Poet Smurf (Canterbury) Selwyn District, South Island, New Zealand
By gracie7 + Mum on 27-Oct-19. Waypoint GC8FNQ5

Als ich zu Hause meinen Urlaub plante, bin ich auf der Karte von Neuseeland in der Umgebung von Christchurch auf eine Geoart - ein Puzzlestck - gestoen. Ich liebe Geoarts, also setzte sich bei mir die Idee fest, die Caches dieser Geoart zu lsen und dann im Urlaub zu loggen. Tja, was soll ich sagen. Ich hatte die leichten Wertungen der Caches vllig falsch gewertet. Etliche der Rtsel lieen sich gar nicht so schnell und einfach lsen, sondern nur mit Ausdauer und einiger Grbelei. Bei dem ein oder anderen Rtsel musste ich mir auch HIlfe holen. Schlielich waren bis auf drei Rtsel alle gelst; bei den letzten Rtseln halfen dann die Owner weiter. Vielen Dank dafr!Die ersten Schlmpfe habe ich inzwischen besucht. Leider hat es heute nicht mehr fr die ganze Runde gereicht, denn das Wetter wurde auf einmal ungemtlich, sehr windig und nass. Aber ich will mich nicht beklagen, denn der Rest des Tages war tolles Sonnenwetter, das ich heute morgen fr einen Besuch im Botansichen Garten in Christchurch genutzt hatte. Die meisten Schlmpfe waren gut zu finden. Bei einigen dauerte die Suche etwas lnger und bei aktuell drei Dschen hatte ich kein Glck. Mal schauen, ob die Zeit fr einen Zweit-Besuch ausreicht. Ich entschuldige mich hier fr den Einheitslog fr diese nette Schlumpf-Runde. Die Caches sind wirklich einmalig. Bei jeder Suche bin ich gespannt wie der Schlumpf oder die Schlumpfine denn wohl aussieht. Schlmpfe sind fr mich immer noch etwas besonderes. Als Kind war jeder Schlumpf eine Kostbarkeit, denn sie waren einfach teuer. Nur selten gab es einen geschenkt. Und das, obwohl wir in der Nachbarstadt des Schlumpf-Produzenten wohnten. Wie schn, dass ich hier Schlmpfe mit allen nur mglichen Hobbies, Berufen und Eigenschaften zu sehen bekomme. Die Suche nach den Caches und das Loggen machte viel Spa! Vielen Dank gracie7 + mum fr diese tolle Geoart!_________________________________When I was planning my vacation at home, I came across a geoart - a puzzle piece - on the map of New Zealand in the Christchurch area. I love geoart, so I had the idea of solving the caches of this geoart and logging them during my holdiday. Well, what can I say. I did get the easy scores of the caches completely wrong. A number of the puzzles were not so quick and easy to solve, but only with perseverance and some pondering. I also had to get help with a couple of the puzzles. In the end, all but three puzzles were solved; the owners then helped with the last ones. Many thanks for that!I have now visited the first Smurfs. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time today for the complete smurf-round . The weather became suddenly uncomfortable, very windy and wet. But I don't want to complain, because the rest of the day I had sunny weather, which I really enjoyed during my morning visit at the Botanical Garden in Christchurch. Most of the Smurfs were easy to find. For some I searched a little longer and I had no luck with three of them. Let's see if there's enough time for a second visit. I apologize here for the one-size-fits-all log for this nice smurf round. The boxes are really unique. I'm always curious to see what the Smurf or Smurfette I am searching for looks like. Smurfs are still something special for me. As a child, every Smurf was precious because they were simply too expensive. It was rare to get one as a present. And that was despite the fact that we lived in the Smurf producer's neighboring town. How nice that I get to see Smurfs with all kinds of hobbies, professions and characteristics here in New Zealand. Searching for the caches and logging was a lot of fun! Thank you gracie7 + mum for this great geoart!

D var det dags fr lite ventyr. Resan gr till Sydney i Australien och sedan vidare till Christchurch och Dunedin p Nya Zeeland .P resan ker Tigertassen, jag sjlv, ursus67, Lnganfans och Pidjas, vilket gr att vi loggar under det gemensamma namnet "Tulp". Tanken r att vi innan vi ker hemt ska ha beskt ett Megaevent, Geo Toroa.Hlsningar frn Sverige, sdra Lappland Then it was time for a little adventure. The trip goes to Sydney in Australia and then on to Christchurch and Dunedin in New Zealand .On the trip are, Tigertassen, myself, ursus67, Lnganfans and Pidjas go, which means that we log under the common name "Tulp". The idea is that before we go home we should have visited a Megaevent, Geo Toroa. Greetings from Sweden, southern Lapland

Four Swedish ladies driving around in NZ looking for caches. We log as TULP. Thank you.

We are four ladies from Sweden who are visiting Australia and New Zeeland We are logged as TULP This was one of the caches we found Thanks from Sweden

We are four ladies from Sweden on visit in New Zealand. We log as TULP (tigertassen, ursus67, lnganfans and pidjas). Today is our last day as we are going home tomorrow. We had a lot of solved mysterys so we tried to log some of them.A big thank you to CO for the cache.

Day 5 of our Enzed adventures with Robmc. We are staying in New Brighton and today we headed out to find us some Smurfs because There is a place. that knows no sadness, where even feeling blue is a happy thing. Another beautiful sunny day to be traversing the countryside. We found all except 2 today.Thanks for contributing to the fun gracie7 + Mum

Day five of our epic New Zealand Adventure with The Morris.Staying in Christchurch and spent the day collecting Smurfs!All the puzzles were solved before we came to NZ.We start the trail about 9:30am and finished about 16:00 (including coffees and lunch)A lovely mild day just right for caching.Most of the containers were in good condition except for a few wet ones.Thanks for this series, Robmc.

TFTC Found with andyfreya. Pic didn't work again.

Out on smerf trail with Sally on a dull overcast day tftc

Who would have guessed that a Smurf would be a poet - not me! This series has taught me that they are quite a talented bunch. TFTC # 22,477

Having solved the Smurf series over the past couple of months, and the night before finding them. (amongst many others) a spontaneous trip down was made by Kiwi Does Stuff and team Reschedule to collect the series. We have headed out to set ourselves a personal best for a days caching. The perfect caching wagon (a rental car) has been acquired allowing us to go anywhere with ease.Apologies for the generic log, all caches signed are a mixture of Res, Resch & Reschedule - a big thanks to the CO for creating, placing and maintaining all of their caches. TFTC! TFTP!

Having solved a few Mystery caches in the area, a last minute decision was made along with Reschedule to fly to Christchurch for Queens birthday weekend.A last minute rush at home before flying to solve some more mysterys, but that still wasnt enough, so after finally arriving at 11pm, out with the laptops to solve a few more.Saturday morning we set out with a goal, to set a new personal best. Having seen what numbers others did in the area, that shouldnt be too hard. We had some targets in mind, Eclipse, Skelly, Smurfs along with any traditionals and other random mystery caches we come across.We aquired the best vehicle for the job, a rental car! Overall we thorouhly enjoyed it, but we did not quite complete it all, so we will be back. TFTC and thanks for giving us an excuse to head for Christchurch!

Premire partie de la srie des Stroumpfs aujourd'hui. Un seul DNF dclarer mais je pense avoir mal cherch. Un autre inaccessible car des ouvriers travaillaient juste ct mais ce sera peut tre pour demain.Des caches sympathiques et la plupart du temps facile trouver. Merci pour cette belle srie Ici la portion de route est en travaux et les ouvriers travaillaient juste ct. Pas moyen de s'arrter et d'tre discretFirst part of Smurfs series today. Only one DNF to declare but I think I have searched badly. Another inaccessible because workers were working right next door but it may be for tomorrow. Friendly caches and mostly easy to find. Thank you for this beautiful series Here the portion of the road is under construction and the workers were working right next door. No way to stop and be discreet. I will come back...

Headed to Christchurch for a quick geocaching trip with tmann421.Enjoying the tour around the area finding caches some more challenging than others.Signed all logs tm/ww NZThanks to the owners for their efforts in maintaining their caches for us to find.Wonderfully themed series enjoyed all the containers. Nice to see maintainance had been done recently allowing the finds to be easier for us.

Down in the Christchurch area with woolwood9. Day 1, mainly the Smurf puzzle series - a very nice day out. SL *tm/ww NZ**Thank you for the reason to visit this cache and location* Log fairly wet here*Another good Smurf cache found!*

We had turned off the main road to find a few caches on our way into Christchurch. A number in this series had been solved some time ago so it was nice to find them today. This was signable but very wet - sorry we didn't have a replacement log with us today.Thanks.

Poor poet, whilst the container was fine, the logbook needs some love. It was so wet, pages were stuck together and I had to write in the middle of the logbook rather than the next page.

22 April 2023 1:53 pm. Got no poetry for this log, sorry.
Signed as Team M.I.K (MacPacMum, Ivss_xx & KiwiCampNut).
TFTC gracie7 + Mum

13:51
FITW MacPacFamily, Kiwicampnut, logged as "MIK"

Two roads diverged ina yellow wood. I took the one with smurfs on it.

Smurfin' good day to complete the wheel of challenges and to upgrade my Busy Cacher badge!
And the "seeking smileys" challenge has been done!

Kia ora! Paldies!
Thanks for the cache, gracie7 + Mum!
#9568

**#18,090**
We had spotted a few other North Islanders make a personal 24hr find record so we took note of the general caches found and made a plan to try our luck, our previous best was 172, our aim was "more than Yeti", check out GC6PRMW once we have logged them all to see how we did...
are all his poems sad and mournful? It must be hard to be happy when you are blue..

My second and final smurf find for today as I'm passing through the area. Thanks for the great puzzles and caches!

Easy find tftc

Love these Smurfs. TFTC.

NZ_B, TwigNZ and I have come to Christchurch to complete a number of shared and individual challenges. Today is the BIG day - a goal of over 200. The puzzles have been solved (thank you CO's), the route has been planned and caches listed in order with hint, side of road and next driving instruction. Start time is 5.30am and we finished at 9.30pm with 230 for me.
We saw sunrise and sunset and had some great laughs as well. I cannot thank the CO's enough. I know you get cut and paste logs but I certianly appreciate the absolute blast of a time thanks to you and my travelling adventurers in NZ_B (espcecially since she had many of these and was the main driver) and TwigNZ. All caches signed as T.I.N.T - Team Itchyfeet, NZ_B and TwigNZ. Thanks again CO's a lot of work goes into these power trails and probably not a lot of thanks or respect for the puzzles - it is much appreciated.

I've flown down to the Garden City with Itchyfeet2020 and NZ_B for the weekend, and what a weekend it has been! Cumulatively we had targeted so many personal challenges, individual caches we wanted to get, 'things' we wanted to do etc, that teaming up with these two caching troopers has been one of the best things I've done in ages. We've achieved so much in our short time here that my mind (and body) is still reeling. I'm sure the enormity will still be sinking in for many days to come.

All our signing of logbooks this weekend has been as T.I.N.T (for Team Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B, and TwigNZ) regardless of how many of the 3 of us are claiming any particular cache (as some of us may have found it previously).

Today was our big day, the main point of the whole trip down - trying to get 200+ caches in 1 day.
This turned out to be a huge success for us, achieved by targeting 3 geoart series (Eclipse, Metal Mania, and Smurfs) to give us as little driving as possible, and any other caches we would be literally driving right past at the time.

We started with the Eclipse series as that was closest to our accommodation in Darfield, then dropped down to the Metal Mania caches, finally moving back westwards so that we would be close to home when exhausted by the end of our day. The driving was shared, but was mostly provided by NZ_B, with an excellent job of route planning courtesy of Itchyfeet2020. A truly joint effort for which I'm very grateful.

Our main numbers for the day are;
Time we started: 05:30 (in the dark before sunrise)
Time we finished: 21:30 (in the dark after sunset)
Hours caching: 16
Total caches found today: 236
Total caches DNFd today: 8

I apologise for the generic 'cut n paste' nature of my logs. If anything individually stands out in my memory about our experience at GZ then I will try to mention it. Certainly the puzzles themselves were a mix of easy and truly frustrating, but between us we got them all solved in the end.

Thank you for setting up this series, and helping us achieve our goal

Today I found in 10 hours 60 Smurf caches that are all I have solved, For the rest I would need a hint but dont get. The hint for the 60 was OK and I know already that the 2 ladies like to crawl under trees. I am 1.85 meter and had some problems and scratches. I am wondering that all the smurf survive but the most of them need a shower. All the logbook are ok. There where always space for parking.
Thanks a lot.

The idea of doing 200+ caches in one day had been one that I had considered for a long time, but not something I had made any moves on doing anything about until the idea was raised by others in a geocaching group I am a part of. As we were all based in Wellington, the logical place to try this was Christchurch with it's lovely flat lands, long straight roads, and wonderful art work series. Unfortunately the weekend that worked for most of the group was not one that worked out for me, so instead I came down here a few weeks earlier than they planned to and did the the trip by myself.

I started finding Geocaches at exactly midnight on Sunday. I kept finding Geocaches for the next nineteen and a half hours, when at about 7:30pm I decided that the tiredness was getting to a point where this was no longer a sensible idea. I found:

31 Traditional
180 Unknown
1 Multi

For a total of 212 Geocaches in 19.5 hours. That's a rate of 10.9 per hour. I am pretty happy with that. I focused on the Smurf series, the Metal Mania series (a set of puzzles that I very much enjoyed), and the Glossary of Geocaching series, with a few other sets and individuals in between. It was a fantastic day, very much helped by the wonderful weather and the use of a car that had no problem on gravel roads ('cos it was a rental).

A huge thanks to all the CO's that place and maintain these Geocaches. Despite the rushed day I created for myself, I did enjoy each and every cache I found. It is only with CO's like this placing them out in the world that this wonderful game continues.

#12,217. I drove down to Christchurch yesterday and stayed overnight at my sisters place near Leeston. Today has been chosen for my big day out. I was on the road by 5.30 am and finished right on midnight 18.5 hours later. I managed to find 188 physical caches and 22 adlabs for a total of 210 caches. Overall it was a fun day doing the Smurfs, Skelly and Eclipse tin power trails and a scattering of other traditional caches. Glad I did it and glad I wont have to repeat it. Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I think you can understand it was all about the numbers today.

This was cache No.93 for the day. Solved this one using a bit of logic and a bit of knowledge of the lingo. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for the puzzle series and hiding the well maintained cache here.

Solved a couple of months ago.
Day off so decided to head north and collect a few caches with Rayzr. Tftc

This was the first one that ZEALOG and I chose to start this rather huge series and the ones we did took us most of the day to complete. I must say that in my opinion this series is very well maintained and very well thought out. A real pleasure and a credit to Gracie and mum !!! Thank you thank you very much for your efforts and a favorite for the series

His book of poetry smelled a bit damp.
Thank you for this amazing mystery series
NathanS05

A road trip was required to qualify for GLCS20 so I drove down via Arthurs Pass yesterday.
The Challenge is to make 150 finds in a week of which 20 have to have different D/T ratings.
I cracked 100 finds today. The 20 D/T may take a bit more planning!
A dry afternoon now and nearing the end of my smurf odyssey.

I'll add individual details when required otherwise they were all "quick finds".
Thanks very much Gracie7 + Mum for placing these hides and for keeping up the maintenance of the trail. It made for a pleasurable experience.
Some pretty tough puzzles to solve which has taken me years!
TFTC

Cute lil find on the Smurf finds with the parents

Great find. Collecting some of the smurfs series that I have solved. Thanks for the set up. Love the cache containers.

Team G0LD: Geocachers 0B80B8, Lis's crew and DaffyNZ are down from Whangarei for a few days. We've all solved the 4 big geoarts so they are the main target for the trip. Of course there were many other solved puzzles that we collected as well. We've finished the Fresh Breath series and are now onto our second big series - The Smurfs. The kids loved doing the jigsaws and completed them many years ago. I had 2 kids going on 2 different computers. We took screenshots after they'd completed the jigsaw and I then had to solve the puzzles. Some were very tricky. Good preparation and a fantastic team to work with made this an enjoyable and successful day. Another massive series with really neat cache containers. My poetry skills weren't good at school but they were good enough to solve this quickly in Dec 2020. The cache was soon located as per the hint. You have put such an effort into these, thank you

Team G0LD ( 0B80B8, Lis's crew & DaffyNZ ) on a caching mission to Christchurch. We had travelled down from Whangarei on Wednesday avo. Solved puzzles were going to be the main focus of our trip. We had spent a lot of 2020 and 2021 solving over 400 puzzles, so we had a lot on our list.

Today looked like being the best weather for our trip, despite a heavy thunderstorm overnight. We had a Big Day Out planned, with a perhaps optimistic target of finding 300 caches in one day. Working together well as a team, with a driver, a navigator and a jumper, we made good progress, but in the end, the bigger distances between caches, that we hadn't anticipated, meant we ended the day a bit short.

A fun day though certainly, and sincere thanks to the GeoArt & Trail CO's, and others, for placing and then maintaining such large numbers of caches so well. A testament to your dedication to Geocaching was the very low number of DNF's during the day. Apologies for the mostly generic logs, but be assured your efforts were truly appreciated.

Lis made the find here, as per the hint.

Northland's Team Gold (0B80B8, Liz Crew, DaffyNZ) are in Christchurch for a few days collecting all our solved puzzles and other cache types as we drive past. This is our "Big Day Out" to collect as many caches as we can in a day. Sorry for the generic logs. Thanks for placing the cache. We are loving every cache we locate that adds to our tally for the day.
Found it. Soon located. TFTC

I solved these caches in June, and finally made it here to collect. Many thanks for the fun puzzles and dry caches.

Great that it is easy to park and grab these caches!

Picked this up while getting some of series. Down from Wellington visiting so a nice explore

We did some Smurf puzzles a few years ago but hadn't solved all of them at the time. Since then we have solved more but not had the time to collect any. With another trip to Christchurch on the agenda and time to spare after one set of appointments it was decided to collect up a few more before visiting some family.

Another find to add to our tally. A couple of this type of hide had brambles guarding the cache. Not sure if this was one of those. tftc

#6251

In the area getting some caches this is day 2 and getting some smurfs. All good with the cache. Thanks

Ruru_NZ decided to have a week in Christchurch so off we go caching and try to get the latest souvenirs.

Managed to get away for a week. Let's see if Kiwicampnut and I can get through 2 mazes before I head home. Nice to be where there are plenty of unfound caches!
Some smurfs are the mission today. Some we've solved, some we had help with and some will wait for another trip.
Thanks for the cache gracie7 + Mum
# 3298 29 July 2022 11:13 am

There was a need to make a find. This here position held what was desired.

FITW Albijos

Wrapped up work early today, so we decided to go for some caching.
Hunting down smurfs today

TFTC.

FITW Harisree

Taking break from work and finding few caches around


An easy find with help of hint


TFTC

Solved in lock down 2020 so time SJT_NZ and I picked these up while in the area visiting family. Solved of the series took longer than anticipated for the T/D rating but learnt some new puzzle solving skills so it was only a handful that I had to reach out to a friend for a nudge. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for the series.

This is the 30th find for us today. found with kiscardi she is a number out as had two 28's Im not sure if she will fix her numbering or not. Lots of roads around here to place cache on and a nice series to complete thanks gracie7 + mum

On a mission today to pick up 200 caches with NZ Bozzy. This is number 29 and cache number 5029 for me. Enjoyed solving all the puzzles and picking up most of the series today. It has been well maintained over the years which made our job easy today. Thanks gracie7 + Mum. Sorry for all the copy and pastes.
Scratched our heads lots with many puzzles and learnt lots of codes.

Zipping around collecting the remaining Smurfs. Thanks.

Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I usually don't like those but will make exceptions for serious 'power trails' or cache series - like this one. After a week in Christchurch catching up with our kids for Christmas, today it was time to start to head for home. I decided to take the long way home and find a few caches along the way. I had some vague memories of this series existing but hadn't made much of an effort to solve the puzzles or find the caches. A few weeks ago when I hatched my plan to come back this way I got down to solving as many of the puzzles as I could. I kind of ran out of time and brain power but decided I had enough solved to make it a worthwhile side trip. I had a lot of fun out and about, even though the weather was a bit dodgy. I didn't get too wet. #10 Smurf for me - TFTC, Biggles.

Need some night caches so looking for Smurfs. This is number 15.

Found as part of team DAAWKS thanks for such an awesome series

A Labour Day weekend trip for a group of us from the south in leiu of the cancelled Mega was sorted. To try complete the Smurfs Series and grab a few others along the way.
DownsouthInv, AnnieLin, Abbykitt, Wombats_4, and KNCN combined as a group and signed logs as Team DAAWK's
A very long day but we managed most with only a few DNFs. A perfect series to do with grandson who was chuffed at every find! All caches found in good order, thankyou for placing and the effort made, also the maintaining of the caches..A big job!

On a trip to Christchurch for labour weekend.
Thanks to everyone for solving them.
Logged in a term DAAWK.
Abbykity, Annielin,downsouthinv, wombats, KNCN.
Tftc

Sneaked away early from work on a quick long weekend road trip. Time to capture some Smurfs!!! Lovely day for it, had fun working on the puzzles
Logged as team DAAWK.
Downsouthinv, Abbykitt, AnnieLin Wombats4 and KNCN

A road trip in to uncharted territory so why not .
Loaded up the cache mobile and headed up the road and let's see what fun adventures awaite us.
Today we continue our adventures and head towards our targets for the day .
It a smuffi g good day to be out caching. I'm no poet

With Annielin and Abbykitt and wombat4 and kncn
Signed as DAAWK

Getting out and about in to the out doors is my happy place so any excuse to go caching.

Life is short. Live one foot step at a time.Never say" I'm gonna "- Just do it!!
Thanks for the hide
tftc

Full log to come

A bit of a deviation off the planned route for this one. More of a log on GC8FNPQ. TFTC.

Good and quick thank you

We are on the tail end of a trip to the South Island, a trip that had been cancelled twice because of lockdowns. I knew I'd have a full day in Chch, so I worked on these puzzles starting over a month ago. I got most of them, but got stuck on about 20% of them. I got some hints, pushes, and white canes to get me over the finish line. Thanks to the PFers for all the help.
This was a really nice series of puzzles and caches. I really liked the cache figurines guarding each container. TFTC.

Solved ages ago. Enjoying the caches on a nice drive in the area

I solved these smurfin good puzzles during lockdown. Some of the puzzles took a bit of brain power to solve but I got there in the end. I went out to collect these as I was in the area. The containers were well thought out but they did blur together after the first hour. This series took me six hours to collect in total and I think I ventured into every single (flippin) hedge in the Charing Cross vicinity. Most stops resulted in an "Oh no another hedge". Most hides were easy park and grabs but there were a couple that were more elusive. TFTC.

I haven't solved all that many smurf caches yet and this is my first find. On our way from Ross to Dunedin.

number 4. Going good in the rain.

Team BOP on another crazy mission down to the South Island. Lockdown gave us a lot of free time that we directed into Canterbury’s many Geo-Arts and with the Auckland 2020 Mega postponement, Christchurch was an easy decision. Team BOPs current incarnation is DavidsonClan, NZFlossy, McJandals and myself and we’ve signed all the logs as Team BOP to save time and log space.

So Labour Weekend 2020, it’s a numbers mission, the Cachly cut’n’paste template is sorted and while I unapologetically use this tool I am truly in awe of what goes into a series this large. Some puzzles were straight forward, others required a little more time but we got them all in the end. Almost all the hides were sorted quickly and without fuss but the tricky part about this series was trying to plan an efficient route as this series seems to be all over the place haha.

Thank you so much gracie7 + Mum for placing these and sharing with us such an awesome Smurf collection. We had a great time today, Cheers, TFTP + TFTC

On a mission to the south after mega in Auckland was canceled. Team Bop booked airfares and here we are. Thanks all COs for your efforts. Due to numbers please excuse copy and paste logs in advance.

As Auckland Mega has been postponed we decided to do a trip south to Christchurch. Four of us from Team BOP joined up to share a car and accomodation. I always love these weekends as the company is great and makes our days and nights out caching lots of fun. We have done lots of puzzles in preparation and did some long windy roads to get them. Found lots of great caches and thanks to all the COs for the effort that goes into these Please excuse the copied logs and I will try to make some individual notes on as many as I can This sort of trip is where I find the cachly app very valuable. TFTC

With the Mega Covid cancelled this year a part of Team BoP decided to come south and try get all our solved puzzles, and some others along the way. So here we are!

I am logging using the Cachly app template so please excuse generic logging along the way. It’s just my way of keeping track, but I do genuinely thank each and every one of you cache owners for taking the time and energy to place these cache. Many Thanks for bringing me here. Cheers.

Down in Christchurch with the Squirrel, ABCDF4 and eyespyben. During Covid lockdown, we solved a load of puzzles and decided that this would be a good time to visit. We've enjoyed a few days of good weather and seeing the Canterbury countryside. The caches have been in varying states - some good, some not so much. Our time here has been a blast, and we'd like to thank all COs who have made this adventure possible. Thank you and TFTC.

With ABCDF4, eyespyben, and Gap (of Fap and Gap). Logging all finds as Team HRP (Huntly, Rotorua, Papamoa - Our hometowns)... During Covid-19 lockdown, we solved a truck load of puzzles around Christchurch - Canterbury region. No use thrashing the old grey matter for no cause - We decided we should make good on this handiwork...

There are lots of interesting trails and geoart surrounding Christchurch. What you aren’t told is how far flung some of these caches actually are. Some beforehand advice would have been great, so here are some of my notes... You’re welcome!

1. Mobile coverage is patchy, especially in those quiet, rural areas where it was most needed. Saving caches to offline might show that you are prepared and organised...
2. There are many dusty metal roads on the trails. The car will get messy, and your hair will feel like cardboard at the end of the day...
3. Suitable clothing and footwear are essential. You will climb in and out of hedges, gorse, and other rough stuff. You might get scratched, cut to shreds, and bleed a lot. It’s not advised to wear your brand new jacket on the day...
4. Take lots of food and drink. You’ll probably be head down, tail up and not realise you haven’t eaten until late afternoon. There are very few shops or gas stations out there...
5. Make sure that you secure keys and wallet and know where these are placed for easy retrieval. A full box of pens might be useful too, especially if you’re inclined to free some into the wild...
6. Know the difference between left and right, and north, south, east, and west. Turning right and heading north will not get you to South Christchurch quickly.
7. Look with girl’s eyes rather than boys eyes... Some caches haven’t been found in a while and you might have to get down on your knees to pray.
8. Always be prepared for misleading hints. This is what turns simple caches into D5/T5 hides... “Head height” could mean the cache is positioned at your toes.
9. Have a sense of humour and like the people you go caching with. It’s going to be a very long day, and you might want to hurt someone during the journey...
10. Make sure you can operate your phone/device and it doesn’t crash when you most need it...
11. Learn to cut and paste logs because you’re going to repeat this function so often when logging all of your finds.
12. Above all else, have fun and be kind...

If recent days have been anything to go by, then today's activity is going to seem crazy. We have such a big game to play, spread out over a very large area - An early morning start in the north, with a late finish on the trails to the south... Let's go! We decided to make our way onto the Smurf trail. Despite the timing, we knew we had the bonus of Daylight Saving up our sleeves. We enjoyed the challenge of solving all of these Smurfy puzzles, and the cache containers were too cute. The logbooks were mostly in good condition, and there was evidence of recent maintenance with some. No problem with these hides - Found exactly as hinted. Thanks grace7 + Mum. TFTP and TFTC.

After puzzle solving in the Canterbury region along with EyeSpyBen we were invited to join Fap (from Fap & Gap) and Squirrel Nutcase to a week long caching adventure in the Canterbury area. With flights and accommodation booked were off, all met up in ChCh. and many hard dusty Kms travelled and many caches found, I think the Squirrel has said it all in his brief. Many thanks for the placements and Cos for bringin us to the very pleasant areas we travelled in to your region

After puzzle solving in the Canterbury region along with EyeSpyBen we were invited to join Fap (from Fap & Gap) and Squirrel Nutcase to a week long caching adventure in the Canterbury area. With flights and accommodation booked were off, all met up in ChCh. and many hard dusty Kms travelled and many caches found, I think the Squirrel has said it all in his brief. Many thanks for the placements and Cos for bringin us to the very pleasant areas we travelled in to your region

Several stops for Smurfs in sight of a farmer feeding out hay to cattle wonder if he knows about the caches? TFTC

Its Poet Smurf to visit this time. Got muggled by the local bull here. Left our calling card. Cheers

Thanks to The Seagnoid for his puzzle solving prowess. Cool another one solved.

Its a long weekend in Christchurch, with The Seagnoid, Zara and Toby, and Star Gazing on the radar. Unfortunately clouds put paid to seeing stars but great event meeting up with the locals. Enjoyed visiting Halswell Quarry, Lincoln, Port Hills and running around after the Smurf family. Cool, fine days and NO rain made for an awesome weekend. Will be back again soon.

Finally had some spare time to have a daytrip with Surveybase and mop up the caches in the area. Was a great day weather wise and nice to catch up. Lunch at Darfield bakery also a plus!!. Sorry about the cut and paste logs. TFTC's.

Came down on Thursday night with Taybeedragon for a three day geocaching trip and to collect a rare cache type - so rare that this will be the first ever for me - a 10-Year Celebration Event cache (now rejigged as Community Celebration Events). But that was yesterday alng with some adventure labs and Halswell Quarry, and I still have a whole day and a half to muck about in Christchurch before heading home. Time to smurf some more caches!

Was back in the area with Shannonp1 to mop up the series most were quick easy finds. Apologies for the mass logs... Thanks for the effort that goes into placing and maintaining a cache.

We have new car, well new to us. We were testing out its fuel consumption. The petrol light came on at smurf number 1 so made our made towards Kirwee for fuel. Invercargill to here on one tank, much better than last gas guzzling cache mobile.

I needed 10 finds today and StreetWalkerNZ needed 6 finds to bring our total find count for 19 July to a nice dark green 26 on our stats pages. We had still 10 unfound smurfs / smurfettes to finds, so it was a no brainer to head west and complete this geoart.
Parked across the road, and let SW, who had sensibly worn his gummies, wade through the long wet grass and make the find. Loved the smurf, an old fashioned poet, I think. TFTC.

#18455. Telegraph Rd was busy while we were here, but we had no trouble scuttling across the road and making the find. TFTC.

We've come north for a week away to geocache and relax, also this is an area we don't spend nearly enough time in! We left this series a little late to finish all the puzzles before we came up, but we gave the ones we had solved a good nudge today. This was the 2nd in the series for us today. Nice one! TFTP

Didn't find with Demaniac

TFTC. High excitement to be out for a caching adventure with my caching buddy kotukuSI. A perfect winters day on the Canterbury Plains to hunt down a few wee blue boys and girls.
Thanks Gracie and Mum.

1st post-Lockdown caching expedition with purdiepurdie today - great views of some snow on the mountains today and great fun to be ambling around some familiar roads.
Thank you, gracie7 + Mum, for these puzzles and the caches. It was great to be out & about again !

Heading home after a weekend of search and rescue training at Glentui, great chance to grab a few smurfs solved during lockdown..nice quick find tftc

We have been enjoying these puzzles during lock down. Today we went for the day with picnic to find some of this series. Thanks for this cache gracie7 + Mum.

Up early this morning so went for a bike ride while the roads were quiet! Thanks for the geocache series

24/03/2020
Needed some mental health caching. So that's what today was with mum!

TFTC!

Sorry excuse all the generic logs, but I'm so behind in logging that other wise I'll never catch up !!

Out for a few caches with daughter while we could. Quick find on most, and a pleasant afternoon to drive, chat, cache. Not much of a safe parking here, but luckily a quick find. TFTC!!

A little distraction from the covid crisis. Just one little family driving around in the great outdoors. TFTc !! #1 for the day.

**Found on our February - March tour around the South Island. Logging back home in Auckland in Lockdown isolation**

After washout weather 4 years ago on the 29th February we have been keen to greatly increase our Leap Day Finds tally in 2020. To that end we made sure we were in Canterbury ready for some quick puzzle trails this morning, and determined to cache all day. Poet Smurf gave us no bother getting the coords or making the find. TFTC

I have a 3 month sabbatical mostly traveling around the planet. My goal is to find and log 1000 caches. New Zealand is my 4th station traveling from south Christchurch to north Auckland, my first visit here, its far away. This riddle I solved already before my sabbatical. This is my sabbatical-cache #349.

Things have gone pretty well so far today. I had found all the TMGT caches I wanted to find. No Traffic holdups like yesterday, and I ended up with a couple of hours to fill in before my flight home. The forecast showers had not yet eventuated so I decided I’d see how many 2nd edition Smurfs I could lay my hands on in the time I had available. Made a pretty good fist of things, and managed to stay dry as well (just). Cheers and TFTC

Another one off the list. Thanks

three friends when caching one day
and meet a poet along the way....and it wasn't me

Out on a smurfing adventure with Corunnaroad and Monson.clan. All were in great condition, and bang-on co-ords. Great job Gracie. Another cutie ticked off

I already solved this series in Sydney and had a lot of fun doing it.
As soon as I arrived in Christchurch the rental car was picked up and I drove straight to this smurf series.
During the search the joy was great - everywhere the matching Smurfs on the boxes - well done.
Thank you for the nice series
Team sissifalke

Had a great day traveling from Oamaru to the West Coast, grabbed heaps of caches, and had a lot of fun. Many Thanks Bitsprayer