Grape Escape (Nelson/Marlborough) The Narrows, South Island, New Zealand
By Whirly Gigs on 06-Feb-07. Waypoint GC10T5T

Like a needle in a haystack, this was a cache in a field of hay. Well not quite but as the grass was over head height in places we just had to wade in and follow the gps, hoping that we didn't step in any holes on the way. Eventually spotted something that would be very obvious when the grass is mowed. Found the cache and opened it up. It had multiple log sheets in there - all of them wet. Managed to put our name on one of them but a TLC visit is probably needed. tftc#7080

Got off early from work and headed out for a walk along the stop bank. Hint made sense once arrived at GZ. Cache well hidden. Thanks for the smiley.

Lots to find here and room for more, nice morning out for a easy stroll.unfortunately the log is wet so couldn’t write in it.

Great cache! Must bring the kids back for another find.

Nice quiet spot, Lest we forget

Easy Last Find for the biking mission along the wairau, home to Ice the buttocks, Cheers

Quick find, too easy. Cache all good today, tftc.

Very vigilant visualization led to victory on our vacation. Thanks Whirly Gigs

A nice quick find along the stop bank. Thanks for placing your cache.

Ms_KR and I are off on our annual pilgrimage to Auckland to visit family. Today we cruised around Blenheim and Renwick, with lovely weather.

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

Quick find on our travels around. Beautiful day to be out. Tftc

We found, we are going to come back and replace the Ziploc bags cause they’re a bit soggy

Found it. Lucky didn’t disappear during floods.

Cache very wet but easy enough to find, drained as best as I could, TFTC

Sweet rain clouds thicker now

I had grand plans today of heading out to Pelorus Bridge for a spot of serious caching, the hours were few left in the day after impromptu business at the fire station, and enjoying a needle in my arm for my second dose of the anit-Covid jab.
So I settled on a short local trip, the first ride on the motorbike this week, up the valley to finish clearing up the Southern Valley Irrigation Scheme area of caches.
The gravel roads around here were ideal for a bit of last minute practice before a friend and I venture up the Mt Patriarch road, well as far as we get before it gets too rough. Hopefully he's patient enough to allow me to get at least some of the more remote caches along the way.
Unfortunately, as we get closer to the Winter Solstice on the 21st of June, the days are getting very short. So by 17:30, after having visited just 5 of the 9 caches I had eyed up, it was too dark to proceed. We shall return to clean up the 'crumbs' in this area!

A nice amount of treasure in this one, sadly it was so wet I had to tip water out of the cache and the bags inside. I managed to dry some of it out, but some serious drying needs to occur.
I placed a dry log inside a new snaplock bag to enable easier signature of the log.
TFTC

Easy find needs some care

Found easy but cache is in need of some love paper was sodden couldn’t write on it but thanks for the cache

Wasn’t sure about this one as the trees have been dropped but we found it replaced the plastic bag as the log was wet

Great find

Thanks to the previous finder for clearing it out. I can imagine what the V would have been. Could do with a dry out and another couple of plastic bags to replace the current ones.

Things looked a bit ominous when I got here. The trees have been leveled. But after a read of the cache description and looking around I was able to pinpoint a likely spot to look. After scrapping a way the ground cover the container was indeed there, yay. The contents were a bit soggy I dried things out as best I could and was able to sign the log. Replaced the cache where I found it and covered it before moving on . Cheers and TFTC

The light was fading fast so we only had a quick look but unfortunately couldn't find it.

An evening walk from Te Kainga where we are staying. I found this without the hint.

Found on another caching expedition with jojo. This time south of the Wairau and west of renwick to Wairau valley township. Thanks to all COs for the caches.

I have 7 caches to go before I reach a major milestone which I would like to do before I hit my first anniversary of geocaching. With a two day geocaching tramp in the Nelson Lakes National park coming up tomorrow I have targeted a certain cache to make this milestone extra special. There are only five other caches on the tramp before I reach the one targeted for the milestone which mean I need to get this cache to bring everything together.

A QEF PnG found more easily by an excellent hint.

TFTC Whirly Gigs

Came out here on my lunch break in an attempt to fill in as many dot days as I can. I haven't been caching for a full year yet, so everything is a dot day at the moment. As I have not got a lot of caches left around my locale to pick from, I have to be quite selective and I am trying to fill in the days that will be working days next year so that I can use the weekend days to go further afield to fill in the dots that are still missing next year.

This was a QEF PnG which as usual, I managed to find in the last place I looked. Unusually though, it was also the first place I looked. It was interesting to note that this cache is almost nine years old, so it is probably up there with some of the oldest in Marlborough, so it gets a FP from me for its longevity.

TFTC Whirly Gigs

Had to escape for a couple of hours while concrete was being poured at home.
A few caches out this way still to find - and pleased I grabbed the corolla for these unsealed riverbanks.
Continued on the dusty stopbank to this one - found quickly without a hint.
TFTC Whirly Gigs

Driving along the stop bank just following the GPS.
This stop bank goes a long way and there's still more.
This one has been on my map for far too long so quite pleased to turn it into a smilie.
Nice hide.
TFTC

[green] I am joining up a couple of dot day regions to make a 10 day caching streak, needed for my Masters of Geocaching Science, which will then take care of a couple of souvenirs in my up coming road trip. So I came for a drive down this stop bank, starting from right way back at the Renwick Bridge. Nice little drive, but I took the easy way out via Fareham Lane for the way back. Surprisingly large cache, Nice to see a few this size. Dropped in an emerald.

When we're caching as a group we always head for caches that none of us have found. - - - There is the odd exception and this was one of them. It would have been silly to drive right past this one without signing the log. Being the driver, I was taking a while to get my GPS sorted when I leapt out of the cachemobile. - - - Then reason prevailed and I just looked in the obvious place. TFTC .

Caching with Sidewaze, Isis58 and Mrs SoBad - this one wasn't on my "found" list either so when Sidewaze headed for the obvious, so did I, she got there first. TFTC

Another good find while on a geocaching trip driving around the area with Just-Lookin
Holiday nearing an end and caching towards Blenheim now.

Soon had the cache signed and on to the next one.
Thanks for all the good caches along (and side roads of) highway 63!

Holidaying at the top of the South Island with tmann421. Many thanks to all the CO's for making this a memorable trip.

Nice find here.

TFTC

A great day for a walk with the dog down to the river. With a small detour we found this cache - kids seal of approval with lots of swaps to choose from. TFTC

For some reason I never realised that you could drive up this side of the bridge. Awesome area and so much to explore. Thanks for bringing me into yet another great new spot. I had to wait for a few horses to disappear around the bend, then a quick find at GZ. Off from here to explore further and possibly place a new one in the area. TFTC

Tftc
A remote one i imagine not many would find

Cache in good condition, thanks. What a beautiful day for caching!

A nice secluded spot. Cold wind today. Tftc

Parked at the Mountain Bike Track carpark up by the bridge. Yes, we had planned a day walk so that's what we did in spite of the fact that it was obvious from the logs that it could be justifiably classified as a park and grab! A nice spot to have our lunch in the shelter of a big pine tree - in the sun but out of the wind. One of those crazy weather days so raincoats were at the top of our packs and we sure did need them halfway back to the carpark - it blew a howling gale and down came the cold cold rain - after it had blown itself out there was the snow over on the hills! 7km from the carpark to the cache so it was a good walk. TFTC.

A quick and easy find here. No Problems. This one was nicely covered in pine needles. Unintentional I'm guessing but it worked a treat. After I found this I drove all the way down the river to the bridge to pick up a few more. Thanks for the cache and the smiley.

Find #312 for the BAMMJams - took our town car out here, but spent the whole time thinking that we really should have a 4x4 if we're going to keep driving down roads like this! However, got to the cache with no problems, and the mini-BammJams quickly found it. They chose a littke yellow toy to take out, and replaced it with a dice. TFTC

Found on a wet day! Lots of water around, but the cache was nice and dry. TFTC

I'm not too sure about the wisdom of driving with those bird cannons around the place. I was really hoping they aren't motion sensored and were going to shoot me. While i was signing the log a couple went off. Victory was mine ... i didn't get shot AND i got the cache TFTC

#1787

We had the option of taking the high road or the low road to this one, we chose the low then had to clamber up the bank but the log was very soon signed. TFTC.

Funny how we wanted to escape the forecast of a hot day in Nelson and the temp before 12-00pm already hit over 30°C to eventually reach 35°C in the shade up the Wairau Valley. Without geocaching we'd never traveled up this random little country road. On approach of GZ we choose wrong and paid with having to walk an extra 15m or so. TFTC

Nice litte spot. Quick easy find. TFTC

13860... Took a Grape Escape and circum-navigated the large vineyard... Thanks for an epic excursion.

Nice journey to get this one, enjoyed the drive alongside the vines
A little rainy tonight but cacahe all nice and dry, except the old logbook still hanging around GZ
TFTC

Great area. Nice easy find. TFTC

Beautiful little spot tftc

Nice little spot.

Victory indeed, this has been on my radar for a while, just needed an excuse to come off the beaten track for it! Tftc Blenheim Bear

Found it once in the correct area Ma NapDeav tried a bit of a goose chase but Pa sorted TFTC

This was the third of 4 caches that I had targeted today for the Loneliest Cache Challenge. Nice out of the way spot. Raised the cache slightly, as the water level in the 'V' was in danger of flooding the container. Thanks for the cache.

The boys found this one with Grandad! TFTC

Cheers nice spot

On a mission today to pick up caches that qualify for 'New Zealand's Loneliest Cache Challenge'. Grape Escape was the last cache on our list for trhe day, and it was already dark by the time we set out to find it. Getting to GZ in the dark was quite an adventure, and by the time we found the cache (nice hint) we were glad to be able to make a Grape Escape for real (still not sure if that was a private road!) Thanks for 'Loneliest' cache #8.

# 3325

Very Good. Never been here before. TFTC

I've looked at trying to get this cache a couple of times in the past but finally worked out how to get to it a couple of days ago. Thanks to the cacher that put in the fresh log paper. All good now. TFTC, Biggles.

Nice spot, another place iv never been to. Nzbiddi

Lovely views from here and not a soul around. Notebook completely sodden and mouldy but is separate in bag. 3 pages of notepaper are dry and doing ok.
Took Smiley Face Geocoin. Left Red Gecko Geocoin. Geckos will love it here by the river (as requested!) Also took hand clapper for the All Black v SA rugby game tonight (AB's were winners!)
TFTC.

Hi Whirly Gigs! The log book is soaking wet and I think unusable. At the moment two sheets of paper do the job, but probably not for long.

Cheers

Steve

Victory was ours! Had a lovely walk to the stream. Tftc

During a short walk alng the vines we found this cache.

TftC

Steve

Definitely not one for a road bicycle! Cool little random spot though.
Log book is getting damp again
- Mikey Mouse
+ handclapper thing

nice we drive through the vineyards.

Thanks Bitsprayer

haha we drove around and around and around...oops may not have been on the right road...great wee trip..had so much fun we had to release glow in the dark GC here

Quick find and easy drive by thanks to a rental car...

Found our way in here. The book is sodden but someone has left a few pieces fo paper to write logs on. SL TFTC

quick find on the way home. tftc

Log book sopping wet and pen not working. However, an interesting spot just at the end of our road.

No Grapes around yet but we did watch the vines being sprayed. A nice easy cache. Cheers Bo

Can still drive all the way there despite tree branch across the road. Interesting place for a bit of a looksee. TFTC.

Found it but pen not working so no log. Took GC. TFTC

Enjoyed finding this one. TFTC.

4.40pm. Lateish afternoon when we reached this area. Surveyed the grapevines in the setting sun. Temperature getting a little nippy by this time of day and snow on the surrounding hills. A great landscape. Noticed a couple of fishermen at the nearby ponds.
Left a silica gel cachet in the cache to help with moisture.
+ Message in vino bottle geocoin - "A Mighty fine drop" (in its natural habitat)
- teddy bear
TFTC - a good one in an interesting location
[8d] M&P.

An enjoyable meander through the vineyards to get to this one. Container was very wet and all contents, including the log book were saturated. Dried things out, replaced wet baggies and added some extra pages as a temporary log. Took the pink pig and left a Hawaii 25c coin. TFTC

drove straight to it, the road is fine,we enjoyed this The rivers in flood & water every where.thnx.

Signed as best and we could, with the wet logbook, thanks for bring us here.

Log still wet but I manged to prise it open and sign a page. I'm still not organised enough to carry these replacements with me sorry. TFTC (463)

Found with a couple of wrong turns. Hadn't read logs in advance so couldn't replace log but signed name on a piece of paper we included. Cache still very wet. TNLN TFTC

Cache needs a new log book and a water tight container big time!!!!

Nice One!!!!!!!!! Not quite sure which was the public road and which one wasn't. Neverless, made it to GZ with no worries. Co-ordinates were spot on. Neat spot for a V cache site. Cache needs a new log book big time. Impossible to sign. Left a hand full of black seed pods as evidence of find. Thanks

Approached on bike, and we are pretty sure we got the smooth road in and out!! Great spot!! TNLN

Ok, nothing you don't know already. Poored about a shot glass of water out of the cache. Contents are completely unservicable, and couldn't sign the log. Added a piece of bark as my mark. Glad to have found it however, as it failed to get done on three previous trips. It was always either too far off the main road or we were out of time in some way. Not this time! TFTC.

This is waterlogged with contents saturated. You will either need to dry the logbook out or replace it. I suggest you get some new plastic bags and some silica sachets to absorb the moisture when you reinstate the cache. Thanks

Still waterlogged, and needs maintenance but a nice cache.

This cache is water logged, recent heavy rain has penetrated a not very water tight cache.

Wet weather and very recent heavy rain resulted in cache being under water, contents drenched, unable to leave a note for site log

Made all the correct guesses and drove straight to cache. Neat spot. Lots of loud bangs randomly going off to frighten birds. Cheers.

Ttttook tttthe lllllong bbbbumpy rrrrroad iiiin bbbbut ffffound ttttthe sssshortcut oooon ttttthe wwwwway oooout. Nnnnnnice ssssspot. Tttttteeth ssssstill cccccchattering. TTTTT FFFFF TTTTT CCCCC.

Never been along here before. Now which road shall I take? Well the first choice didn't work out. Second choice......made it to the cache site. Third choice ....the exit. That option would have been the best.....Oh well we learn these things when geocaching! TFTC

What a great wee adventure trying to find the road(s) to get to the cache. A lovely evening for it and the cache was easily found. Cheers Gav [1951]

found on a nice hot marlborough sunday afternoon. Nice hide. TNLNSL

1884. "V" for victory - luckily we made all the correct choices. The cache and contents were wet so we dried out the cache and rebagged everything in a new bag.
Thanks
Iris & Rodney

Found with Madiecacher

Never been out this way before. Great area for exploring.
Thanks heaps for setting up this cache in a new area.
TFTC coin also says thanks
In teddy bear
Out red jeep
Visiting TFTC Coin

Nice drive through the puddles and slop with a dodgy accomplice

Took a great walk in from SH 63, with kids and dogs. Wondered about the significance of the V, all became clear. Lovely day out. TFTC