May Day! May Day! Ginger Has Gone Wild - CITO Glendene, North Island, New Zealand
By Gorbygorbachov on 01-May-22. Waypoint GC9R64Q

I assume everyone has logged their attendance.

Thankyou to all who attended, a good day was had by all it seems, good coffee and food (if I do say so myself...lol.).

Time to say goodbye until July! See you all for a tree planting day at the same place. Stay posted.

[Here's the link to Neil's post about the event on the Glendene Facebook page!](https://www.facebook.com/groups/683351705677141/permalink/950849805593995)

A foto from our DOC guide Neil Harrison from the link Lumin provided..

We always like to take part in CITO events. It feels great to be doing our little bit to help maintain our geocaching playground. This was a particularly nice CITO where we were not just cleaning up rubbish, but also removing invasive wild ginger, and spreading bark around newly planted seedlings. It was also a very happy social occasion with lots of chat and laughter. Thanks very much for organising it.

What an amazing CITO
Heaps of Geocachers here today and also Gorby Cafe,Ladies Homemade Baking
Nice to meet some new cacher & put face to a name
Very interest place
Also got our 2 Souvenir
Lots of Fun & Lots of Rubbish
After the event we were off to get some caches off our List with EyespyBen & KGD
Big thanks you Gorby for the Event & a Awesome day

MrsJAG joined in with an enthusiastic group of cachers to collect litter from the park, as well as dig out ginger and other noxious weeds of which there were plenty.
Thanks Gorby for setting up the cafe and to those that provided the yummy home baking.

A sign of a good weeding session is killing something before you've even got as far as Gorby's cafe, and 2 moth plant vines before the path was great. Would have dug out more of the ginger but I worked so hard, and dug so hard I snapped my fork in two. I was "forked". A quick drink of coffee and killing energy levels were back up, moth plant was spotted and pasted, and then the biggie, half a sack of moth plant pods and 6 reasonable sized vines cut and pasted.
And a skull to take home for GeohoundandI.
Great to meet people again, and yes it was me who killed the woolly nightshade G-2 hid a cache under in Greenhithe.

Thanks Gorbygorbachev for organising this event. Really worthwhile and great to meet up with fellow cachers.

Thanks for organizing first CITO in Auckland since dark ages? (+???+) ? .
Great turnout. It was such a nice to see smiling faces again. We did fantastic job in Glendene Reserve Park in my opinion and we can be proud of it. Also many thanks for all people who contributed legendary Gorby`s cafe by bringing homemade goodies **??(?•?•?)??**

That was fun, got here early with Rafajaw and helped myself to a hot drink and a choccy biscuit. Soon enough lots more cachers arrived and after a short talk we took a wander through the reserve seeing what needed to be done. My choice of job was shovelling, wheelbarrowing and spreading mulch amongst the new plantings. Lost count of how many barrowloads we did but the end result was great, looks so much better. Thanks for organising Gorby and always great to catch up with some caching friends.

Thanks Gorby and the enthusiasm from Pazza2 for setting up this event.
Great turn out.
We certainly dealt to some ginger.

Attened today, arrived a little later than I had anticipated, but arrived. Dropped baking to Gorbys Cafe and headed into the work station. So good to see so many more people here than I first thought there would be. Quickly got to work digging out the ginger roots. Grabbed a nearby cache then off to have a quick catch up with fellow cachers, before I headed off to Pakuranga for my next find for this month. Thankyou Gorby for orgainising today.

What a great turnout of a really hard working bunch of people. Thanks to all who brought the home baking, I think I tried a little of everything but am justifying it by saying it was well earned after clearing the park of empty cans and rubbish and digging out ginger. The bark mulchers did a great job too, that huge pile was nicely spread over the garden by the time we finished. Thanks for organising, I’m looking forward to heading back in July for the planting

I can't write my log without recalling the passion from the guy who lives nearby and how he said "I have tears in my eyes because of you lot" That was really sweet! But why shouldn't he... we did such a great job cleaning up the area and removing all the wild ginger taking over the bush

Shoutout to Mark from kiwicouple who I'd like to award "Shoveler of the day" to because seriously, he removed twice as many wild ginger roots as me and barely broke a sweat :O He even made me feel embarrassed when I was huffing and puffing and he just kept on digging??. Great work! We had a real good "line of production" going on down there with ginger removers, ginger transporters, ginger cutters, ginger binners... It wouldn't have been possible without all your expertise Ruth

Thanks very much to Tracey from "Team Welsh", who took me caching after the event. That was such a blast... "KRUMBACH" - I seriously can't remember the last time I was basically crying because I was laughing so hard????. Cheers for adding that hint Gorby, and of course for hosting this CITO event

Thanks for today's CITO

Lots of fun catching up, but also good to help make thus world a better place.

Yummy food, and the girby Cafe too.

Perfect autumn day, suspect I have a little sunburn,, hopefully muscles are not too sore

I had organised this event a little while ago, but with the hope that Pazza2 (Ruth) would be on board with me to be the specialist plant remover, in this case the notorious Ginger plant. Anyway, Ruth took this challenge to a new level! She contacted council, got a rather rude and terse response, but however, good came out of those to and fro e-mails, we got a lovely and dedicated chap by the name of Neil, he has been a absolute stalwart in keeping this reserve clean and free from invasive plants, and he has pretty much been doing this on his own enthusiasm.

So when he showed up to the C.I.T.O at 8:45am , he took command of the situation, and I was quite happy with that. Those of you who were there at the time will know, he stood up and gave a speech and everyone listened. He told us, he was so heartened by our presence and happy, we bought tears to his eyes, and was deeply moved by the fact we were there to help him out and support him.

Needless to say, we geocachers will be thought of in high regard from now on. It greatly enthused me too! We have an ally we can come to for our clean ups. Off course it's nice to go and clean up a random park. But now with Neil on board from DOC, we can work with him on tree planting or whatever needs to be done from time to time (as long as it's not every weekend...lol).

So with many helpers on hand, things GOT DONE... whoohoo. Thanks to everyone who helped out today, ginger plants were removed, a ton of bloody cans and beer bottles were removed, I counted about 6 pairs of undies, either female or male, what the heck.... even timber and a Countdown trolley were removed. Thanks go to our Huntly crew: ABCD4, eyespyben and KGD, thanks for coming from so far away guys and girls.

Thanks to all the bakers of yummy food, Summer for her yummy ginger biscuits, Helen for her ginger crunch and something else, and Kym for her yummy carrot cake, thanks ladies for your extra hardwork and to those who bought along the juice and other goodies (sorry I don't know who brought those along).

It has been an excellent day. One of my better C.I.T.O's I have done. Hope you all can come along to our tree planting C.I.T.O in July, I shall set up another event soon.

I left home just before sunrise this morning, having no idea that it would be just before sunset when I finally got back home! But this has been such a great day and I'm really happy to have been involved.

I arrived an hour before the start and got to help Gorby with the setup while everyone else started arriving. After a quick talk from Neil the park ranger, we all headed into the bush to help out. My contribution was 3 and a half bags of rubbish and recycling - I didn't know whether to be amazed or disgusted at how much there was. Strangest finds included 3 pairs of underwear, one shoe (where did the other one go??), about 10 million cans and lighters, and a broken purple wheely chair... as well as the person who apparently owned it.

After a whole lot of rubbish collecting it was back to the Gorby cafe for some food and talking. Thank you to the people who complimented the ginger biscuits, I'm glad you liked them I enjoyed hearing so many caching and travel stories and catching up with friends again. Some people started leaving... and some of us ended up staying for 4 hours just talking and enjoying the sunshine. Eventually we all headed out and although I was a little bit apprehensive about the distance, it ended up being awesome zooming along the cycle path all the way back home.

Thank you so much Gorby for organising this, and Ruth for sorting it out with the park ranger, and thank you everyone who helped out today - I think we really made a difference, and it felt so great being part of such a big group effort to clean up the reserve.

It all started with the discovery of some cave art in a park. From there, after we left a message in a bucket, we found the Glendene garden gnome responsible for the colour and landscaping. Then we found Neil, the long time resident keeper of the park. From this, grew a plan to help clean up and restore the park, which grew quicker than a ginger bulb fertilized in baa poo.
The enthusiasm and energy that everyone poured into this CITO blew my mind. It was so great to catch up with such a cool bunch of geocachers who gave it their all. Mr Kiwicouple and Rafajaw took out a mother of all ginger plants. Great work! I found a kindred spirit in Flossieteacake who also loves killing pest plants as she geocaches.
July 9 may bring another CITO for anyone who wants to plant trees instead ripping out pest plants….watch this space.

Sure was an amazing turnout of people!
Haven't done a count up but maybe over 20?
Thanks Diane for showing us the cave art and walking tracks and steps... Gorby for the idea to have a CITO plus Cafe...and Ruth for the education and expertise she shared about all the pest plants and how to eradicate them to stop encroaching.
Interesting to hear about BadBoyBanana Passionfruit....and that Ginger Plants and Cannas can still be purchased at Garden Centres
Was a whole lot of fun...Always great to chat with other Geocachers.
Hope some of you from far away managed to find some West Auckland Caches after the Event!

Great to be able to catch up with familiar faces and fo a little good in this nice park. Thanks for setting this up!

Was great to catch up with everyone at the CITO!

Managed to dig out some cans, other rubbish and sort recycling and clean up at the event.

Nice to see so many people show up to help tidy up this little park!

Amazing all the rubbish picked up considering it’s such a small park!

Thanks as always Gorby for your hosting!

drop of a tb

So good to see such a great turnout for this CITO. Nice to be able to be part of the work being done by locals who really appreciated the effort of the geocachers. Thanks Gorby for organizing.

Crused up to Auckland with abcdf4 and kgd to Gorbys cito neat we park plenty of work done and good to meet fellow geo cacher's. Thanks for organisation to Grorby.

Another great Gorby event. Good location for it too, especially with the involvement and acknowledgement of the locals. Thanks!

I was a bit unsure about what a CITO event was about but it was good to come along and be involved in something like this. A great turnout too. Thank you for organising it.

Another great turnout for a CITO and it's always great to have the Gorby coffee cart on hand for some refreshments after all the hard work was done. I really worked up a sweat moving all that bark! A wonderful location here and glad we could help with all the work being done in this reserve.

Should be there, boots and all.

Will give scooter a spin and see you there.

Oh Ginger, Ginger, Ginger
Here, there, and everywhere
We really need a ninja
To get this weed outta here!

So, so many places
It's hard to choose a spot
All we need are faces
To clean up the whole lot!

What a great location...
Glendene Reserve Park
We could do some cachin
Exploring cave art in the dark!

Ninja, where are you?
Calling RafaJaw
There's Gorby + Pazza 2
Okay, I won't withdraw...



So yip, I'll certainly be there and I can't wait to attend my first CITO event Cheers Gorby!

Naturally I will be there. Thanks Ruth, for your work on sussing out the council.

Hi Everyone, we now have official permission from the lovely Park Ranger (Neil) to get involved with weed control with the future aim to have another tree planting CITO in winter
I'm not sure which weeds ( not necessarily ginger ) and which area Neil specifically wants to target, but we will meet him just before 9am at the playground area up the hill to find out. As Gorby asks, please bring GLOVES, strong footwear and a spade.

See you there...weather forecast looks better for Sunday, rather than Saturday.

Hope to attend

Heard about this event at the recent Easter event and will be there on the day to help with the clean up - I have a spade and gloves. Will also bring something home baked to share with all. Thanks Gorby for organising this.

Killing stuff is one of my favourite things. Coffee is another. Why not combine the two! An excuse to leave the Shore for the day.

I’ll be there, I’d better bring some spare log paper as well as a spade cos I think Cave Art may be getting a few finds on the day!

Published

I shall be in attendance to help deal to the ginger!

Yay!! I was wondering when the Season 1 CITO would be - I'll be there and am really looking forward to it.

Edit to add: This sounds like a good excuse for me to bake some gingerbread to bring along. I'll see what I can do

Ginger Bell!
Thanks for mentioning Saturdays Event in Orewa

Was planning a mini trip away on May Day....
but will now postpone it to the Monday!
Very happy to help.
Have been here 3 times with the grand children having adventures and challenges in the little creek!
We love what a local guy has done...all the paths and steps and clearing and plantings...
And the cool Cave Art!
Thanks go to Diane for putting a cache here!