Brook Park (Waikato/King Country) Te Kumi, North Island, New Zealand
By psychrn on 27-May-07. Waypoint GC136CJ

Travelled from Otorohanga to Three Sisters and Elephant Rock today. Stopped at Te Kuiti to do this one. I wasnt sure if I was on the best track (Te Araroa) to get there, especially when I got as close as 150m from GZ, and then the distance kept heading up again. It rose to 235m from GZ before I was reassured that I just needed to follow the path in the direction of GZ. Once I got there the cache was a reasonably quick find fortunately! My coords pretty much took me right to it.Good views from up there. Passed lots of newborn lambs on the way. Very pleased I was allowed to take my geohound with me. Certainly kept her on a tight lead to ensure the sheep were left alone. #7755. TFTC.

This cache is now back in place and better than ever !!! Masses of room for swapables etcPlease please and please once more, fasten up properly and return as found and well hidden. ENJOY !

So sad to see it hasn't had many finds since all the work and that it got full of water. Will have to send J up to take a look in July maybe needs a different container. Shame about the swag I thought I'd bagged most up but can't remember now tbf .

Thanks to noisy neighbours we started out early on this one. Taking advice from previous logs we followed the red track up although went a wrong in the walnut grove. A bit of a clamber to the top and Mr B quickly had the cache in hand. It was full of water but the original log book was dry in the plastic bag. Dried the cache out as best we could and took out the mouldy toys. A great spot for a cache. Now to admire the views! TFTC

We searched for 30 minutes, but weren't able to find the cache. There's been a few slips recently, so it may no longer be in the same place. Still, it's a lovely walk with a great view.

This one has been on the to do list for many years, but have always been in a rush when going past. Well, today we finally had time , as we are overnighting in Te Kuiti. We tried riding out bikes up, but got a little lost here & there, and I had to get off and walk quite a bit ... It was a blustery but gorgeous day for it.Such a beautiful park, and fantastic views from up top. It was great to find a nice tidy cache, and to see the old original log book still intact. Signed the new log sheet and added a pen to the cache. Thanks for the workout & cache!

Great exercise finding this one! Thanks to Sazstar for replacing the log! Cool swapables!

Originally Found 8/10/22 replaced it on 14/10/22.As per Maintenance Log/Notes. Found Its 2024 and J has informed me I actually forgot to Log it having spend time all that time on it I had better lol.Thanks to the Co for placing this originally, there is now better access also I am informed and J is doing some maintenance on it now (2024) while he's over for a visit.Well worth a climb up beautiful views and a cache to boot!

A brand new cache is now in place, neat tidy clean with new log (1.25 litre sistena container keeping as close to the original size as possible with a charity shop find).
Cachers please help keep this cache going by looking after, there is currently no pen though we may pop one in when we bring the kids up as neither pen in the cache worked.

There is space for 120 Cachers to sign if used well. (we are on a very tight budget & fixing caches where we can so unfortunately it's not a full notebook like before so only room for date/name but it is on water resistant paper)

Hope this lasts as long as the previous, we took away the log book to dry & plan on returning it for the history as it dates back to 2007!

Thanks to the Co for original placement and for permission to replace, we felt it was pretty sturdy & the best seal of the ones we could find on budget!

Thanks to Sazstar for the maintenance on my old cache in Te Kuiti. otherwise it may have needed to be archived. Mind you its been there since 2007 so not surprising. Thanks a lot

Desperately needs fixing I guess this hasn't been flagged as people only put it in notes & logs not a maintenance suggested. We did look for a container before coming but don't want to spend money on a brand new one. We thought duct tape might do the trick but there's barely a container left bottom & top fling out!
Will keep an eye out for second hand (we're over from UK) as we will want to bring the nieces/nephews up. Hopefully the Co will be able to come up though.
Beautiful views though thank you.

Looks like the cache had fallen out of it's hidey hole, top is broken, container is collapsing. Will need replacing soon... Great views, even on a cloudy day

Found again while tramping around Brook Park and up to the communication towers.
(But badly needs maintenance has no lid)

In the area for a couple of days caching. We enjoyed the walk up the hill and the views from the top. Thanks for getting me up there.

The cache container has no lid and needs replacing.

[1287]

We are doing a side trip to Te Kuiti. Headed up Brook Park to the top of the knob, folloing first the road, then a track. Lost the track and went up the bank before finding it again. Finally at the topto find several info boards to check out. Finally got the cache tagged. Cheers.

Day 16 - Saturday 28 December. Awakino to Taumaranui today. So lets go!!

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are spending Christmas exploring Taranaki via geocaching. Its been an amazing 3 week adventure. Rattls BBQ was a great event, meeting many other cachers. But also managed to fit in a few more events, especially New Years Day celebrating the start of 2020. Lots of caches - over 500. Lots of cache maintenance. Lots and lots of kilometers. And lots of amazing places visited along our journey. Mt Taranaki remained elusive for much of our travels and the caches on it at the top. Loved Pukekura Park Night Lights Show and the the Wooden Mechanical toy exhibition at NP Info centre.

The cache page says the red track is the longest - as far as getting tot he cache site is is a pretty direct route. We start by going up the road to the end, then across to the blue track which rejoined the red track. Could not have been any shorter. Nice park. And interesting reading about the farmer here.

Day sixteen of Taybeedragon's and my big 3 week circumnavicaching trip around Mt Taranaki, starting from Palmerston North. Today is New Plymouth to Taumaranui - yep, it's a slow trip!!
Highlights:
* 3 weeks, 536 caches
* Mt Taranaki had been removed for washing, which was a bit of a shame. Even after it had been returned we were only allowed to see it for it was less than half an hour a day.
* High percentage of caches with crappy coordinates
* Amazing Pukekura Park
* AMAZING Pukekura Park light show!
* Pukeiti Gardens
* Lots of cache maintenance!

***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](https://coord.info/GC87777) - you won't want to miss it!

I was just beginning a seven day trip down to Wanganui, so I had to stop to get this one.

I made a wrong turn which took me in the wrong direction. I tried to get back on track only to find myself sunk into mud up to my calf. I finally got to GZ and found the cache in the second place I searched. The top is broken, so I placed it so rain will not enter easily.

If you need some waypoints, try S38 19.652 E175 08.906, then S38 19.715 E175 08.903, then S38 19.715 E175 08.848, then S38 19.760 E175 08.612. TFTC.

======== NZ Mega 2020 ========

Be sure to join the Facebook page: NZ Mega 2020.

Planning for the NZ Mega 2020 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

20 years of geocaching worldwide.
20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of this event - you won't want to miss it!

Beautiful view

School holidays, plus the combination of public holidays and 3 days leave means I get to take my lad on a road trip. This time we have chosen Waitomo to be our destination, and this was our final full day here.

The wonderful thing about Geocaching is that you are tempted to make an excursion to somewhere you may not have been bothered to, and discover something totally wonderful when you get there. This has definitely been the case for the last few days. The lad and I had so much fun exploring all the wonders to be seen, both above ground and below. Just as well we were wearing clothing we didn't have to worry about lol!

So my lad was tuckered out by our excursion to Haggas Honking Holes yesterday afternoon, so I let him have a deserved lie in whilst I went and found a couple of nearby caches myself. This one looked like it would be a good walk for me. Rather than drive to the 'Birds of the World' and walk from there, I decided to walk from the bottom. It was a good walk, but had the unexpected drawback of delaying me so that just as I reached the summit of the hill, drizzle started coming down so I wasn't able to enjoy the great views promised.

I did however find the cache. As other have said, the lid of the container is completely smashed, but as it had been placed upside down at least the contents were no more than a little damp. I signed the log and replaced it all as I found it before making my wet way back down the hill again.

Thanks for the cache.

Tftc,still there container needs replacing ,lid all broken still under a lot of dead pu.ga leaves where hint says it is ,do not attempt if unfit 70. year old

Easy find after an enjoyable walk. Signed the back cover because the pens don't work any more and I only had a permanent marker in my pocket.
Lovely walk up here.

Good climb up. Great views. Cache a quick find.

Found for the 3rd time in last 15 months. Cache had slid downhill into the open but all good as no-one would visit here. However when pushing it back to a hiding place the lid broke. It had become brittle in the light so needs replacing.
TFTC

Needs container replaced

After spending the weekend in Otorohanga in the hope of getting up to a particular cache on mount pirongia, which I did not. I now Head home and stopped off for this little journt.

Got to the top and sure enough mount pirongia was barely visible at its base, glad I decided against it.

Couldn't help but wonder if in the ten plus years since this cache was hidden, would the flavour of the hint have changed? It didnt really matter in the end as I managed to zero in on it okay with the GPS anyway.

Everything in the cache was nice and dry.

Cheers.

Heading south fora few days and this was the first stop along the way. Took a few short cuts but get there in good time. Many thanks for this cache.

This was done as part of my Mission Impossible road trip.
The challenge was laid last weekend when Geocaching.com launched Mission GC, Should You Choose To Accept It... The puzzle was solved fairly easily and the challenge accepted before the message self-destructed: Find and log a geocache with 10 or more favourite points.
Having already either found all the qualifying geocaches in Taranaki, or I own them , the nearest was Omaru Falls south of Te Kuiti. Completed that wind damaged walk yesterday, stayed a stormy night with more torrential rain and gale force winds in Otorohanga.
But eventually the day improved enough for KrystalKath and I to undertake the Ruakuri tunnel walk. Then she headed off back to Rotorua and I hit the road home.
The weather had improved enough for me to take another walk to Motakiora in the late afternoon.
I took the blue trail up but the route was phenomenally wet and slippery. Seemed to be not heading to GZ so eventually cut across to the correct ridge and discovered the blue-red vehicle track which was just as slippery but not as wet underfoot.
Eventually I made it to the summit of the pa. Great views made it well worth the effort but I reckon the D & T rating needs another notch each on occasions such as this.
Not finding the cache was not an option after so much effort. There's certainly a lot of hints up here but not many (any) small ones, but I guess it once was.
SLTNLN TFTC. Excellent journey.
*Slipped over on to my knees on the way down using the blue-red track. Absolutely filthy head to foot by the time I reached the geocamper. Made for an interesting trip back to New Plymouth.*

Well a chance to get out and about and clean up a few caches in the company of Kyb3r through some of the back blocks of the King Country.
Not a bad day all in all with 465 kilometers covered, 10 caches and even managed to ad a couple of years (in time) to my list of lonely caches.
This was the first of the day and an opportunity to get in an early walk to the top of the hill. once we got there all was good however the ground was fairly slippery which meant that we needed to walk to the side of the track to progress.
Looking over Te Kuiti in the early morning dawn made the place almost nice (kyb3r grew up here and I have spent a lot of time here over the years) as it seams to hide the reality of a quaint little town.

Thanks for the cache, thanks for the placement

Nahkins and I were out for the day geocaching on our way to visit our parents grave at Te Kuiti. This was #9 for me. Well this was going to be challenge just to climb the hill. Nahkins has hip problems so she had to take it slowly. We walked slowly up the hill. Took a short cut because I thought it looked easier but when we got to the corner it was straight up. We got to the top. We worked out where the cache should be and as I am a bit more nimble I hunted it out. I found it after the third punga. SL. The ground was quite slippery. The walk down didn't take very long at all. We were back at the car in no time. Off to the next cache.

NZPatoto & I concentrated on the Otorohanga and Te Kuiti area. It was a big day today as we headed down to Te Kuiti cemetery to visit our Mum and Dad’s grave for Mother’s Day, so an early start to compete our list.
This was 5 of 10 for today. Holy guacamole, as we were driving into Te Kuiti I told NZPatoto that we were climbing to the top of “that” hill. She didn’t believe me and once we finally made it to the top, “Told you so”. Due to the terrain and the slipperiness I let NZPatoto find and sign the log for this while I took the pictures. It was a misty day, not so hot climbing up, but also not much of a distance view, but still well worth the long hard walk up to the top (that’s if you are not so fit like me, just takes a little longer. No problem coming down and in quick time. TFTC

What a view, but what a difficult cache!! You can change the grade that its a difficult place to get to. Found it with Lore777

Tftc

Nice cache, but difficult to reach!

Without upgrade!

Tracks not well marked ended up bush bashing up hill face tftc

A bit of a trek after breakfast (a quad bike would have been nice) but the view was definitely worth it. TFTC

After visiting Hobbiton earlier today, we were off to visit the glowing worms of doom in Moria ... oops, sorry, we need to get out of LOTR mode ... that should be the glow worms of Waitomo. We had arranged a motel here in Te Kuiti. Doing a quick "Find nearby geocaches" showed this cache just across the road "only" 900m away & probably "only" 200m vertically up. Perfect for a day's wind down. To our surprise, it was an unexpectedly fantastic little hike, serenaded all the while by the bleating of a thousand sheep and dancing through the minefield of ten thousand sheep deposits, leading to a spectacular 270 deg panoramic view of the entire region.

As far as the cache itself is concerned, it was in excellent shape and we are thrilled that we (two visitors from Canada) now know what a "Punga" tree is. Thanx for bringing us to this great little spot. We are certain this park is underutilized & underappreciated, except by sheep. We strongly recommend it to all cachers & hikers alike.

Found while tramping in Brook park we tramp thru to gadsby road
finishing up at Boscos for a coffee before heading home.
Easy find if you come from the right direction.

1149 Slippery walk up and even more slippery walk down. Cache was exposed so covered on signing. Nice views of Te Kuiti.

Great walk up the mountain!

Great location. Thanks.

Just had a fantastic walk up this hill with muggle friends on a beautiful day. Had no idea that this park was here. Thanks for the cache and the fun that this walk provided

This entry was edited by pinocchio59 on Sunday, 17 May 2015 at 09:02:28 UTC.

For some reason this cache was not in my GPS. Lucky that I allready made a list yesterday evening while staying over in Te kuiti.
We had breakfast at the start and up we go. Doggies were allowed and they have enjoyed the park as we did.
Hmmm Except for the last part hahaha. We thought of making a shortcut (which we did in meters), but ending up taking the goattrack up. Puffffing and huffing when at the top.
Cache was an easy find. Happy that there was one.
Left a monopoly TB for next cacher who loves to make this challenge up.

We had a late lunch at the cafe near the parking waypoint and decided on a whim to give this cache a go. Its a nice walk and was a good challenge for our two boys aged 3 and 5. It was a nice view from the top and we were able to spy on a game of cricket way off in the distance. Our youngest struggled on the way down so I had to carry him a good portion of the way. Thanks for placing a cache here and taking us on a little adventure.

Mr P and I started our caching day with a hike up the hill... wonderful! Great views this morning and well worth the effort trotting up there. T4tc

TFTC

Tftc

I thought I'd go for a nice little evening walk, but this turned out to be more a hike than a walk But the amazing views from up there made up for it. TFTC!

I'm happy to say i walked up motakiora thank u for that...

cool

Found beneath the highest sign out in the open. Put it back next to the hint description where the co-ords indicated and in view from the edge of the top area, in consultation with one of our party who had found it some time ago. Certainly great views from the 212m high hill.
The last in a day round trip up the coast from New Plymouth round and across to Waitomo and back down.
Really love caching in this area.

Not the nicest of days but worth the views!...TFTC

Yay first one we have found

A quick walk up the hill to the stated coords and nothing, searched the other nearby hint items and still nothing.
Only came away with several empty bottles so did a little cito while at GZ

A good walk up from the top car park put no goods at the top

not the short walk we thought it was going to be , but the view was great when we got there tftc

Didn't have a lot off time to spare but thought I'd have a go anyway.
Parked further up at the picnic area and made a quick dash up hill, took only 10 minutes but I was pretty much stuffed.
Great view and a quick find.
TFTC

A very enjoyable walk with and amazing view. TFTC

Bit of a slog up the hill at the end of the day, but a great cache to finish on. Great views of Te Kuiti. Took TB.

Tyftc.

Found it! Thank you for the cache from and sweaty and itchy Edmonds/Kirk clan.

A nice walk up the hill, very good view, took a bit of searching to find the cache, but eventually spotted.

T4TC

Cool cache!!

This was a massive climb up to the top but it didn't take to long. It was a beautiful view at the top and im glad i put the effort in and got there.

Thanks for the Cache

We wandered across the wilderness for over an hour. After we arrived in cache we found the trail. very Funny.
TB out

This entry was edited by KyAnn on Wednesday, 20 March 2013 at 18:21:59 UTC.

This entry was edited by KyAnn on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 04:37:22 UTC.

This entry was edited by KyAnn on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 at 05:10:41 UTC.

This cache has been on my to-do list for about 3 yrs, so on a beautiful Saturday mid-afternoon, I decided the time was now. My GPS sent me up the wrong side road, but the correct access beside Bosco was quickly found. I had no idea this farm park was here - it's beautiful, and such an asset to Te Kuiti. I parked in the peaceful top car-park, and eventually found the correct track. The yellow track was phenomenally steep, but I made the top in 25mins from the carpark - not as quick as previous cachers, but pretty good for me lol! The views were absolutely spectacularly beautiful, and so worth the climb up. Seeing as 'Pinetree' Colin Meads came from Te Kuiti, it seemed appropriate to drop off a rugby Travel Bug. On the way down, on one of the steepest parts, I slipped and dropped my GPS - and had to watch it cartwheel at speed about 50m down the hill...thankfully it was found after a short search! Thank you for bringing me to such a beautiful spot!

I opted for the shorter route because I was on my way to New Plymouth and it took me 19 minutes from the top carpark to the cache. Let alone from the Cafe!!! A great climb, we used to run over this land (but not to the summit thankfully) when our highschool(tkhs) had our cross-country event.

Found the steep orange path eventually, but it was fairly treacherous today after recent rain. Have to say, I'm impressed that the last finder got from the cafe to the cache in 15 mins! Great views after a good workout, TFTC

The cache itself is intact, but the contents are saturated. Log replacement is probably in order, this time in a snaplock bag!

This morning when informed we were visiting Te Kuiti I quickly inputted the coordinates and scribbled down the clues of the nearby caches, completely missing the fact the cache was located on top of a massive hill!

I was dropped off outside Bosco's and began following my GPS towards the cache location, then I realised what exactly I was up against. 15 minutes later, covered in spiders and bug, with grass up to my knees and my clothes and shoes saturated, I found it! Not the easiest cache I've done, but fun nonetheless. Thanks!

TFTC, TNLN.

Awesome view! Thanks for leading me to it, and for my first New Zealand cache. The log is damp inside and could use some maintenance.

Great walk and VERY steep... What an AWESOME view from the top !!!

this was harder then i thought it would be.coming down i fell in mud.

Choice did with the kids a awesome hill

Awesome location. Great views and an awesome cache for kids!

This was an interesting adventure. Luckily, I had plenty of time on my hands.

I studied the map carefully and embarked on what I thought was a straightforward mission to follow the red track until it met the yellow track. However, I soon lost sight of red poles and (as continuing in the same direction seemed to involve going downhill again) I switched to the blue trail. This went a bit better until I lost that trail as well. At that point, I went cross country upwards until I saw orange! poles. All very confusing; I am sure some poles looked as though they used to be one colour and have since been painted another. Anyway, I found the way to ground zero and quickly spotted the treasure. It was a little bit awkward to retrieve but I have had to deal with far worse.

The descent was much easier as I was able to largely follow red poles and use my GPSr's breadcrumb trail as a guide when I couldn't see poles. This is certainly not a cache I would have wanted to taken on just before dark without a torch or headlamp.

All great fun. TFTC.

Found it with our Geocaching team

Good cache, nice view and good walk.
Funny that everyone else followed me straight up the hill and complained the whole way that it was too steep!
Taking the track is easier and nicer

We have taken a run through this park and it was really slippery slalom between sheep-shits, oh yeaah! But the cache was really nice. TFTC!

Found it, very nice view.

belated log. Followed the sheep they seemed to know where to go. Great views

Nice walk, but we didn't realize we would walk right past the sheep. We didn't have appropriate shoes on, and so in the end we made it to the right place, but we couldn't get to the cache, since we couldn't climb the last meter. The colors denoting the route were a little bit confusing at some times we saw three blue ones, two red ones and a yellow one, which way to go? Fortunately we made it back to the car, just before dark. Thanks for the walk and tiresome climbing.

Zigged when I should have zagged at the bottom, so wound up making it harder for myself. Worked up a sweat getting to the top, but the views are well worth it. Cache easily found and in good nick. TFTC.

on my way to raglan.. TFTC

Found while visiting relatives in Te Kuiti. This is my first visit to the park. Before he retired, my grandfather Jack (John) Taylor worked on Colin Brooks farm. He planted most of the exotic trees in the park.
It was nice to walk through the trees this afternoon, thinking what a great memorial this is for old Jack.
TFTC, Jeff

we were right at the spot but could not find the container

enjoyed an evening run up the hill. Great day for a view of the area from the top TFTC

Great walk up and lovely view of TeKuiti from the top.

Contemplated this late in the day, but with two little ones, even the upper carpark option seemed like more than we could chew. Bummer, as I'm guessing the view must be spectacular. Another day...

A welcome bit of exercise after the drive from New Plymouth. Like many caches I do, there is a right way up and a wrong way up. I thought I had taken the wrong way up as I followed the GPS and not the marked trail but as it turned out the way down via the marked trail was a very wet and slippery experience !! Still the cache was an easy find as the co-ords were bang on. - TB TFTC.

This entry was edited by J 'N' K on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 at 13:50:10.

Early morning walk up to the cache site. Soon located. SL Left TB TFTC

Quick stop off on the way home from the Naki, Great views, enjoyed the stretch, Cheers Muzy Man!

Our first time geocaching, taken by friends who have done quite a bit before. Great day out and kids loved it. Lovely view of the town.

Great walk on a beautiful day with friends. Had a fanastic afternoon. TFTC

Though this would be a good leg stretch halfway between New Plymouth and Auckland but it turned into a good workout.
Saw the path going in another direction as the compass pointed me so I took the shortest way up.
Luckily the grass was long (and strong) enough for some good grip.
Views on the top where great today.
Didn't brought my camera with me.
I took the path (at least the first part) down to the car park.
TFTC

1398 Steep little grunt, ideal for the Gerbil. Great day, great view! TFTC

pppphhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeew! Yep, quite steep - but awesome views from up there.
Thank you very much
Dowmans

Nice little work out, no problems here. TFTC

Introducing a friend to the gentle art of geocaching so this was a good one to get, with a nice walk and great local views.
Not at all muddy today.

Nice easy little walk but very muddy and slippery, had a few close calls but managed to stay upright thankfully, lots of sheep poo about.
Bit of a misty view today and I was cooled a little by a passing shower but a very good spot on a fine day no doubt.
Many thanks.