanks

Tftc what a nice wee hide found with abcdf4

Finally we have a weekend free to catch up with some caches close to home. Great to be out and about on a sunny autumn day. Solved ages ago but finally time for a visit today TFTC.

I enjoy solving the odd simple mystery cache in between the more complicated ones.
We sat near this one for 5 minutes or so and did quick searches on the few occasions when there were breaks in muggle traffic. Nicely hidden. Thanks for the puzzle and the cache.

Solved this one over a year ago and found ourselves too closeby GZ today to miss the opportunity to make a find. My last find with GAR before dropping him off for the stocktake we have come to Tauranga for - I have taken the day off and plan on finding a few more. Quick find today and glad to be able to log a mystery cache while it is still active (unlike many of my solves). Thanks for the puzzle and hide tryfyn!

Yay!!! Awesome cache lay in the sun trying not to look suspect with so many people driving past haha

I had solved this over a year ago, but hadn't had the chance to sign the log until tonight. 01010100 01000110 01010100 01000011 00100000 01101001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101110

Solved this one shortly after it was published but then forgot all about it. Today we had to come over to Tauranga to pick up Mrs S's new glasses, to go with her new eyes and as this cache wasn't far away decided it was time we sorted it out. Mr S spotted the container as it was actually not where it should have been and was exposed. Signed and replaced it a bit more securely. Looked like it had tumbled out of it's hidey hole.

Thanks tryfyn for an interesting puzzle. We will now have to review all our solved puzzles and see which others we have forgotten to go and find.

Had a puzzle solving night at home, preparing for our trip down here. I think we spent longer looking than solving, after missing it the first time we looked, thanks for the cache.

Trying to get back into solving puzzles again, so this was a good place to start - and get the grey matter working again. A quick search at the correct coordinates lead to a gratifying find. Thanks tryfyn.

In a bit of a mad dash Team Welsh and I raced around before sunset grabbing as many solved puzzles as we could before it got too dark and too cold. Another great puzzle thank you.

1st one solved in the series and first to collect, the others are on the list to collect tomorrow, all going well. TFTC and the puzzle

3100 Spent some time do some puzzle solve while watching a NZ cricket test. This was one of them so thought I would come over and enjoy the Autumn day and grab a few caches. Parked some distance away and walked. Spotted where I assumed cache would be but no luck. Wandered a bit further and then came back as it was really the only place it could be. This time I quickly made the find. Took it to a nearby seat to sign. Returned it on my way back to the car. Thanks for the placement.

Another good puzzle thanks - found this cache after a wee look around with SB20- not sure what the chap further down the road thought we were up to though. Tftc.

Good puzzle and quick find here, thanks for another cache tryfyn, you kept KathyKaches and I very busy today! This was number 21 of around 30 caches we found today. Was a beautiful and very enjoyable day.

Time to return home at the end of the day, so we are driving around the suburbs of Tauranga collecting puzzles, many of which we solved in the last day or two. A nice easy Smoke and Mirrors puzzle just as the description says. Found the cache nice and dry in the first place we checked. TFTC.

Out with Iammrwalker and a bit of a night mission around Tauranga. With only limited time available for us our main focus for the night were the two new UV caches here, and of course anything else we were passing by. A fairly successful night in the end however some hides took a while for us to locate.

Solved not long after this one was published. A quick find tonight.

I had some time off this week due to it being school holidays and decided to go on a night mission to Tauranga. HKCB was keen to come along and suggested we make the two new UV caches our focus and then grab whatever else we could along the way. I picked HKCB up after dinner and dropped him home about 2am. Unlike me, he had to work the next day. Many of the caches took longer to find than they should have, we never the less had an enjoyable night out. A big thanks to all the CO’s for placing and maintaining the caches and making our mini adventure possible.

Having solved other puzzles not to different from this one I was able to after some trial and error come up with some coordinates. No issues with the find tonight.

**11118**
Collecting up a few puzzle caches prior to the Caching Event. We have definitely been out of the game too long but will work our way back in and eventually clean out the area again. Definitely a good idea to work through the puzzles from the first to last, rather than try and jump in the deep end. TFTPC

Felt very exposed while searching for this one as the area was fairly busy. Thankfully, it didnt take too long to find. Slowly we are making our way around the area picking up all these solved puzzles, TFTC!

Mission today is to get our cache total to 6000 finds. With only 7 needed this shouldn't be a problem.

10.25am - Co Ords seemed a bit out but soon found cache. Road very busy. SLTFTC

Happy New Year's Eve!

We're on holiday in the Bay of Plenty. Megan found it on the day we arrived. We were out for a drive with Gran.

Thank you

Cherrys Rule

On a caching adventure with the dog...

There has been a rush on puzzle placements recently. Some have really worked the grey matter over... Luckily, I work with a small team of dedicated puzzle solvers. We eventually get a result sooner or later... Regardless, each puzzle solve helps me along with my own caching personal challenge.

We blame this one for kick starting the swarm of recent puzzles. Fortunately, it took a few minutes to sort out... We had a slight dilemma today. Our saved logs showed cache flags in a sea of black nothingness. There were no map details... We had to draw on memory and the compass feature on the iPhone... We were quite uncertain about this one. This was completely urban and we felt uneasy. It took us ages to find ground zone. Our coordinates were slightly out. But sense and logic brought us here to a rather random hide... TFTP and TFTC.

Geochecker added. Thanks, Lionfish.

We were out and about this evening, and decided to stop by for this one on our way home after finding your '1066 And All That' cache. So 2 puzzle finds for us this evening ... we will sleep well tonight.

A fairly basic puzzle to solve and quickly had cache in hand on our way to do the Matua multi. thanks Tryfyn.

Saw this on late night. Nice quick basic puzzle. Was out that way today so a quick find and log signed.

Sometimes I look at these puzzles and I freak out a little bit. I was so happy this one was straight forward and I had a set of useable coords fairly promptly. Having grown up on this side of town I always enjoy returning as it only seems to happen when new caches come out.

I got to GZ and had an inconspicuous wander around before spying the cache and completing a quick snatch before heading to the seat to perform the log signing ritual. Returning was equally straight forward and we were back on the road! Some great views from this area cheers tryfyn TFTC

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**Early 2015 a group of Tauranga based cachers started a [BOP Geocaching Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/groups/GeocachingBOP/).
125 cachers currently make up this 'Closed' group where we organise various geocaching events and excursions as well as share information and friendly banter. Please check us out if you're interested.**

Published

Joint ftf with Splatty. It was a quick decipher while we were helping Barker find a cache that has been bugging her for a while. Quickly ran an errand then to Gz where Splatty was waiting for me. Yay my first to help find thank you for the find. I think i really lije the puzzle ones.

What a panic. Three alerts coming through and which to go for first. After finding the other two I solved the code for this one. Trouble was it led us to a private driveway. After rechecking the code I found my basic mistake and entered the correct coordinates which of course then made sense. After all my mucking around I was sure ftf would have long gone but a group of us all converged on the spot at the same time. Thanks Tryfyn for placing this cache.

With the solved co-ords written on my forearm, with a saturated and muddy, lame dog I arrived at the hiding spot, where I was to wait for Teq/Tachumaki. Spotting a fellow cacher (McWatt) a few metres away I walked very briskly to the likely spot (given the hint), where we met and McWatt easily located the cache - with a clean logbook.

Many thanks for Tachumaki (the Japanese waterfall!) for deciphering the code as we wandered through the swamp area a few moments earlier, truly a joint effort and the third meet up for me of the day!

Back from a weekend with the grandkids and settling in for an early night - saw some new caches had come out so had a look at this one. Quickly solved and saw that it wasn't far from home. Decided to go get Chinese and the cache in a round trip - This is quite a busy spot and people will soon wonder what is going on - hope it stays put Thanks for the puzzle and the cache TFTPC

I didn't realise that publishing a cache (or three) would lead to such a feeding frenzy! But everyone seems to have enjoyed it so I'm not too embarassed at my first foray into placing a cache. I think I'll have to make the next one more difficult though, and how am I going to sort out the FTF?

After attending the event, maintaining one of our caches on Moturiki then visiting two lots of family on the way home, we were surprised to see this still had no logs on it and it seemed to be just down the road from home. So it was a quick solve and a check on Google maps to locate GZ. Still no logs showing so we drove down the road with some vague hope of an unlikely FTF. We took a seat and made an easy retrieval, and just as we did we noticed a gentleman in the kitchen window opposite taking an extreme interest in what was happening just over the road from his house. We decided the best option may be to go over and talk to him after signing the log. This choice was taken out of our hands as he came out of the front gate and across the road to meet us. He was not angry, just wondering what all that activity was about. He said there had been about 5 or 6 people there when he was making his afternoon tea, and even one with a dog, and he wondered if it was "Pokemonny" related. We explained about Geocaching and showed him the container and log sheet. He seemed happy enough although we do have reservations about the hides' longevity given its very public position. It will help that its a puzzle cache so it will not be found as often as a traditional. Thanks tryfyn for the puzzle and the cache, it was also good to catch up with you both at the event today. PS we look forward to finding your other hides.

Yay. Another joint FTF. With many thanks to Kahluis & McWatt for their quick thinking!! Thanks Tryfin

Well this is a long story ...the short version was ms dyslexia got one mixed up and we ended up going up some ones drive hahaha ...we only discovered this after we returned home and redid the numbers ...back to get the cache...we were only 50 meters away originally bugger .....and there was a real gathering Splatty , McJandels Kahluis and an person with a Japanese water fall name all at the same time what a wonderful coincidence ....and great to catch up with every one ...thanks Tryfn for a great we cache