Test your Skills (Auckland) Army Bay, North Island, New Zealand
By sp8sm8 on 29-Apr-07. Waypoint GC124H6

Over a year without a find, time to let some new blood into the area.

Will be visiting tomorrow to remove.

Finally got this one of the to-do list. I was here 4 months ago and found all three of the intermediary caches.

Came up to sign off the final.

Thanks for the hurry-up, Nick.

Great series of caches.

Cheers for the cache.

No finds in over a year, its time to go. Next time I am up that way it will be removed. If you have part solved it or been thinking about it you had better get your skates on.

Realistic time for removal. Late March early April

As I haven't finished this one due to being called back to town early. Got all the info from all three waypoints.
The hardest one for me was A as the park rangers had removed the sign with all the info on it. It is being repainted and will be reinstated shortly. Thanks to the cache owners for sterring me towards Cache A.
I had a little trouble locating Cache C, even phoned a friend but he didn't answer the call. Just as I was leaving I decided to look at something extra and bingo, there it was. That has happened a lot of times.
Will be back to clean up this one at a later date.

As the sign at cache A is missing, The waypoint is given here. S 36° 36.860 E 174° 49.127

If any one confirms the sign is back in position, this note will then be deleted.

Got stuck at Cache C - GPSR wanted us to cross a recently built fence line and we ran out light searching without climbing it, per instructions. We're probably just incompetent. Will try again soon.

Dasnoboarder & Kelz found it!

Most challenging cache we've done so far; but also the best spot for an adventure!

TFTC.

In light of two DNF's on the same waypoint, decided on a cache checkup.

All was fine with all waypoints and information in place. Tweaked the clues for wp's 2 and 3, 2 to make slightly easier, 3 as the feature has morphed.

The Pohutakawas are starting to flower, couldn't be a better time to come and visit this park.

Very clever puzzle, unfortunately we couldnt find the 2nd piece of the puzzle, couldnt find it anywhere, but lots of fun trying. Thanks

Had fun on this showery morning. Found cache A quickly - great hide. Passing all the pea hens being eyed up by the lone peacock, we headed off to cache B - deceptive - counting all those items. But alas, try as we might, checking and rechecking the items, and the arithmetic, could not locate cache B. Lots of recent wind damage, or maybe just too hard looking contributed to this.
Glad we had the gummies on board, as it was really boggy getting to this location, though the sheep track beyond made for a drier retreat.

Great cache idea. Decided it was time for coffee, so gave up the hunt after 30 mins at B. Will have to return.

My skills must be ok, found the cache. Darn windy up here today.

out: geocoin(louise)
in Nothing

TFTC

Quick re-visit while we were in the area, watching the sun come up. Thanks for the cache..

Left: Louisiana Geocoin

To say 'found it' would perhaps be a little misleading. We followed our little group but made some errors in interpretation and applying the data obtained to the 'formulae' written on the cache sheet. Using algebraic notation the tanetops team considered that FG meant F*G, however this was not what was intended. So initially we were well off track, but soon realised the mistake. Thereafter the waypoints were found where expected, more the result of the expertise of some members of the group. An interesting 'multi' with lots of variety. Many thanks from tanetops for all the hard work that went into this geocache.

Here with Roel acting as "second eyes". TFTC

Like all the others on the day, found in a group. The second to find.
Nice to do some caching with others for a change.
TNLNSL.
TFTC sp8sm8
Cheers M+S [:O)] (466)

Learnt the limitations of my GPS, doesn't do proximity searches. It does do nearest though. Enjoyed the company of the others while on the training day. Fun to geocache with new people. Thanks for the effort.

Enjoyed finding this cache with lots of help from other geocachers! Great day in the park.
+ Ballistics Sticker
- bookmark
TFTC

Great cache to test geocaching skills. Good job we were in a group to bounce ideas off and aid the searchs. Cheers for a great cache on a great day. Ad of Adnshe

Found with the help from fellow *lodgers* at the event,gr8 learing experiment,even better to get to the final within 1 mtre after the protracted struggle & long walk!Thanks to the rest of the team who did all the calcs!
Thanks Nick for all the work that went into this to make it such a neat event.
TNLNSL

3.20pm. This cache hunt made the day for us. Reliant on the team as we were for the proximity calculations at the end we learned a lot and hopefully will be able to repeat the procedure on our own next time it is called for.(Hope thats not too long off as Mr.F's short term memory is deteriorating fast!!) To be part of the FTF team made it all the more special. Thank you Tofska; St.Ouens; KiwiGary;BFR;Runzz & Tdbearnz.(and sp8sm8 of course for setting it)
M&P.

[This entry was edited by Just Floundering on Monday, April 30, 2007 at 1:01:51 AM.]

This cache was certainly the highlight of the Skills day. It was great to tackle this cache with such a large group of people and learn more as we went. Well done! We were not quite flawless and were a bit lucky with finding the final cache. TFTC

Thanks to all who prepared this cache. A great multi and it definitely tested my skills! Thanks!

Geat to complete this one during the Auckland Stills Day. Hada great teamt o work with and some of the cache hints were very unique. Thanks.

This cache turned out to be the battle of the teams. Mad scrambling to hide the intermediates and the final before the next lot got too close. At one point the previous team snuck off with the written clue, leaving an empty container which caused quite some consternation. A lot of fun was had on a nicely designed cache. If only I could do it again solo from scratch.
Cheers!

Tested my patience thats for sure. Lovely park, lovely views, awesome event. Thanks to everyone who organised the day and thanks sp8sm8 for this cache.
IN Dice
OUT Nil

A nice cache, a little tricky to work out, but we worked it out in the end, nice to learn how to do projection waypoints.
Thanks for setting up the cache

FTF With the Team

I enjoyed this cache and liked the way we gathered the numbers. It was great fun doing the cache with my team mates from the event. Thanks Nick for setting the cache up and thanks to everyone in the team that helped us find this cool cache.

We all thought it was cool that we were FTF to find as well...esp with some well known FTF hounds in the park today

Great way to test a range of skills. Discovered that Maths is not our strong point! Luckily someone in the team was busy checking our flawed calculations. Lots of fun and good to get out and about the park without worrying about the muggle factor - they were all cachers! Thanks Sp8s.

An excellent adventure with new friends at the geocache event. We struggled with the instructions a lot and the math a little, but arrived in the end! TNLNSL, TFTC. (86)

A real nice one, utilises good tactics!

This was great fun. We were in a group with the.pud who provided some appropriate help. Thanks. Nice venue and nice people so a very successful day.

Picked up some handy skills thanks to the rest of the team! Was a fun afternoon. (Probably wouldn't have the final as quickly if it wasn't for the more sophisticated GPS units in the team!)

I was severely jetlagged and so appreciated the considerable help, especially with the figuring, from the group. I did make a very small contribution to finding the final.
Thanks for the fun.

Had a really great time with new found friends and good teamwork, one of our members had a bit of an electrifying experience but was OK.
Good to see the different experience levels and always something new you learn.
Arrived at cache and signed log.
Thanks for great cache.
Cheers!

Found with Tramper 2 and the rest of my crew. Nice multi, learnt a few tricks, thanks

TNLNSL.

Gosh it makes it so much easier in a group - a challenging cache becomes a pleasant walk in the park. All went pretty smoothly until one sly group in front of us pinched the coordinates at WP C which had us going for a while.
Many thanks

Was in the FTF group was a great cache cheers ppl.

Found with a group of keen hunters and gatherers who somehow managed to work things out.A lot of fun had by one and all.
Thanks.

[First time working in a team like this and really enjoyed it, also the first time on a multi cache this size -] 6 waypoints before getting to the final cache [ Look forward to doing more of the same type. Thanks for great cache.]

great multi cache, not sure if i could have done it without working with the team of experienced geocachers around.

it was nice to learn projection waypoints and proximaty

very fun and challenging, TFTC!

Found in the company of Tofska, St Ouens, KiwiGary, BFR, Just Floundering and Tdbearnz. The FTF group!!
Was a nice stroll around the Bay, points hidden well and tested our skills learnt during the day.
Was the 9th find for the day.
Cheers
TNLNSL

#276 Found, thanks to the combined efforts of our group: Zorgon, DioNZ, glyn, adnshe, Phillapillar, tanetops and Nedd. For once we didn’t have to sneak around, as the geocachers out numbered the muggles today.
Thanks also to sp8sm8 for setting this up.
TNLNSL, TFTC.

Wonderful ending of a well-organised Geocaching Skills Day. Thanks to everybody involved in the development of this interesting and challenging cache.
TNLNSL (too tired to do anything else )
TFTC

#569. Found in the company of Tofska, KiwiGary, BFR, Runzz, Just Floundering and Tdbearnz. Great chance to stroll around Shakespear Park and test our geocaching skills. TFTC.

What a great multi, Our group had some trouble with getting the math right at some points, and thus got some more exercise!! All ended good!!
TFTC

Great fun. Thanks to the rest of team 1 without whom we would still be working out what to do. Learned more things about my GPS along the way.
Thanks SP8SM8 for the fun and the challenge.

A 3* challenge for me... Skidded on gravel, jumped a stream, climbed the fences!
Don't think I'd have found the clues without the others.
But my GPS skills proved good enough to get me to the final!

Most enjoyable cache to test many aspects of puzzle caching. Great team effort with contributions from everyone in the team. Sp8sm8's illegitimacy allowed an untypical FTF for me .
T4TC - M@

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