SPOOKY Night Cache (West Coast) Boddytown, South Island, New Zealand
By Moneydork on 10-May-08. Waypoint GC1C4NN

Was super excited for this one. Spent ages trying to find the first tag and once we found it we somehow set off in the wrong direction, when we were about to leave we found the second and off we went. Until we hit nothing. Oh well will have to come back again with more people and time and widen and further the search

Absolutely AWESOME fun In the dark.

Spending the winter woofing, tramping and exploring the west coast caching along the way ..of course..

Back in greymouth for a while working at the Noah's ark backpackers...so a good base to tick off a few more..

Set myself a mission to hit 8000 finds but the end of the year...that's an average of 6 a day ..

I do enjoy a good night cache ...when they work..had a feeling this might not..had waited for a break on the weather to attempt this one
Allocated an hour for this as there's only so much bush bashing you can handle...
Arrived at the given coords just on dusk but it was dark enough in the forest to spot the first one easily so off track I go..think I manged to find at least six tags as I progressed..definitely the odd one missing in the first bunch..made it to a run of 3 close in proximity from each other but that's where the trail went cold...extended the search in all reasonable directions but nothing..stubbornness wouldnt let me give in and I still had 15min left on the clock so I head off in what I thought was the logical direction...and bingo probably 100m away (that's what it felt like, or about 50m passed where I had turned back previous)..I spotted another tac..then another and another..finally spotting one more and the cache..all save and dry..
There are only 2 tacs at gz but its pretty obvious once you get there..
Heaps of fun ..I did come prepared with my plb and whistle just in case...put my search and rescue tracking training into good use to find my way back (hadn't taken waypoints)..was back at the truck about 1h10m after leaving it..great fun..definitely gets a fav..

This was really the only cache I wanted to find from this visit to Greymouth. The weather was perfect too. Headed off from the first reflector at GZ and it seemed quite a way till I spotted the next one. In reality it wasn't far at all when I see the distance on my marked waypoints. A fair bit of directional trial and error from there till I spotted the next one and the one after that. But I just couldn't find another one after that despite heading in several directions and going three times further than the distance between other waypoints in the most logical direction. In the end I was hot, tired and hungry after thrashing about for over an hour so made my way back very grateful that I had taken a reading at each reflector. It was lovely in there this evening and I will definitely be back maybe with a spotlight!

Couldn't even find the first point from gz

With nothing special planned we thought it was a good idea to have a look for the cache at Spyglass Hill. The map showed we could drive up and have almost a P&G. A previous log confirmed that. No more! Gated and private property now. No prob, there was another access possible. Ummmm. Should have brought the gummies. Well, why not check out the lay of the land for the SPOOKY NightCache? And so it happened we found the first tag, then another and another. We were hooked. We might have missed one or more tags but managed to fill the gaps with intuition and luck and progressed slowly. Then there was nothing but signs of a weather event that might well have swallowed a tag (or two). Terrain permitting we went in ever increasing circles until Holymu spotted a likely hiding place. Bingo! The tag proved we found what we were looking for. An unplanned and nice adventure had come to an end. A fav of course. Thank you Moneydork.

Not being too sure footed these days on uneven ground in the dark we thought we would check out the terrain here with a view to returning later if it looked do-able for this old girl. We found the first tack easily and while Hazedarus returned to the car for our walking poles I found the second. One thing led to another and eventually we had found so many of them it seemed daft to turn back so we may as well carry on, and we did. We suspect there may be the odd tack missing but determination and commonsense had us at GZ soon enough and signing the log.
Thank you Moneydork.

I had planned on doing this one on my last visit on new years eve however it was pouring with rain so I snuggled down in my tent instead. Started off moving quickly from one marker to the next until about halfway when I spent ages trying to find the next. Eventually I decided to go in the direction I suspected was correct and eventually found another one. I reckon I missed one or possibly two, just passed here was a couple of fallen trees and I suspect a marker maybe in there somewhere so I got passed there and got lucky with the next one and soon after was happy to see 3 markers together. It was a lot quicker getting back to the car. Thanks for a fun adventure Moneydork

#7579

What a mission! And of course a lesson learned again: Always create waypoints or use the tracking function to find your way back. We started a bit too early, so missed the first marker, but once we were on the right trail we could make our way to the cache. Actually, that was easier than expected and all markers can be seen clearly - sometimes it took a bit longer but they are all there. And what a relief to finally have this box in our hands (thanks for the replacement!).
The way back was the real adventure - we set waypoints on our way up but not enough so missed one or two turns. Our GPS device showed at one point that we were just 30 meters off to the main track - but 30 meters can be long and hard. We lost a bit the track down and started a bit bush bashing in the middle of the night. We guess it took longer back to the car than finding the cache.
However, it was great - and the weather was one reason for that. No rain, full moon, warm.....who cares that we got almost lost
Thanks for setting up this cache. We hope that it will last a few more years.

It was so long ago that we found this cache and I never marked the final so I asked the CO for the final coords so we could maintain it for him. I thought we were being smart trying to do a straight beeline for GZ. *Ha!* Well after all the rain it was quite slippery and wet so it took us alot longer to get to GZ than we thought (and we didnt bring torches!!) I had totally underestimated the bush from our last visit and it had changed alot. Long story mucher shorter after we replaced the cache we had to make our way out of the very dark bush by 1 cellphone light for the both of us. Alot of slips and mud later and we were out!!! The legs were very sore from all the supplejack for a few days after. The cache is now a 400ml sistema with a double bagged log.

I found this back in 2009 and ol Banksiaman1 was looking for the path tag. Righto, lets give it another go. Twice we had to stop and cast a bit circle to pick up the next marker and in a few places we made the line of sight a bit more visible but after an hour it was in hand again. As he says, the cache needs a new logbook and bag as it wasn't done up properly. Cheers, still fun the second time!

My first night cache with kiwi moose showing me how to do them. Cache half full of water and everything rusty and mushy. Needs some love. The Wekas are friendly.

What a journey! Actually we gave up after 2 hours when we were not able to find the next tack. Did we go in a circle? How many tacks did we find? 15? We stopped counting them after a while. It was very interesting how the different birds woke up at night time and we are sure that one noise came from a Kiwi. We are disappointed that we could not find the cache but we hope to come back soon to give it another go.

Its Easter & have teamed up with The Seagnoid & Zara, for a magical mystery tour, exploring the amazing West Coast. Its Saturday and we are off exploring again.
After an awesome walk to "Bearing up" and venturing into Greymouth and a walk along the stop bank we returned here with a new plan. Tried to do this Friday and failed miserably. It was an interesting bush bash made tougher in the dark. It took ages to find many of the lights as they were often obsured. We got into a pattern with the Seagnoid locating the tack - as we only had one good torch, and me scrambling to where he was directing me to the location. Then I would hug the tree until the Seagnoid arrived - but this still did not work and we managed to miss some tacks and ended up going in a circle and then lost tacks and had to give up after 2 hours. I had cleared the last tree of climbers so it was easy to see the following evening where we ended up. OK, lets attack this again and mark each tree with bands of fabric - I ripped up strips from an old sheet. Im sure The Seagnoid thought I was mental with this idea but it worked a treat. The bands could be seen from any angle. Getting towards the ridge and The Seagnoid realises he has left his GPS behind. Dah. So I have a peaceful break listening to the night sounds while he returns to get his toy. Then its onwards again - finding the firetacks and me scrambling through the forest to the new location, tree branding and vegetation clearing while the Seagnoid catches up, to locate the next one. Ended up hugging the ground a few times but no physical damage. The end location provided an easy cache find and the return trip was a lot faster and very easy with all my track markers. Hopefully we retrieved them all. A challenging night cache -off track in the forest at night - but enjoyable. It was greats to see Zara was still waiting patiently back at the carpark and we stayed here for the night. Cheers.

On a big Easter caching mission with ZaraBus and TaybeeDragon. Lots of crawling through mines, climbing hills, walking through bush. And yet we only covered a tiny bit of the West Coast, between Greymouth and Hokitika.

So, here we are again, after failing big time last night. Again we parked up Zara for the night, and set off a little before true nightfall. This time we were prepared - saw, knife, and strips of sheet. At each tack we cleared the vegetation around it - many were covered in rata vine, one was as thick as my thumb. The very first firetack, on the path, was not even visible from 5m away. We fixed that. I did not have the heart to knock over a whole tree fern, so firetack 2 is still not visible from firetack 1, just walk in an obvious direction for a bit and you should see it. Of course there may be a closer firetack, we looked but did not find it. At each tack the Dragon tied a strip around it to ensure we don't get turned around again. Turned out to be a brilliant idea.
At about half way through I realised that I had forgotten to bring my GPS, to help us navigate back out. I used the strips to find my way back, got the GPS and came back. Duh! I used the strips to find my way out! In the end we didn't use the GPS. The strips worked fine.
There were a couple of other places where the next tack was not visible from the last, just walk in an obvious direction (there won't be many) and you'll find it. The final was a surprise - a) that we found it, given the last cacher's DNF, and B) that we did not see the 3 tacks marking the final until standing right beside it. Under the 3 is a fourth at the hide itself, it was that one I saw. I have trimmed more tree fern fronds, now they are clearly visible. Some dick had returned the cache upside down, but the seal was good. Dropped in a favourite, hopefully a pathtag (I can't remember). Wandered back out, collecting the strips on the way.
Thank you, Moneydork. Awesome cache, well worth the way extra time we put in making sure the firetacks are visible again. heck, even the maintenance was fun!

On a big Easter caching mission with ZaraBus and TaybeeDragon. Lots of crawling through mines, climbing hills, walking through bush. And yet we only covered a tiny bit of the West Coast, between Greymouth and Hokitika.
We spent the night here, but before that headed into the bush. A bit of a problem at the start, finding what turned out to be the second tack, but after that things went fine, until we missed one tack, found the next, then found the one we missed. As a result of that we got turned around and lost the trail altogether. Abandoned the hunt, but before hitting the sack, came up with improvements to our technique here. We'll be back tomorrow night for another go!

Went up after dark to check this one out - took a few minutes to locate the right direction from the waypoint, then we were off. Went well at the start, steadily picking up the tacks one by one. Not sure if I marked them all, but logged 11 waypoints (which made it easy to get back out). But then we simply couldn't find another tack to go to - must have been close to the cache. Spent 25 minutes looking without success. So had to give it up as was getting late and we were riding the cycle trail the next 3 days.

Got back to the car just after 11 pm, having spent an hour and a half. Despite this enjoyed the walk. At one stage we heard a bird calling nearby in the ferns then rustling quickly away - sounded a bit like a Kiwi, but probably not this close to town (maybe Weka, there are so many around). Disappointing to DNF, but will keep watch and have another go next time we are on the Coast.

We realised a few months ago that we had never found a cache on the 14th and there not much left to find near home so this one was put on the radar. We are not very good night cachers so we rangled my Big Brother into coming with us (didnt take any arm twisting at all) Having success with using glowsticks about a month ago we brought a 12pack hoping that would be enough but after reading a few logs back we realised we were gonna need more than that so brought another 12 pack. We entered the bush at roughly 8:45pm it was still a little light but the bush was dark enough to eluminate the firetacks. We hung a glowstick at roughly every second firetack we found. While wondering through the bush we were very lucky to spot an owl! (I had never seen one apart from on TV) but unfortunately we were too slow with the camera. We did get a shot but its very blurry. The cache was easy to find as it was fully exposed beneath the firetacks (hadnt been found for 19months) The swaps were a bit wet but the logbook was nice and dry. The way out was easily found using the glowsticks collecting them all on the way out. We only ended up using 12. Got back to the car an hour later. Thanks for the night time fun and the challenge:) Happy Valentine Evening!

Great wee cache. Came out here this evening with Pohutukawa and did it under the full moon - not that that helped Nice stroll through the bush, and cache was found. Then took the direct route out, which Pohutukawa claimed was a lot more fun. Fun cache, well set up, thanks! Cheers Gav [9550]

Cannot believe this cache was only done once last year! and I am the first for this year. Give it a go it is great fun! Was a full moon as well. Nice long night cache, with good trail, although a couple of areas I had to have a bit of a look around for the next marker. Cache found in good condition. A bit of a challenge getting back out! Was certainly worthy of a favourite point from me. SL TFTC

Great adventure! I'd managed to plan to spend a night in Greymouth, to have a go at more night caches. Really enjoyed this - moreporks, full moon rose over the carpark area as I was returning. Quite a serious challenge!!

Well, there was one cache I was wondering about doing when I was coming over here and this was it. With a heap of rain in the recent days I was wondering what it would be like - creek crossings, mud banks, swamps etc? Only one way to find out isn't there!

A quick txt back to the Mrs at home to say where I was going and with two torches off I went. A bit of difficulty here and there with difficulty finding the tacks and one moment when I doubled back on myself for a few tacks (hmm, that dosen't quite seem right haven't I done this a few minutes ago...) and sooner or later (the latter!) the cache was found.

Lots of night time bush noises about but nothing too close it seemed, not even a possum's eyes shining back at me. The trip back to the cache was pretty simple with the GPS track log until I decided that I was smarter and tried to take a short cut. Doh, wrong idea. Backtracked and decided not to be a smart alec and followed the route in.

A very interesting cache with lots of crashing around. Funnily enough, the only time I slipped up properly and ended up on my wrist and backside was only 2 feet from the start of the walking track on the way out - perhaps thinking about the car instead of where to put my feet! Thanks for the cache Moneydork, it was a good fun one!

Found with houza this was our 2nd attempt we went in the rain and with not enough tourches the first time but we had lots of fun cant wait to do more like this

We had a bit of fun doing this, with mongyspeed. Came prepared with a torch each after mongyspeeds previous experience. Getting to the cache proved to be the easy part as we hadnt properly worked out how to use the trakback function! Great night time cache. TFTC Cheers

Wow. What an experience. Mr B did this by himself - nothing there in the dark that isn't there during the day - and he loves the bush, so that wasn't the problem. In the end he made it a lot harder for himself by having too strong a torch: you can't see the tacks reflecting as they are lit up with the tree. He only discovered this as he exhausted torch 1 on the way in and switched to torch 2 on the way back. Had given Mrs B an expectation about a likely return time, and a "start to get alarmed now" time. Returned about 45 minutes after the "start to get alarmed" time . So I wasn't so much spooked as relieved - once to finally find the blasted thing (how many damn tacks in a bag anyway!? ), and once again as I jumped back onto the track. Wish I had been able to do this with someone else, as it gets a little monotonous after a while . Didn't slip or fall over once - very proud of myself. In amongst all the wild weather we've been having, it was wind still and only the occasional light drizzle, which for this place, is practically tropical. Thank you very much for putting this one out - it's one of the best (and the longest!) night caches I've done. I suspect it may have been a little harder today as another year's growth and general change in the foilage seems to have obscured a few points - I had to do a bit of a grid search before picking up the trail again. I didn't use the GPS to mark my way back, and even with my very unique secret method, I still managed to find two spots where it took me a minute to regain my bearings! Once again, thanks for this cache - apart from the near S&R callout by Mrs B (another hour would have done it!), it was great.



[This entry was edited by beltfamily on Saturday, October 03, 2009 at 10:33:38 PM.]

Done in the company of the owner and certainly the most adventurous of this type of cache I have ever done, probably not a good idea to attempt on your own.
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Waited till nearly midnight to ensure maximum spookiness and certainly an eerie feeling making you way off track to such an extent in the still of the night at this hour. Found the cache OK and managed a pretty good line back to the car using the tracklog, very pleased that the 60CSx had captured it all despite the heavy cover. The return was even more amazing, to be making your way up and down through the dense forest solely guided by your GPSr. Regular hooting of faraway moreporks added to the atmosphere, very cool!

Thoroughly enjoyed this one, a must do if you enjoy firetack night caches.
Many thanks for setting it up..

Finding this was much better fun than staying at the campground and watching the NPC final between Canterbury and Wellington. Stored waypoints at every firetack I found (I think I never saw #2 firetack as the next I saw was quite a distance from the 1st) and hung 1 cylume stick to help find the way home – should have used a couple more , particularly in the early stages. Arrived at the cache at 8.48pm. - TB. Came home by GOTOing every 3rd waypoint. Thanks Moneydork for the effort you put in setting this up.

With this cache I thought how would Moneydork try it, in the daylight of course, it took 45min from car and back, neat place, would be a neat cache at night but it was still fun to do in the daylight.

Many Thanks Bitsprayer

One of my favourite caches by far!
This was such a great cache to end the day.
This is my fifth cache today.
aviationben and jakethemuss. came along aswell.
Thankyou for the awesome cache.

Actionman4lyf.

A great little night time adventure to find this one. One of the best so far. TFTC

WOW .....

What a wicked cache never found one like this before and it was my first mystry and ive fould like 50 caches so it was a really good experance found with a fellow geocacher in the pitch BLACK it took a while to find the first reflecter as we were not sure how big they really were but once we found the first one we were off i didnt expect there to be half as many reflecters as there were we used the idea of using glow sticks i before we found the cache i went down to the $2 shop and got 24 glowsticks and we used 23 of them so we were VERY lucky even on the way out with the glowsticks we still almost got lost but in the end once we found the cache i left my first ever TB of my own

Thanks very much for this cache much fun was had

Left my first TB of my own

NZ Rocket Rider

YAY 50th Cache and what a cache. Got lost on the way in and got lost on the way out. Great cache. Took Geocoin and lefy 2 geocoins.

Did this one with White-Fox

Visted the cache with the owner, his son, and a new cacher White-Fox. Picked up a Sextant geocoin and dropped off a Canada Capital geocoin, plus one not listed at geocaching.com.

Drove past in the afternoon and thought "I wonder... it's pretty dark in these forests even in the day". Went for a wee look and managed to follow the trail for nine firetacks but then lost it. What was worse was that I lost my way out - and that was in the day!!

Return at night, being very very sure I was going to be careful. Stopped and put a waypoint in at every second tack. Found the trail quite easy to follow (OK night does really make a difference ) and found the cache. Actually managed to find my way out this time with no dramas! Definitely the highest terrain night cache I've done - great fun, thanks.

We collected together a team to tackle this one and it was a fun way to do the cache! A good team effort with everyone contributing. We got to the cache a little more quickly than we expected, but took perhaps a little bit longer to get out than to get in. We only nearly got lost the once, when we just started to head back from the cache, but with a good crew of people looking in different directions we located a firetack and then the first of our glowsticks, and it was all good after that! We found the glowsticks quite helpful - we used 5 - as although we did mark waypoints also, we didn't have great accuracy under the trees.
Various swaps were made, but still a couple of trackables there for the next finders!
+ Terra Girl Tile TB
-Glowing Midnight Geocoin

Found with Annie and PB, Pinot Noir. This was a very fun cache! Highly recommend using glowsticks. As you can see from Annies post with the navigation issues we had on the way out, the sticks made things easier. Good to meet Pinot Noir.
TFTC

Done in the company of Anne & PB, and JemNZ.
This reminded us of the Waitangi day event cache, where after it wound up, a group of attendees, GANG-CACHED cossies "My old hut" cache. Its a bit of a novelty, when a group of cachers go cache hunting. Another thing that surprised, was the fact that the bush was so dry, after the recent good weather. PB took a group mug shoot at the final. Great adventure. Thanks MD. +Midnight Rose coin - geo volunteer coin.

FTF! Headed out here just as darkness was coming upon us. We went to the object in question without the use of the GPS and success was had. Off we headed into the depths of the bush. The trail has been well placed and seemed to go on and on and on... B started making waypoints at the markers so we had a track back and we had about 20 by the time we made it to the cache! That was definately one of our longest night time caches to date and we have done a few. Stumbled upon the cache at the end before noticing the markers - oops. Overall a nicely executed night time cache. Would recommend following your track log out, even with us trying to do that we went off the beaten track slightly. Ground was nice and dry underfoot for us. TNLN Cheers!

Just gave it a test drive and I have to say that the trip back out is quite deceptive. The use of cylume glow sticks or some other system to mark the way out is recommended. Don't go for a colour that could lead to you mistaking the moon for a track marker (we fell for that trick during our test drive).

Added two geocoins - about to start their journeys.

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