TMGT - Cook's Tree Hauraki District, North Island, New Zealand
By kiwicouple on 19-Sep-19. Waypoint GC8DEQR

We hope you enjoyed exploring and discovering the local history in the communities of Aoetearoa New Zealand. The Tuia Matauranga GeoTour has now ended. Thank you to the community for all the great logs, photos, and Favorite Points over the last 30 months. It has been so fun!

Who knew this was here. Drove all the way to the plaque then back to the anchor where we stopped for lunch. Nice picnic by the Waihou river. TFTC

#12,876. Interesting exploration to find Cook’s tree on Captain Cook Road in Netherton. Park, walk and grab. GZ was all quiet at the time of our visit. Quick find. The cache was in good condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Thanks for the placement, and for bringing us to this site, and …

.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.
.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.

(# 7110) A flying visit up north by flying into Hamilton and then hitting the road up to the Coromandel primarily to get some geotour caches. A quick find. Thanks for bringing me here.

Easy to find with the hint, accurate chords and after I spotted the geotrail a cool monument.

Braved towing the camper down here to snaffle this final. Windy today, but cache retrieval complete although the farmer may think we're crazy! TFTC!

It's my Mega weekend road trip! This is day five and I'm traveling to Tauranga with a short detour up from Thames to get the awest Coromandel Geotour caches. Will expand on my logs, post photos, qualifying caches for challenges, etc. When I get home. TFTC

Just as I got out of the car a farmer on his bike ride by. He must be used to the visitors.

24 January 2022 8:21 am Find #4793

Didn't think I was going to find it. Once found tho it was very obvious!

Very interesting spot for a cache

It was little bit of challenge, especially because of the dark, but i got it! Thank you

Thursday nights all you can eat ribs at Paeroa L & P Cafe. Picked up this cache on the way home . T4t$

Interesting spot. Loved the little green creature inside, he made us smile. Tftc.

Spotted it straight away. Getting to it in the roaring wind and whipping branches was a bit more of a challenge. Seems like this site is rather forgotten out here, so thanks for taking us.

TFTC kiwicouple

*** Out on our MEGA Roadtrip with Wilbywarrior. Who says this can only happen when the MEGA is actually held?! Greetings from Dunedin, caching friends
#281 ***

Another tour cache ticked off. Malinkaly had made the find before I had my jacket on. It is so windy the river has a swell rolling upstream.

Malinkaly and I planned a road trip to go to the MEGA but Covid has postponed the event again. We decided to continue on with our planned journey making adjustments as we go with the ever-changing travel restrictions.
Greetings from Dunedin!
Thanks for the cache, kiwicouple
#2526

#9699. I have been at a conference in Thames for the past 2 days. Its now Queens Birthday Monday and I have a chance to pick up a few caches around the Coromandel, especially the TMGT caches. After driving over to Whitianga and back to the Thames coast we are heading now to Hamilton but still have a few more caches to collect before nightfall. We parked and headed into the shrubbery following a geotrail. Lots of mud along this route. The river is running high after all the rain and is very close by. One of our team spotted it in the tree and found an easier route to the cache. Signed the logbook and replaced the cache where found. Thanks kiwicouple for hiding it here.

tb drop

Isis58 and I are on a mission over the long weekend to find as many TMGT and PWGT caches as possible with the occasional normal cache thrown in as time allows. This is our first stop. Nice easy find here. Thanks for your contribution to the geotour kiwicouple

#11158

Evidence the river has been up to the base of this tree recently. Nice bit of river silt around. Waited for a lawnmower to slowly make its way down the road before popping into sign the log. TFTC. Now back to the end point of the multi and back on the road to Coromandel. Day 1 of my TMGT tour up this way, lovin it as always.

First one of the series today. Thanks for the placement.

Wow found

??

Found with not much difficulty. TFTC!

Out on the Thames TMGT trail.
#4 started the Multi and then drove down to find another memorial.
A quick find and sign. Jet skis were operating across the road in what looked like a man made lake.
TFTC

Such a great historic spot to mark with a cache, FP for sure and thanks

It's go home day today and we're travelling a really convoluted way back home, via Whangamata, Waihi Beach and K Gorge. Great scenery again and a few caches found in modest numbers.

Our last visit to the Coromandel was over 12 years ago so it was good to be back in the area after all of that time. We had spent Christmas away in Northland, and a quiet New Year at home before a 4 day/3 night stay in Coromandel town. We explored up the West of the peninsula up to Fletchers Camp, through the middle and across to the East coast of Whitianga and Whangamata, before heading back home 'via' Waihi Beach, where sadly that lady was killed by a shark whilst swimming, RIP. We found all available TMGT options, a few Earthcaches and saw some great sites and sights. Thanks to all COs for their caches here. We didn't do nearly as many as the Seagnoid and TB dragon whose steps we followed in on some days.

Followed the wrong geotrail then swapped tracables

The penultimate location on the TMGT for me, and the light is really starting to fade now, so I ignored all other caches on the way to this one, as I have to drive back to Hamilton tonight.

For some reason, there was a car parked up about 50m further down the road. Freedom camping? Couldn't see anyone there, but I decided to play tourist and take a picture of the plaque as a cover, before heading in to find the cache, which was in excellent condition, TFTC.

Found with Nutty Nora

Found on an expedition with Piwaka54. Just an awesome series. Love the history!

A quick find at the end of the long gravel road. Quite a historic site. Took a TB and dropped a TB. TFTC

The dragon and I cached south along the west coast of Coromandel, to Thames and then shot straight to here for the TMGTs and cached back to Thames. Wanted to make sure we did actually get these, in case we did not come this way again (which we didn't).

Taybeedragon and I went on a tour of the Coromandel - one of the few places of New Zealand, especially of Te ika a Maui, that I have yet to explore throughly, and from there along the coast to Opotiki to see one of my many, many sisters. From 18 December to 5 January we found over 400 caches, including 12 adventure labs (60 caches), 20 or so TMGTs and a host of virtuals and earthcaches. And I hosted an event to see the sun come up on New Year's day - surprisingly popular given that it was at 5am. We climbed a lot of hills, saw some amazing beaches that were quite popular despite (or because of) the insane access to them, walk a lot of bush, entered and explored 8 gold mines and generally had an awesome time. However I am glad to be back, but now is the hard part, and I fear it will take just as long - logging!

We byassed Thames to come and capture these TMGTs. These are on our Must Do list so had to come visit Cooks Tree. Left our calling card. Cheers .

Day 5 - Tuesday 22 December -Paritu Bay, Coromandel, Thames and back to Coromandel by dark Left Zara resting in Coromandel while we went exploring with Toby. Loved Driving Creek Railway today.

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are off on another geocaching escape over Xmas, this time to the mighty Coromandel, then over to Opotiki and stop off at Rotorua to return home on 5 January. Had an fabulous time exploring many wonders of our country. Rounding up over 400 caches along the way, with a few LABS, 20 odd TMGTs, virtuals and lots of interesting earth caches to keep the mind busy. Watching the sun come up on New Years Day at Mt Maunganui was spectacular. Lots of walking and even more driving. But had an awesome time. Thanks to all COs who made this adventure so special.

Heading up to Northland to meet the kids for the Christmas holidays. Stopped off here for a couple of TMGTs. Slowly working our way through this series. Done about a quarter of them so will be several years before we complete it. No trouble finding the cache once I got the right tree. Was just in time because asI walked back the farmer closed the road to move 2-3 hundred of his cattle. Thanks for the smiley.

North Island Campervan trip Day 4

After the fantastic holiday I had a few months ago traveling around the South Island, making the most of one of those incredibly cheap campervan deals available at the time, I figured it was worth taking a week off work before the stresses of the usual holiday period to enjoy some of the delights to be found around the top of the North Island.

This would be a great chance for me to seek out some targeted caches such as the TMGT ones as well as some that would help me with my Jasmer grid, missing minutes (for a couple of challenge caches I'm working on) and any other caches that caught my eye.

I had just picked up the campervan and my intention was to make my way over to the Coromandel and end up in Whitianga for the night. I was looking forward to the journey as this is not a route I have traveled often, and never since discovering Geocaching! For this part of my journey, I was just looking for simple park 'n' grabs, not too far off my route, and this one seemed to fit the bill.

I was able to park close to this one, and having no-one else around meant I could search in peace and it wasn't long before I found the good sized container. There were no issues at all with this cache or the log, which was signed and replaced before I was back on my way again.

Thanks for setting this cache up.

Took longer than it should have but eventually I managed to look in the right place and there it was. How did we make it that hard.
Thanks for the interesting piece of history. Cook must have been grateful for the kahikatea to make masts out of.

Heading up the Coromandel and back down to Tauranga while on a road trip around the North Island with NZ Bozzy.
We are collecting North Island TMTG caches and also some oldies and some missing DT ones as well And celebrating a special birthday too.
TFTC and bringing us here
sorry for the cut and paste

Planned to come to the mega which didn't happen however caching today with noseynel ethness jude_E thedbees and lis's crew. Tftc

I was down in Auckland this weekend to help my son and his family move into their first house. I'd planned to join a group of cachers to do a one day blitz on the Coromandel TMGT caches. We left Auckland at 7. 30am and got back to their accommodation 12 hours later. Some beautiful sights were seen, fun had and interesting poses performed for a certain G-2 cache in Pauanui.

I was glad we found all the Waikato TMGT caches today. We returned to Auckland after this to collect one out at Bucklands that wasn't there yesterday and one more that I didn't have. I have 2 more Auckland ones to go then I'll have 3 regions completed. Thanks kiwicouple for the caches in this area

Out and about at the Mega that wasn't with a group of five crazy kiwi caching chicks, Ethness, Jude_E, Nosynel, GracieGPSfun and me. We took a trip out around the Coromandel to get the TMGT caches. A quick find in a lovely spot. TFTC.

Wow what an awesome piece of history. This is supposed to be a Mega trip. Jude_E and I flew up from Christchurch. Ethness flew up from Wellington. The DBees and Gracie's GPS fun drove down from Northland.
Thanks kiwicouple for creating this hide. It was find 9180 for me.

======== NZ Mega 2021 ========
Planning for the NZ Mega 2021 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, October 2021

In Auckland for the mega that isn't! Six of us decided still to come and find a few caches as there will always be plenty more when the mega actually happens. Good to read the history of this area. Many thanks.
#6343

A quick find.
Jude_E, NosyNel, Thedbees, GraciesGPSFun, Lis’s Crew and I are on the ‘Mega that wasn’t’ trip in Auckland the weekend. We’re collecting the ‘Tour’ caches, plus others, plus seeing the scenery, plus having a good old time -as usual . TFTC.

Had to wait a while as there were some locals walking their dog, then dived towards the most obvious tree but that wasn't it. Spotted the cache on the way out to the road so out, around, in and another cache signed. TFTC

Find on my way home from the coromandel trip. Dropped a few tb's but not all were in my inventory so i need to figure that out

Found on my way home from my Coromandel tiki tour with Effie, dropped some TB's but need to sort out where/when I picked them some of them up as they're not showing in my inventory, uh oh. TFTC!

Sun shining. Peaceful day. Amazing to imagine the past while sitting here

Found, full log to come.

Quick park n grab
Dropped TB. Ellie’s elephant
(On a TMGT expedition, with four wagging tails in tow. Been confined to camper with high waters around, but back on the road today)

Wow its foggy today and you can feel eeriness in the air, I can imagine how Cook & co felt coming up the river. Muggles leaving as i arrived. Bit of possum poo about the place too. Loved the cache and placement! TFTC!

It was interesting to see where the landing spot actually was. I looked for the cache in the old tree, but then thought it had to me in a less sensitive location. TFTC.

First find!

I was really overthinking this one for sure, and when I noticed the cache it was way on the other side! TFTC!!

Tftc what a good spot.

Great hiding spot tftc

It's nice to be back in the coromandel again for a combination of caching (largely geo tour) and diving.
No problems making the find here once on the right side to reach it.
I left a pet rock - a hippo, and traded some TBs.
Thanks for putting this here for us to find

Perfect spot for a cache. Picked up a bug to take back to Aussie

Wow what a great cache. Love the cache container. Logsheet and contents are dry. River was at full tide. Great info for this cache. Thanks for bring me here

An important objective in today’s travels was to find some more of the TMGT caches. Another interesting one here and a quick find. Signed log, recorded code, TFTC.

After walking here from the nearby lake, we are hot and bothered.
On to Kopu now, for the next one. I know a lot more about Cook's voyage.
TFTC

Went there with Cyclical caching, we're doing a GT trip on the North Island so I'm catching up with logging.

We stopped there quite late but it was an easy one to grab. Probably would not have stopped there without the cache

Thanks!

Nice quick find!

Really unique land marker. I feel it really goes unnoticed!

Thanks for the cache!

Cool

Cool, this was a interesting spot to visit - and a different sort of hide I spotted after going to far. Dropped some TBs here.

TFTC

Who would ever have come out here otherwise?!

Two TMGTs in 10 minutes!! This was a nice secluded place to find a little known memorial and sign the log in tranquility!! TFTC

Another fine piece of history and a nice cache. This geotour has been a highlight of our two months in NZ. Sadly only two weeks left.

Make sure your pots and pans are secure as dirt track needs regrading.

Found it on a hot summer afternoon. Tb out.

Tb drop

Full log to

What a fabulous idea to share the history of our great country with both visitors and locals. We are slowly chipping away at the series.
Located this one on a day trip to the area. No problem with the find TFTC.

Historical spot alright. Cheers for the comprehensive write up and explanation of the monument, it makes it much more interesting than a lump of concrete with no context. Cheers

TFTC. A nice fun easy find. A nice spot up the river. Its up a gravel road. Interesting history. Thanks for bringing us here, wouldn't of known about it otherwise.

TFTC great stop lovely location

Well this was a bit unexpected, I managed to get an opportunity to get a long weekend and since I was making my way up to Taranaki, I decided that once I finished work on Thursday instead of making my way back home to Wellington I would make my way North.

Got up early this morning and decided that I would go to the Coromandel and back to Auckland to pick up the final lot and the balance of the TMGT caches that I needed to find.

After finding GC8CXFN - TMGT - Cook's Landing in The Hauraki, this was the next TMGT cache that I wanted to find today, the drive to the GZ really didnt take too long and once I neared GZ, I was able to get all the required data and soon had the final co-ordinates.

Arriving near GZ, I was able to get a safe parking spot near by and it was time to make my way to GZ and it wasnt too long before I was soon at GZ and once there it was just a matter of finding the cache. Decided to read the hint and there wasnt too many spots that the cache could be and I soon spotted something and I soon realised that it was the cache.

Managed to retrieve the cache, opened, retrieved the code and signed the logsheet and then it was time to return the cache back to where I got it from. Thanks kiwicouple for placing this cache here and for bringing me to this spot. TFTC TNLNSL (15111). What a great spot for a cache, and a very interesting one indeed.

Now it is time to go back to my car and make my way to the next cache that I wanted to find today.........

D i s c l a i m e r:
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......

Stopped at the cooks landing area further back up the road. Got the multi coords and dnf the trad. Picked up the tb. A fun big cache at a very historical place
Tftc

Love the history. Once I had the right tree it was all good. Tftc

Great spot, I live about 10km from here but haven’t visited until today. Good big cache. TFTC

We are tiki touring the area picking up the odd cache and the geotour caches. thanks for the history and the placement, gave us a great reason to visit the area.

Ahakoa i patua au ki tõku māhunga e te rākau, i kitea te whakaputunga e au. He pai ki ahau taua hītori o ngā rākau teitei na te mea i te kaingaherehere toku koroua kei Hatfield House, UK. / Altho I was stabbed in the head by the tree, I found the cache. I like the history of the tall trees because my Grandad was head forester at Hatfield House UK. Tftc

A nice quick find today with Ms_KR. A bit of a scramble for one of us here!!

Christmas holiday road trip to Auckland time. Day ten Hamilton to Coromandel

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

Nice quick find. I've done the other 2 caches along this road so it was nice to have a reason to visit again.
Tftc

What a great adventure this has been. Gr33nslime put me onto the Tuia Matauranga GeoTour and has been the main driver to get the family out and around New Zealand. This tour has taken us to some really different and wonderful places that we would not normally have been too. The wealth of information that has been shared about the country has been great to read and filled in many information gaps that I had about our early history. Thanks for the cache and for bringing us here and for taking part in the tour. It has been all very enjoyable and will the driving and days full of caching has been rather different, it has been filled with visits to very unique places full of local history like this. Where will this tour take us next I wonder..

# 1825 On the move from Wellington to Auckland with the fam so it was the perfect opportunity to travel up the east coast and collect this series of geo tour caches.

Over from Whitianga this morning along 23 km of gravel. Really interesting write up of the history relating to this location. And especially the vigorous logging that followed when word got back to the mother country. Thanks for the history and great placement kiwicouple.

Start of a fun day when we went over to Whangamata - this was slightly out of the way - good to collect a couple of the TMGT series though. TFTC

I was driving a van with a trailer and had some fun turning it around here. No issues with the find here, its always nice to find a large cache in good condition. Thanks kiwicouple for the placement.

A quick find here. Thank you for bringing me to this spot.
Signed the log and replaced as found
TYFTC

Stopped in here today. Was many bee's at gz. So with very slow and careful movements managed to find and sign. Not really wanting to be stung. The river is so calm it beautiful just to look at.

After spending a couple of days at Matarangi in the camper we were on our way home and decided to do some of the easier park and grabs. We did a cache at Cook's Anchor at the other end of this little road, quite a long time ago and we were unaware that there was a memorial further down the road. There were loads of bees in the tree and Mrs S had to be very wary, she does not react well to bee stings. Managed to retrieve, sign and replace the log without any angry bees having a go.

Thanks for bringing us here kiwicouple, and for setting us on the road of a new challenge. Now we will go looking for more.

First regular geo

A late afternoon visit while on my way back to Manakau. Its been a long but most enjoyable day. Thanks for being part of the TMGT.


Cheers and TFTC

Obviously Privet grows well here, all flowering vigorously, real nostalgic moment, recalling the smells from (far distant) childhood. TFTC

This was an interesting area . Enjoyed the history here. Thanks for bringing us here.

Tramyard and I made plans to tackle the geotour caches on the East Coast this weekend. I decided to take a break from studying for my upcoming exams to head off on a road trip to help restore my own sanity. I was comfortable with taking the time off, having secured a Government job already for next year.

We ended up travelling over 1400kms in two days from Auckland - Paeroa - Tauranga - Whakatane - Gisborne - Anaura Bay - Gisborne - Napier - Hastings - Taupo - Auckland. We ended up camping for the night right beside Captain Cook's second landing spot. In total, we found 36 caches - 20 of them part of the geotour.

We drove down the dirt road and ended up stopping behind an SVU parked halfway down the road. Turned out he was a farmer and he was moving cows between paddocks, so we ended up in the middle of all the cows and the road roped off. We had to walk the last stretch. Once at GZ we made the quick find. Thanks for bring us to this monument, which we would have had no idea was even there.

Found it with Aiden29 on another fine East Coast North island NZ GeoTour trip. Thanks for bringing us here! Great spot.

Traveling to Thames from the Waikato and passed this spot. There used to be a small anchor on the cairn tftc

Out and about today around the area caching with Supernannny, Jag50 and Merlot58 - the main purpose of our trip was to collect TMGT caches.

This was I think our third find and a good one too. I do really like caches located at these forgotten monuments to our history, it feels like cachers visit them and because of their out of the way location we may be the only ones.

Just such a place here and goodness knows how the CO knew it existed. Got to GZ in the warm sunshine and my caching buddies today made quick work of it, and found it easily.

Another great TMGT geocache thanks for placing and all good here.

Headed south for a road trip with Tuolei, Merlot58 and Supernanny. Our sharp eyes didn’t take long to spy this camo’d cache. Interesting history here

I was on a road trip with Tuolei, Jag50 and Supernanny with the main purpose of collecting some of the TMGT caches. Our 3rd TMGT cache for the day. I never even knew this plaque existed so thanks for bringing me to this location

Thanks kiwicouple.
I was very interested to read your description here..
Plus I think I remember the earlier Historic Site you mentioned....with the anchor as well.
I appreciate that your TMGT hides are easy to find!
Unlike one I dnfed in another city!
Enjoying doing a few caches in the GeoTour.