Black Hill Rock (St Arnaud) Saint Arnaud, South Island, New Zealand
By andy.gail on 04-Aug-18. Waypoint GC7VK07

Took a good rummage around to find it, but find it we did. Lovely location in the bush surrounded by korimako song.

Found by our 5 years old daughter.Beautiful hike in the forest, hearing songs of birds, so relaxing.We didn't bring a pen unfortunately.Cheers from France and Thanx for the cache

In the general area on a maintenance run. This was on the list. Good thing because the log book was almost full. New log sheet added - all now good.

A bit of caching at lake Rotoiti TFTCQuick find#575

Driving over to Lewis Pass for some tramping this weekend. Was doing the nearby Adventure Lab but couldnt resist a walk up this lovely track. Cache and log all fine. Thanks for the smiley

Found during a break in the weatherTFTC

Since my surgery was postponed, I was able to come out today to fill in my calendar loops naturally. I headed to Saint Arnaud and up to this area for a few finds.I parked at the lodge and took one more hike for today. I would have found this one quicker, but the last finder was a little excessive when they replaced the camo. TFTC.

Tftc out for a day walk with victoriousone, mumandme and a few others.

Found with victoriousone and Kimmy+co. Tftc

We thought we had finished walking for the day but it was only 225m away. Ooh well I guess we are heading up. Found with mumandme and Kimmy+co. TFTC

Great family walk today and 100% find rate on our caches! That is rare in NZ, so we combined a beautiful walk with a nice geocaching experience, thanks!

(# 7592) Day 4 of the West Coast trip primarily to go to the Wild Food Festival in Hokitika. Today we are traveling from Hokitika to Picton. Went for a quick walk up the track to grab a couple of caches. A quick find in a lovely area. Thanks for bringing me here.

Day 4 of our caching adventure to the wildfood festival. Now time to turn around and head north again with Mr-Mcgoo and Justlooking00. Caching from Hokitika to Picton today. Seeking out oldies and goodies.
Stopped here for a walk to the older one slightly further up and it's a proven fact you can't walk past a cache on a track you are already on! Nice hidey hole in a stunning bit of bush, thank you.

2728. A quick fart up the track in the falling light to find this one. TFTC!!!

Quick and easy find, tftc

Found it during our walk up the hill. Tftc

18.11.22

It's the school holidays and we are up in the area for a few days, so I took a fast walk past this one up over the summit. A nice easy find here as the container was sitting slightly out in the open away from a secure hiding spot. All dry and good on the inside.

Lovely rainy walk from the top of black hill. Jorgie’s first Geocache!

Quick find of the cache on a revisit of Black Hill. TFTC!!

A day in the Lake Rotoiti area with a walk around the Brunner Peninsula then the Moraine Walkway. Came in the "hard way" and grabbed on my way down the hill. Thanks for the cache.

Found nice and easy as was out in the open. Have tucked it out sight from the path but still easy to spot. Tftc

Out on a warm afternoon for a walk quick find

One of the best ones yet

well hidden left a swap gift

Nope. Couldn't locate it!

Weekend at the lake and a nice chance to find some caches. Thanks!

Found on a nice day up the lake. Haven't been up here for a couple of years

A little effort for No.13 and I to get up to the hill. Quick find. TFTC

Enjoyed the walk with Ulmuslyn
Wasnt long before the cache was in our hands
Thank you for the cache

Nice spot for a wander after a day on the lake.

Had not planned on going to the lake today. So was totally unprepared to do some caching. So what do you do when you end up standing next to a cache without a pen. No problem said my daughter and picks up a piece of blackened bark and manages to scratch something on the log that just about resembles mp2 and a date. I’m hoping this will be excepted. My daughters car has now been supplied with pens

This cache was one of today's targets for me (Taybeedragon had found it sime time ago) and i was expecting a long walk to it, but I flubbed my navigation role and directed Toby up the nearby road, thinking it was the road to the lakeside. Just as we pulled over to turn around I saw how close it got to this cache, so we aborted the U-turn and drove to the end of the road. Lots of cars parked there, but we met no one on the track. Taybeedragon spotted a lodge nearby - must be busy! Anyway, wanding up the track near GZ I saw a tree with a large amound of what looked like horrible black mud around its base. Did not fancy searching there! But then the GPSr pointed elsewhere to a much more likly, and much more pleasent spot.

It's been a cold day, and on this track we see some external confirmation - some spots of snow on the ground.

Taybeedragon and I have been to Nelson a number of times lately, and frankly, getting bored with it, despite that there are a gazillion finds still to find there. So we headed to St Arnaud instread. We started with Lake Rotoroa, and now to Lake Rotoiti.

enabling now lockdown ended

Disabling temporarily due to Level 4 Shutdown Rules and Geocaching HQ guidelines:

"COVID 19 situation from Groundspeak HQ:
We are advising all geocachers to follow the guidance of their local government leaders"

Stay Home, stay safe - no geocaching
Do Not Touch Anything - no geocaching
Stay Local

Will reactivate for you to find after this is over.

It pays to trust your instincts, I looked here first, didn't find it and believed my ph that said I was in the wrong place. I found a perfect location just up the track where the rock was hollowed up but nope it wasn't there either.
Finally located the correct spot. Now I'm off to the lake for breakfast and some caches around there.

Found with NZDi. A couple of weeks ago I was perusing the booking calendar for the company holiday home in St Arnaud and noticed it was available for Waitangi weekend. After a quick consult with NZDi it was no longer available. As there was no one booked in last night, we were able to take early possession, so leaving Blenheim at 7.30am, we were up here and had the car unloaded by 9.00am. After unpacking, we headed off and did the loop track, NZDi collecting six unfound caches and I getting two. When went back to the holiday home and grabbed a quick lunch then headed of to the lower Mt Robert car park to set off along Paddy's Track and grabbed a couple of caches that had appeared since we last cleared the area. After that we looked at the geocaching map to see where to go next and this stood out.

The cache page says approaching this from the main road is a bit harder and having done that before it was not a mistake we intended to make again. Yes, we took the easy option. By now we had got used to the Garmin over running the cache and having to back track to find it, so when it said I had 10m to go, I looked around and started to search the nearest feature and sure enough there it was. Like the previous logger, who also found the cache today, I've been impressed how local cache generally use two or three layers of protection resulting in dry logs all round.

TFTC andy.gail

Found while out caching in the nelson Lakes with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

TFTC andy.gail

Nice quick find, log was perfectly dry thanks to bag and 2 containers!
Thanks for another smile on the way back. There are so many nice walkways in this area, I enjoy being here! Looking forward for a swim in the lake.

Evening walk. Tftc

28 December 2019 15:55. Presuaded the rest of the family to take a short detour up here (they were intrigued by the permanent orienteering course markers). It was the youngsters turn to look smug here as he looked better than i did at an obvious spot! Tftc

There was a big mess of fallen trees and branches and we didn't get a good lock on the GPS either. After a good search we had to move on.

Five minutes search.
Looks was fire here, but now everything is wet.
Found with Ivetacek.
Thanks for the cache!

After resting up in Zara for a couple of hours I head out at 3pm for another 3 hour walk. Up the hill to get here. I thing Nigel Navigator was going on strike. He had me going all over the place. I searched and searched over here and over there getting to within 10 meters but walking around in large circles both sides of the track. OK time to move on. Waling down the track decided to check out thoses rocks but no go. Back to the track and I end up going the wrong way but found some more rocks to explore to finally snag this elusive one. Cheers

Stayed at Cold Water Hutt Friday night. Ended up with 2 other roomys and 2 others camped out. Im up and on the trail by 7am. An amazing view with fog coming down the river and disbursing over the lake. Arrived back at Zara at 1pm.

Zara and I are off for some much needed tree time, with Lake Rotoiti on my agenda for today. Arranged a hut pass, left Zara resting at TeeTotal and hit the trail by 10. Finally arrived at Coldwater Creek Hut just before 5pm.

A quick find, cache in good shape and well protected. It was the first of my walk along this track from the lodge end. TFTC Andy.gail.

Today was St Arnaud.
I had done some caching in St Arnaud before, but it was a little bit on the way somewhere else, or a handful at the end of the day. Today I decided to make it the focus.
A nice day, and successful. Had a good look around town, the lake and some good walking tracks. Only a couple eluded me today, a haul of 27 including an oldie and a virtual before I decided that was enough. Thanks all COs, an enjoyable day.

Found on a walk up Black Hill with Harris Gang 5 for some very enjoyable company. Tftc andy.gail.

Took MuzzaL53 and I a while to find, but we persisted, thankfully. Tftc

After a very enjoyable catch up with Mrs Biggles and the cute little Fozzies back along the road I came for the short wander up here. Lovely birdsong here this afternoon. TFTC # 13,469

There was a bit of discussion about where to head for a walk and the loop track at Rotoiti was suggested. Then we remembered the boat show was on and our plans changed a little, so this was the first cache in the area. Cache found, log signed then down to West Bay for lunch. Our timing couldn't have been better as we sat and watched an aerobatic display as we ate. I've never seen this bay so busy, I guess that was a combination of boat show visitors and people out making the most of the glorious weather. Thanks for the cache .

Brought the caravan up to the lake to test out the new towing wheels. We have spent the last couple of nights parked in the park over property behind the cafe...
This morning it was a solo walk for me while hubby stayed reading in bed. "Just be back by lunchtime" was all I got.....
Second to last stop.... well tucked away. TFTC andy.gail

On the road for a trip down the West Coast with our little caravan to explore this part of the country, on the war home to the Marlborough Sounds now. It is not a caching expedition as such, but we do manage to stop for one or two
Our travels lead us to your cache, as we travelled down the Coast, many thanks, andy.gail, for bringing us here. We’ve had great fun so far and look forward to finding a couple more caches as we travel on our way. TFTC.

See Log from Wönny. TFTC

After arriving early in St. Arnaud we used the time to go for a long walk and to some geocaching. We had an enjoyable afternoon at this wonderful place. So nice to have all those caches here. As we found 17 Caches this afternoon, I will do the same log on al of them, sorry.
TFTC

Found it! TFTC

We couldn't leave this cache unfound in the middle so headed here after lunch by the lake, after a peninsula walk and before a Lakeside walk. This was the shortest walk for the day and quick find again for SoBad.
Thanks.

After a week away working in Sydney, it was good to be back caching on home territory. No wriggly sticks to worry about here!! Made this harder on myself by taking a roundabout route to the cache. Parked on the main highway and started up the track there but spotted a side track that cut across to the Rotoiti Lodge then found the track to the cache. Ar GZ there were 3 or 4 candidate features. Found the cache in the last one I looked in but which was that? Not telling lol. TFTC, Biggles.

After my inbox got inundated with choice yesterday it wasn't a question of when but where. Few things beat a day at the Lakes in spring so off we went. The day turned out to be one of the best. No sandflies to speak of and no wasps. Brilliant sunshine and few people about. After the walk to GZ it was a quick find then off again for some more caching. Thank you andy.gail

We had been away for several days but unusually hadn't been able to fit in a good walk let alone any geocaching except on the way home by making a detour up to Westport and Denniston so when a flurry of new caches were published while we were stopped on Spooners Range we decided a trip to St Arnaud next day would satisfy our need for some exercise with the added incentive of some new caches to be found.
We arrived at the Paddy's carpark to find a perfect spring day, warm and not even a breeze so we set off with much less 'padding' than we normally would in this environment but also in the knowledge we weren't doing the full loop today.
After finding four caches 'up the hill' we headed down to this one to make a very quick find. It seems this track has improved a bit since our last walk along it too.
Thank you andy.gail.

Out for a drive with bumandworker this morning.
Enjoyed the short walk. The Tui’s were in full voice although I’ll always remember this patch of bush for its prolific bellbirds. Not present today.
Back down to the sunshine for a piece of workers yummy custard squares. Awesome.
TFTC

Short pleasant stroll to this. Then back to car in the sun for home made custard square and cuppa.
Later, just down the road, got shouted a yummy steak pepper pie. All about food really !!
Thanks for setting this cache up.

After a quick trot around Kerr Bay for the new caches there we moved the car up to the track start and had a brew of tea. There were a group of LANDSAR at the track start and as we headed in they tld us there were some planted 'finds' for the searchers to locate after their briefing finished. We headed to G Z and spotted a few of these items before getting alongside for a Q E F once the correct hint combo was sighted. All good and replaced as found. T F T C andy.gail.

We had planned to head 'to the lake' which, when we lived on the North Island meant Lake Taupo, but which nowadays means the often more picturesque Lake Rotoiti, or even occasionally Lake Rotoroa. After dropping Livi off at work and swapping cars over from the Honda Cynic to the new preferred cache-mobile to Nissan Cache-Qai. We packed flasks of hot water for brew making options and headed up SH63, or CH63 as it should be called (Cache Highway). Weather in Blenheim was good when we left, and average as we entered St Arnaud but which switched after and hour so a good day the lake and returned to bland greyness in Marlborough. It was even warm enough at the lake for the sandflies to make an appearance and get a ride back home in the car!
A nice round figure of 10 caches for the day which is a good haul n=by todays sparse local options and which had us on a couple of short walks down by the lake. T F T Cs for all COs.

I have had my beady little eyes on this one since it got published as I am working on the fast to find component of the DGSc challenge on the West Coast. We already had our ftf for the month so was leaving it for anyone else who hunts the ftf to find it first. I was starting to wonder if it was going to get found within the seven days that we had to be able to add it to the list we wanted it on. I was very pleased to see that last night it was found which opened the way for us to pop back to the lake to add this to our fast to find list.
I had bumped into the COs last week as we were all in the area hunting a ftf. Both the COs and us had been to the lake twice in a couple of days. Funny thing was I mentioned to the CO that I had found a track that I was going to return to to place a cache as there should be enough room to squeeze on in. Next thing this cache is published - they had already been there done that and here we are signing their cache. Ahh great minds think alike.
A really pretty walk to GZ and the bird song was the best we have heard for quite some time. It was beautiful.

Signed the log and returned it as we had found it.
Thanks for placing this cache and thank you for the smilie. Another one on the fast to find list means another one closer to achieving that challenge.

After getting the FTF 6ft duck. The question was do we be get more fuel efficiency out of the car by getting 2 FTFs or don't be gready and leave the other for someone else. A quick message to a fellow FTF hound, no we think all hunters except Kiwi_Explorer and Biggles have one thus month and according to project gc both have finished their FTF streaks. It started to rain after leaving the 6ft duck but what the he'll we are here now. We'd been searching for quite a while when a voice called out "have you found it yet?", Kiwi_Explorer joined the search and soon after we found it. Turns out K_E hadn't finished his streak just missed marking one last month. Phew lucky he turned up when he did, I'd have felt bad if we'd beaten him to both. Thanks for the FTF

#7846

A shared FTF with Paddle Chick and Nanzie. After being too late at 6ft Duck we were tempted to cut our losses and continue the drive to Blenheim without this detour. At the car park there was a car already there but at gz the cache had yet to be found. Phew. Oh but now we still have to find it. Three of us circling out and one of us getting very wet feet but eventually the found it call came. Not before we all got a little damp. Nice to see another cache on this track. Thanks andy&gail for the cache.

Paddle chick and I went to get this second ftf cache took awhile to find when kiwi- Explorer came along so three of us carryed on searched.Paddle chick finally found it. It was great the three of us got this ftf joint cache .Thanks for this FTFC andy.gail

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