Rai Valley (Nelson/Marlborough) Rai Valley, South Island, New Zealand
By Kiwi_Explorer on 24-Dec-08. Waypoint GC1K304

Lovely memorial but could not locate sadly

#15,555. Parked for a short walk in Rai Valley. The GZ was all quiet at the time of our visit. Found after a bit of a search, initially in the wrong spots. The cache was in good condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.*Thanks for the geocache placement, and for bringing us to this site, and **.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.**.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.*---### LET US HAVE A BLOCK PARTY!!! ###On **May 3rd, 2025**, we will be celebrating 25 years of geocaching in **Rotorua, New Zealand** with a special **Block Party** event. Join us to celebrate 25 years of this amazing game, and that the very first geocache hidden outside of the United States, 25 years ago, was hidden here in New Zealand.You do not want to miss this event, so check out the ["25 Years of Geocaching NZ! (GCAKR25)" event page]( https://coord.info/GCAKR25) and [event website](http://25years.geocache.nz) for more details, join the [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/924894455969387) group, and sign up to the [email list](http://25years.geocache.nz?p=4) to get updates...If you intend to come, please make sure you get your ["Will Attend" log]( https://www.geocaching.com/live/geocache/GCAKR25/log) onto the page as soon as you can in order to assist with planning the first ever Block Party in New Zealand.**Happy caching and we will see you in 2025!**---

Found it, instead of fish on we were cache on, spent a bit of time looking from the wrong angle then thought I would have a look from another angle then we were on. Clever wee hide tftc found with aalis_01 on our way to Blenheim for the night.

Found with Elliot13, hes the wee brains behind this find as I was looking in the completely wrong place. Clever hide.

We looked for this in July last year with our older grandson with no luck. While he was at school today, we bought the younger one over for a trip and had a look for this one. A wide search area turned up nothing, like last time, then I spotted a suspicious item at the same time Andy did. Let Mister Three put his hand in for the cache. Good to have this one off the list. tftc#9717

No luck today

Just arrived from the North Island heading over to Blenheim, but took my time to stop for a cache or two or three Well foundTftc

TFTCI needed a break. So this was a good place to stretch my legs

On a two week holiday from Australia and enjoying the scenic delights of both north and south islands of New Zealand. During our journey, we are taking the opportunity to grab a cache or two. Today we are leaving the North Island at Wellington and traveling to the South Island via Interislander Ferry Kaitaki. Once arriving at Picton, well disembark the ferry and continue to Nelson. Enjoying the scenic drive to Nelson. Stopped in the sleepy town of Rai Valley to grab the cache. Took a few minutes, but finally found it.Cache and log in great condition. TFTC. TNLN. SL.Find # 1638.

A little bit misleading. The rotten possum nearby was horrid but found the cache eventy. TFTC

With half a tank of fuel in Bumblebee crying to be used, I buzzed out to Rai Valley to tick off a couple of multis. A brief stop here on the way. Yay, new container. A bit tricky to get out of its hidey hole but all good. Dropped off a TB.

Cache replaced today.

This geocacher reported that the cache might be missing.

Since my last DNF, I talked to a previous finder who gave me some direction. A subsequent search also failed to find this. The previous finder checked it out on the way to Nelson in the weekend and has confirmed the cache is definitely missing. Time for some CO intervention or archiving.

DNF with NZDi, however looking at previous logs, this one looks far from straight forward. We will return after doing some more research.

TFTC Kiwi Explorer

Gah! Good look around but no joy today.

Family holiday time...a couple nights Kaikoura, a couple Picton & finish off in Nelson.....
Kaikoura and Picton done...time to head to Nelson via the wiggly road....
Thanks. One of only a couple caches today....nice to tick this one off after DNFing 6 years ago!

Almost gave up on this one but found on the way back to the car!!!
Thanks for the placement

Trouvée rapidement ! Notre dernière de la journée ! En route pour Nelson !

I started my great and unique round trip over the South Island in Christchurch.
My first major stopover was at Lake Tapeko - here I hiked up to Observation Mountain.
I then planned two days in Mount Cook NP with some unforgettable hikes. My big goal was the Mueller Hut - on a super strenuous hike I reached it.
I continued my journey over the lonely Danseys Pass to Dunedin.
Afterwards I drove along the Southern Scienic Route via Invercargill to Manapouri for some days. On this route I visited many sights and enjoyed the beautiful nature again and again.
I already booked a tour to the Doubtful Sound in advance - another highlight on my tour.
Afterwards I drove on to Queensown and Wanaka. From there I continued over the Haast Pass to the lonely Jackson Bay with storm and heavy rain. Afterwards I drove along the west coast always in pouring rain.
The rain stopped the whole west coast, but I had good rainwear with me. Only high up in Nelson the sun shone again.
Soon I reached the east coast again in Picton and Blenheim and the sun was shining again.
After a few days I travelled back to Christchurch via the beautiful town of Kaikoura.
At the end of my round trip I spent a few more days in Christchurch and its surroundings.
I visited many geological sites and found many caches on my round trip. In Rangiora I visited an event.
I travelled 3418 km and take home a lot of positive experiences.
Thanks to many beautiful caches I was also shown unique locations, historical sites and geological features.
I am overwhelmed by the fantastic and ever changing nature on the South Island of New Zealand - I will definitely come back.

Many thanks to all owners
Team sissifalke

First find of the day. I mentioned to tS that I had searched for this on Thursday night (with Jo) and we could not find it.
Knowing I was swinging by today I held off on logging a DNF. In the end a 5 minute search today was all it took. All good. TFTC Kiwi Explorer.

No plans for geocaching today for me as it doesn’t really fill any of my goals, but the Seagnoid has some work to do in Nelson on his railway series extension.
So with regular partner TBD in the North Island, he kindly asked me along to help hide some, fix some, and generally just as a sounding board for placement ideas and anything else.
Ok, I’m in.
A lovely day but not without some minor dramas, most notably a stuttering geomobile that just about resulted in an AA call out (and did result in a failed push start attempt) before we coaxed it back into action.
We ventured as far as Belgrove and worked our way back. A few caches today - 15 or so, as we shared our knowledge on some and checked in on those about to be archived.
In the afternoon we popped in for a chat/water/coffee etc with the SoBads who had invited us round and were great hosts.
Thanks all COs, we had a good day.

At least my 2nd attempt at this. Eluded me previously and for quite some time today. Had looked at spot a couple of time before coming up with the goods. TFTC Nicely done. Worth a Fav.

The GPS just wouldn't settle down for me today.

Today we were on our way to Blenheim for a CITO event. We found many caches along the way. Some good, some eh, lets just call it a pill container. Anyway, once arriving at Blenheim we were then punched in the face with the fact that THERE'S NO ACCOMODATION.......... Lucky that we have a friend in Havelock .

Took a while to find this cache but luckily just found it seconds before we were going to admit defeat. TFTC.

Day 15 in Newzealand. Today we drove from Nelson to Picton and took the ferry to Wellington.
A very beautiful Country with lovely places. We were able to find nice Caches and See Lots of interesting places.
Thank you for showing us this place.
Tftc

Heute ist Halbzeit beim Urlaub von mir und Heckenstürmer. Auch der Tag des Inselwechsel steht an. Von der Süd auf die Nordinsel. Somit ein paar gemütliche Stunden auf der Fähre verbracht und am Abend den ältesten Cache von Neuseeland besucht.

Greets from Switzerland

Hingis20, eltee291 and I are on our way to Nelson today. Hoping to get all the ones we can on the way. Tftc

Pretty quick find this morning with eltee291 and crman1 on the way out to Nelson. GPS was bouncing all over the place but we found the cache after a couple minutes of looking. Signed the log and replaced as found. Visiting from BC, Canada. Thanks for the cache, Kiwi_Explorer!

Found today with hingis20 and crman1. It was a tough one because the GPS wouldn’t settle down but we wouldn’t be put off. It was supposed to be a relatively nice day out that way but the inconsistent weather followed us and in Nelson we encountered some downpours. Didn’t stop us from caching though. TFTC

Today we made a trip from Nelson to Wellington via Picton and the Interislander ferry, thereby visiting many new sightseeing locations and looking for caches, too. On this trip we searched, found and logged a lot of caches. The weather was between good and very good all day long, colder in the morning but it got warmer in the afternoon. Sun was our compagnion the whole trip.
Almost no muggels observed us as they had other things to do than observing harmless geocachers.

Thanks to Kiwi_Explorer for showing us this location and for the fun we had at Rai Valley (Nelson/Marlborough). The search we had here today didn't take too much time.

Greetings from Germany and hope to see you soon in the forest.

TFTC says H_M_A @ 22. Oktober 2018 @ 07:34 Uhr @ [#12088](https://coord.info/GC1K304)

Over to Blenheim to drop StreetGamer at Woodbourne for onwards delivery to his cadet camp in Auckland, so my ‘reward’ was to get some caches whilst over the hill.

This cache has taunted on my several trips since my DNF especially as there had been a number of finds since.

I rechecked all the usual suspects but then a previous log suggested I might need to look a little differently. In doing this something new caught my eye and a bit of shuffling and fiddling later and I spied the edge of the container.

Just in time too since as I was replacing the cache a local started to wander up the path on her way to the top. I’ll have to save those two for another day but for now that’s my lot. 19 finds, 1 DNF and 1 DNA in about 3 hours kept me happy on my way back to Nelson.

Thanks Kiwi_Explorer
#2095

Logged using Cachly.

Auch hier bin ich auf meiner Neuseelandrundreise lang gekommen und ich danke allen Owner für Ihre Mühe.

Took a little while to find, but find we did. What a great little shrine. I could well imagine Anzac Day which is Wednesday this week, being held there.

We have a new challenge and I have a couple of days of leisure before a minor knee op coming up. So the idea was to get as many points as I could before then.
This is a real test of the knee - but taking it real slow I managed to get to the top with no problems. Here was the first stop - and a QEF with a TB grab too.
TFTC Kiwi_Explorer

Swung past here with ABL973 and looked everywhere before spotting what could be it...and it was! Thanks Kiwi_Explorer.

This was a gem of a location to discover today and then we found the cache well hidden so that it will last almost forever here. A good sized container meant this would be a good host for a travel bug that I've had since Australia. Maybe it will make it to the Wellington Mega? Thanks Kiwi_Explorer, nicely done.

We have had a couple of torchlight searches here over the past couple of months. We were passing again today and as it was still light we thought we would have another look. We both spotted the likely place at the same time and sure enough it was a very easy find. Hard to imagine how we did not spot it last time. Thanks for the smiley

Took a while but got there in the end. Tftc

This was the fourth day of my driving trip down to Oamaru for Geofest 2017. I stopped every five to ten kms or so along the way to grab a cache. This expanded my driving time to a total of two weeks to get there and home again. I ended up going a total of 3,500 kms.
With a few recent DHFs, I was surprised to find this one. TFTC.

Nah. Too cunning for me today. Getting shady, starting to drizzle, need to be getting home.

Good cache and ja nice place

Good cache and a nice place

We noticed the recent DNF so stopped to check on the cache today. A new hand rail new gz but cache still there undisturbed.

Checked all likely places, has it gone?

At the going down of the sun we will remember them, even if I couldn't find the cache.

Couldn't work this out from your clues - I guess 'under' was the important one for us.
Thankful Mr HG was with me today - he found them all!!
TFTC

Took Daddy's keen eyes to find. Our first one in the Sth Island

Easy find lovely spot

Easy find lovely spot

My weekly trip to Nelson. After a short and steep tree up the hill for some much needed exercise, and a cache of course, I came down and grabbed this one. I needed the hint. I had better carry on, so I'm not late! Tftc!

A quick find travelling to Nelson. Thanks for the placement

Got stuck for a wile but then started thinking pretty easy great find

GPS not much help so looked for other geocaching "signs" . Hints were still helpful. Thanks for the cache

HAd a look and struggled to find what I was looking for. Had a sit down and spotted almost straight away, (and not on the seats). Cheers.

ANZAC weekend time for a wee road trip. Saturday to Nelson.

Thanks to the CO's for the hides. Cheers.

Found quite easily

First I found some similar notice at the memorial but in the end I got it.
Thanks for this stop on the way to Marlborough.

GPS wasn't being totally honest with this one but after some frustration we eventually found it. Tftc

Found it - TftC

Found it on our new zealand trip to the south.
Thank you for all!

Dropped in new log.

We were particularly anxious to find this one on our drive to Nelson to fill in one of our date hidden boxes. We both braved the rain here and started exploring the corners. Luckily it didn't take too long to find. Unfortunately the log is extremely wet and the cache could do with some TLC. Thanks for placing

Mr Sandalwood Cottage went to look for this one and went bush bashing when he really didn't have to. When he got back to the car all I could do was laugh at him as his beanie was covered in twigs. Oh well at least he found the cache. TFTC

[green] Back into Nelson , this time I have a non-geocacher with me - a tourist from Germany, and we are off to Nelson to show him a bit of the South Island. And do a few caches along the way. Actually I am going to Nelson for an event, an earth cache and a puzzle cache, in order to claim a bunch of souvenirs And to do a few geocaches along the way!
Like this one. Took more hunting than it should have, but we got there. Log was quite damp, which was a surprise given its hiding place. Was able to sign it, though.

TFTC

Easy quick find. Cache was left slightly opened and was wet when I found it, so could not write in log book. Needs some tlc! Tftc

Good spot. GPS made me walk around a bit before settling finally. Tftc look forward to more!

So close may as well walk up and grab this one too. Found cache but realised we had left the pen in the camper and so my cache buddy headed back to get the whole camper including the pen and cahe was all signed off ni were are we going to stay tonight no more caches for now. Cheers for this one.

I am on a campervanning geocaching trip with my good friend BBear. We stayed the night in Kaikoura and are heading through to Nelson.
We walked a bit further down the road. Alas we forgot a pen so we had to walk back to get one. Oh well. Thanks for the exercise.

Had a good scout around with a couple of newbies, but no luck today

Got muggled on this one and too wet 2 stay

In Blenheim to day to see some old war planes and catch up with family. So after to meany cups of tea it's time to head home with so meany caches to chose from hear is a selection of them and thanks for the caches. What a reminder all the new crosses are at this time of year

Nice easy.cache. hide it a bit more. Log book damp.

Found it after a bit of a scratch. TFTC.

Quick find.

In Richmond on a wee family holiday. Headed out for the day with KiwiMoose on a caching mission through St Arnaud and up the Waiau Valley- to save on the possibility of RSI we signed logs as KMTG.
A long fun day. 150 caches total. Missed it by torchlight somehow. I'm sure it's there- Another day.

Tftc
Did not see the trackable that is listed as being in there
A great place to remeber

Had to get our thinking caps on. Found after looking in the many spots it could be found.

Found with Bareto. This one had us stumped fir w while but it was eventually found!

For the sake of sanity we set off with sonia26642 for a crazy geocaching trip, aiming to cache until we drop. The main destination was Nelson and the ‘surrounding’ area, but then we ended up covering a few miles in three northernmost regions, plus a few in Canterbury. We were signing/stamping the log as 'Team Polak' or ‘TP’ for the two of us on this trip to save logbook space. We found a lot of different caches, city ones, road side, park side, up a hill and on an island, and we enjoyed every single one of them. It was good to be a professional thingfinder for a few days!

We had great fun and are grateful to all CO’s who placed caches for us to find, and help restore our sanity before returning to our other non-geocaching lives!!

Come and join us the next New Zealand geocaching MEGA event!! Register your interest now at www.nzmega2015.com to receive newsletter updates and be the first to know. It will be a great event, come and be a part of it!!

12/10/2014 8:11:00 AM
5183
This was one of the most epic weeks ever, and definitely my most epic caching week ever.

Me and mum headed up on a holiday north to Nelson and very wider surrounds. In total during the trip, we found almost 500 caches! (470 odd I think, but final results are yet to be in! ) We covered about 3000 odd km I think too. Crazy! And had our absolute best caching day ever too at 160 found. Spend 9 days travelling, caching, and having the best time ever!!

So sorry about not so epic logs, as otherwise this would probably take me the rest of my life to log, especially with two big events to organise coming up! Eeek!!

Almost every single log we signed as 'Team Polak' to avoid needing to write out both usernames taking up space on logsheet - as well as precious caching time!! Haha.

Consec caching day # 707

TFTC!!

-------------------------------
For info on the next NZ mega, and to pre- register, go to:
www.nzmega2015.com

Took a wee while to locate; wandered away up the little walkway and found it when we returned. TFTC.

Hunted around for a minute or two. GPS all over. Looked up from where I was and tried to explain what I could see justanurse standing beside. Took some time but it was where the cache was. Tftc

Found after a bit if a hunt tftc

Passing through so walked up and soon saw cache sitting where expected. GPS read 3m.

A DNF for us on the way through. Perhaps cleaned up in ANZAC day preperations??

Took a bit of hunting around, luckily there were four of us to cover all bases

Another nice area to sit and enjoy.

Thanks for that KE

Should have trusted the GPS a little more TFTC

#1887

Well that was embarrassing. What can I say?!? At least I've made amends by coming back and finding it. TFTC .

Aha. I see some more random dnfs further down the page. I shall return.

DNF, spent our allocated time searching without success

No luck for us here today but a lovely peaceful spot to stop thanks Kiwi Explorer

Found while on a Labour Weekend excursion to Marlborough with TRJ.. Nice easy cache, but I guess they all are once you find them! T4TC!

On the way to Nelson with hopes of another dot-day, beating PB, busting past 1400
East find today

This one had SAFCman, Osteoboss and myself stumped for a while however reading some previous logs helped and we eventually zoned in on the hide. A place full of respectful memories. TFTC!!

Mr Cacher soon tracked this one. Nice area. TFTC

Nice find with OsteoBoss and Chrisb34. Nice location - would never have stopped to visit otherwise. TFTC

TFTC

Had great fun with this found it when the old chaps couldn't!

very sneaky had to have couple of looks for this great fun