Key to the Cave (Bay of Plenty) Bowentown, North Island, New Zealand
By No Fixed Aboder on 25-Jan-09. Waypoint GC1M47V

Having not been found for a while and I am unable to maintain it due to the terrain have decided to archive it

So so disappointing to see this great cache archived ??????

Had a good look around but had no joy

Not in the correct place. Cache is not in a cave or any place you need to squeeze into! The location is called Cave Bay

I could have sworn I found the right cave. Squeezed in and had a really good hunt. No luck. Went for a further look with no success.

What an amazing location though! The stairs down, and rock formations were incredible. Don't look up

What an amazing spot for a cache! We were blown away by the walk down the stairs! such a beautiful area! Sadly we didn't find the cache, pretty sure we were in the right place (had to suck in the gut to get in there) but no luck. Loved the walk anyway.

I've found objects mentioned by hint but no container nearby and several broken glasses.... Thanks anyway.

Easier to spot the rock mentioned at mid to low tide

This was a tough area to search, especially after three days of rain. High tide too so I’m not sure if the flat rock I was looking at was the “one”. Found many possible hiding places but came up empty handed.

Enjoying a drive around Waihi Beach and Bowentown after cycling along part of the Hauraki Rail Trail. Found our way up to the nearby Pa site. Checked if there was a cache hidden anywhere nearby which then led us down to this very interesting location. Tried to follow the hints but maybe were not helped with the tide being in as we could not determine a likely starting location. Anyway great spot. Maybe we will be back one day.......

Swapping tb's

Yay 3rd time lucky. We decided to have a crack at this one again whilst we were showing friends around the area. After rereading the clues, managed to locate it but had to ask around for a pen to sign the log. TFTC

No luck today.
I'm trying to find this cache as it has my travel bug 'TRAIN TRAVELLER' in it. I was hoping to grab it and put it in a cache that is bit easier to find.
If anyone is lucky to find this cache could you please grab the the travel bug and get it traveling again.
Cheers everyone. Happy caching.

We had 2 very eager 7 year olds on the hunt. At first we shot up too high to a large rock door. Quick team chat and the hunt was back on. Exploring the area. Beautiful day. We have left a trackable. from us... TFTF

No luck for us unfortunately although it seems unlikely to have been muggled considering where it is and our GPS was bouncing all over the place so we suspect it is just that we didn't find the right spot. Still a very worthwhile visit as this is such a great location.
We'll be back.

We hunted everywhere but unfortunately no luck for us today

Looked all over the place to no avail

Very pleased to pick this one up today after several previous attempts. 17m out on my Garmin obviously due to its location by the cliffs. It wasn’t nearly as far down the beach as I had thought and I struggled to use the hint but the very last part of the hint was helpful. Glad to turn this blue face into a smiley at last TFTC

I am travelling and every log i write is different no copy and paste !!!!!.

Up from Timaru for a wedding to see my niece get married.
I have studied this cache for quite a while now as the DT is a missing one for me .
I alloted myself 2 hours to search for it and had 15 minutes to spare
Nobody on the beach at low tide and the clue rock clearly visible.
After running out of places to look i decided to widen the search area.... bing bam boom.... there it was.
Thank you for bringing me to this spot and the adventure i had.

Giving this one a favourite for the adventure and the DT

This must have been at least the sixth visit for us - but finally found it!!

Like lots of others, our gps was off quite a bit - probably due to cliffs and phone reception is dodgy down there.

Advice for other DNFs - read the hint and take what others have said.

TFTC ( at last!!!!)

No joy, phone got down to 1% so aborted. Had a good hunt

Down here for some R&R with Mrs stik-a-crane whilst junior cacher was away at respite, and EIR-0T was tramping around Rangatoto for a DOE qualifyer.

Came at high tide so some of the clues were not visible, but bumped into some part time cachers whom gave a little support for us to both make the find.....


TFTC.

After a good hour of searching and reading previous logs, we finally found it. Definitely worth spending time down there looking at the wrong spots though. Released a wild animal!

Found as a part of a previous group TanjackMüley, aka WanderingSparrow. Now I'm continuing on my own. TFTC

After a close to half an hour search of top to bottom we made our way back towards the GPS and not where we thought and made the find along with other geo cachers that joined us. We came while high tide and very little beach to walk on. As we signed we assumed the rock was no longer visible but under water and the rock we thought was close to the description threw us off by 25m. At the gz my GPS read: S 37°28.038' E 175°59.272'. thanks for the cache!

Cheers to TanjackMüley who did the hard work for us

TFTC

A number of possible clue candidates for 1 but none very distinctive (perhaps the tide was too far in), and a variety of possibilities for 2 as well, but no cache to be had.

Definitely a low tide, bring a friend cache.
I'll be back.

Couldn't find it again but I do enjoy the walk down here, clambering around the rocks and then climbing back up. Maybe next time...

The tide was high, so we were scrambling all over the rocks, but we couldn’t seem to figure out what the hints were referring to?! Glad we came for it anyway as this spot is magical.

On my first go at this cache the GPS had me way too high up the slope. The tide was coming in, the light was fading and I was fed up of rock scrambling so I pulled the plug. On getting home, I had a good look at the logs and identified a good candidate for the hide. Today, on an outgoing tide, I was able to walk rather than scramble along the beach to my candidate. The cache was found within a few minutes in the second place I checked. All good. TFTC.

Just checking out Waihi for caches to do tomorrow and noticed I havent logged caches i found last time i was here . Tnxpro and myself both found this with the help of previous finders Mcjandels , Nzflossy who were with us for the day so logging now. A very tricky find glad we had help from the others .
Tftc

I stopped here for lunch yesterday (15/11/18) and checked the app for caches. I discovered that I had forgotten to log this cache. This was found with Davidsonclan, NZFlossy and McJandals and it took some time to find, even though we had some help from previous finders.
TFTC

What a spot to find a cache! Grandma was worried sick watching us climb the rocks ... took us a while but once we took a few steps back and reassessed we found the right spot.

Have tried twice to find this one but just can’t seem to locate it.

Over at Waihi Beach this afternoon for some fresh sea air and a bit of exercise with my hubbie. We also managed to collect up a few smileys - but no luck with this one! Thought we had followed the instructions precisely, and looked in numerous places, but today wasn't the day for it. We'll be back another time...

KrystalKath and I are staying at Waihi Beach NZMCA Park for Easter. After yesterday’s terrible day of Geocaching with hardly any contributions to my Planetary Pursuits souvenir hunt, I was determined to make a better fist of it today. With an 8:30 am start Tama the geohound and I walked to ANZAC Bay over the next four and a half hours collecting all the geocaches along the way with only one DNF.
Finally Tama and I have arrived at *Below the King* our mission for today, having found and logged *King of the Beach* yesterday. Rang KrystalKath to pick us up as it’s far to hot to walk the 5.8km back to base. She’ll be awhile.
Oh OK then let’s try Key to the Cave again.
Yesterday couldn’t figure out what to do, but today Tama & I followed the instructions exactly, and Yahoo! a geocache found! Excellent. A lot of fisher muggles here, but their kids were having too much fun playing with Tama than wonder where I’d gone. Another Favourite Point given for the adventure. TFTC

Second time lucky for us finding this one, no muggles about today as the tide was nearly in, but I think we got sprung by other cachers just as we were signing the log!

Took us two days but we found it!!! Yay finally

3rd ever!!!

That was a fun mission!! Nice spot cool cave . Tftc

On the road for work today visiting a client in Bowentown and decided to drive out here and have a look at the view...just beautiful. Saw that there was a cache nearby so went off to find it, dragging my work mate along with me who had never cached before and who was quite excited when I found the thing! Might turn her into a cacher yet. We were definitely huffing and puffing going back up those stairs, workout done for the day I think thanks for the cache and bringing us to this beautiful spot. Attaching photo of the seal who was lazing around near GZ!

We made the initial mistake of turning right at the bottom of the staircase and fumbling around amongst the rocks for a good ten minutes. We decided to turn back and expand the search zone.. After searching for another while we spotted something that matched the hint. Daniel thought he was on to something and as he climbed around Amy found the real spot! A well-hidden cache in a fantastic spot - deserves a favourite point from us! Tftc

After some quality geocaching the day before and a good night rest today day was all about the numbers. I started down in Bowentown and worked my way back home to Auckland. First find and not as easy as I hoped for. Made it down to GZ and searched quite a while before finally making the find. Great spot!. TFTC

Bugger!!! Looked and looked for an hour and nothing. Fairly certain we were looking in the right place / area but nothing for us today.
Might seek some more clues and visit again one day.

Its Been a while and now its time to catch up on all the logging that I've put off to a rainy day (while it may not be raining, where we were heading the roads are still closed hence sitting here doing this).

Back out on the road with HKCB looking to collect a few caches around Waihi along with two more Kayak caches that we were targeting for the day. AFter making a hole in the ones in Waihi it was time to work our way down to Bowentown followed by Athenree. As we have made several runs over here in the past it was an enjoyable trip along the coast cleaning up what we needed to. Thanks to all the CO's for the effort in keeping these caches going. Loved the hunt for this one and soon the cache was in hand.

Thanks for the Cache, thanks for the Placement

Another Geocaching mission with Cats&Dragons, the goal for the day was to focus on the caches around the Waihi/Bowentown/Anthenree area including the cache across the bar on Matakana Island, and while we had the kayak with us a visit to a lonely beach was on the cards as well. The day was hugely successful and a lot of fun, so a big thanks to the CO's for all the placements.

What a great place for a cache. The track down to the beach was pretty steep and the thought of heading back up wasn't massively appealing. With the cliffs nearby the GPS wasn't been very helpful at all so we found what we thought must be the flat rock and just started hunting. Took a few minutes but we eventually found it. Didn't go check out the caves, but will remember this place when I next visit. Thanks for the hide.

After leaving Mr Pom on a convenient bench, Mrs Pom 65 years stupid, went down 120 odd steps to find this one. After falling and nearly breaking a leg, with the tide coming in and cutting off my retreat. I decided l was too old for rock climbing and gave up.

We were down in the BOP for the weekend, staying at Bowentown and these caches in the domain were on our radar first up. Once we got the first waypoint sorted for the nearby multi, we headed over to this trad. Obviously, we had no idea what we were in for as we spent almost an hour looking for this cache! Couldn't complain though as this was a stunning location and surprisingly few muggles around for a Saturday morning.
We struggled at first to make sense of the "flat rock" mentioned in the hint, scrambling aimlessly all over the rocks along the cliff edge. Once we determined the most likely "flat rock" the CO was referring to, we concentrated our search on one particular area and at long last, were rewarded with finding the cache - probably in the last place we hadn't checked! Very relieved to tick this one off the list as you can imagine! Thanks for bringing us to this stunning location and as always TFTC!

Took a while to find but it was great when we found it, thanks

A great location for a cache. Took an age to find this but suppose it is a D4.
Signed the log and replaced as found. Fav point for this one
TYFTC

Had us stumped but we got it! Left a shell we found

Had us stumped but we got it! Left a shell we found

A tough cache! GeoSon came for the adventure - and we shuffled along the cliff edge ~40m in both directions, but were thwarted. Gained some altitude via the steps and gleaned some intel and returned.

Kudos to all those who just find it straight up!

Once we had found the correct hint object, which was unfortunately near and on the other side of the only other person on the beach, steed soon made the find.
We left a turtle keyring from Bohol in the Philippines, where we enjoyed different white sand beaches and attended my son's wedding in May.

Took a bit to find and lots of discussion before finding and such an awesome spot tftc

Not a DNF, but rather a foiled attempt as a family playing cricket with all their gear parked directly below GZ would have wondered what I was up to if I could even have managed to xlumsily & unstealthily made my way up. and didn't want to keep the pirate waiting too long; sadly he refused to hobble along down to see the beautiful beach. Actually, surprised I could manage it! Very sore after 50k under my flippers @ Tarawera yesterday. Thanks for the cache anyway!!! Wouldn't have spotted the stairs & known about the caves otherwise

Well this wasnt as bad as I thought it was going to be. Yes a little bit of searching but spotted something and sure enough came up trumps. This is a cool hide. Well worth a tb placed here. Left a couple toys. Nice dry cache. Had fun finding this in a nice spot. Tftc

2244 Looked for this one a few months back but the tide was that far in that I couldn't even get onto the sand. Back today and determined to make the find. GPS bounced around. Looked at all the possible places but no luck. Back up to the car for my phone. Halfway down I couldn't get coverage so back up again. Once information got it was back down again. This time I found the right area and quickly spotted the hide. Had to wait for others to leave the beach before making the grab.
My earlier memories of Cave Bay was staying at camp ground over 20 years ago. Came down with the kids to explore the caves and have a fish. (Caught a few snapper off the sand). Then there was no steps so the climb up and down was much more challenging. Lovely spot.

Sveppi and I came North for a change, spent Saturday at Waihi Beach and Sunday mostly at Athenree. Sveppi has been fascinated with caves lately (always looking for one to hide a cache) so she wanted to have a look here. The day started nice and sunny, then the wind and rain came, then was partly sunny again as we visited the Athenree wetlands, then as we drive in to Bowentown the heavens open, heavy rain and blustering winds, and now I wonder... do we really want to do this? Sveppi notices that the wind is coming from the opposite direction to the cliff and beach, therefore we should be mostly sheltered. So out come the waterproof jackets and we wander our way down.. Nice beach! The cache takes a long time to find, and I only now notice the (appropriate) D4 rating. By the time we went back and forth, up and down along the rocks, the rain has stopped somewhat and the breeze is drying our jackets. I spot the cache, a container smaller than I expected (would call this a small, not a regular). No key chains in it anymore... But glad I found it. We spent the next 20 minutes exploring the caves, a very cool spot thanks alot for showing us...

Exploring this area on a very wet Sunday... actually it's wet for 5min then dry, then wet, then dry... making it hard to decide what to do. The cave reference has my interest but just as we pull into the carpark the heavens open again and it's pouring down. But wait down the stairs is out of the wind direction so maybe it not that wet. I convince fanfan-77 and we are off down the stairs. What an amazing beach - I love it. For the first 10min of search I confess to doing more hiding under rocks than looking. It then stops raining and we are scouring the area high and low when fanfan-77 claims the find. Not an easy one but fun. TFTC

Failed here yesterday, and had given up today after 10 minutes. Was checking odd places on the way back to the steps and yippeee I can now sign this off the list. Cheers.

A night at The Mount, a short days cache from Waihi Beach. A nice warm sunny drive, unusual for this time of year.

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

No luck today.

Spent way too long here. May come back tomorrow after checking out the logs.

Next time.......

We're visiting from Florida, USA. That was great fun. Thanks for placing the cache.

A beautiful day to be out caching in Bowentown.
Find number 9 today.
I think this is my new favourite spot.
I was climbing and clambering around trying to find this elusive cache when I looked down to see someone watching me. Shortly after he asked if I was looking for a cache.
I was losing hope on finding this one. Two times I found myself inside a very tight cave but note to others, there is no need to actually get into the cave/s.
I read some older logs and found a photo which helped a lot as it gave us a definite area to search. So after 30 minutes of looking I finally saw the roack door and found the cache.
Thanks Tim2guns, nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy this past time as much as I do.
Thanks to No Fixed Aboder for a great cache in a stunning area.

Took a while to find this one with some help
from KmanNZ thanks

One for the fit and agile. With the help of earlier logs and the clues wandercat scrambled up and got it following shouted directions from the beach. No cachers were harmed. Not bad for 70+ year olds. Now we have climb the steps. Thanks

Yeah right. Who wrote dont leave the beach. Wandercat started looking for small person sized cave so scrambled cat like to cliff base. BIG mistake. Eventually ajbenn looked at other logs and very helpful photo. The rest is history. At least the scrambling is keeping this 70 plus cat supple. Try flat rock and 1pm.

Picked up travel bug PCYHWB. Headed for Coromandel.

Tricky stuff

Tide was pretty high for this one so I had to time the waves right to get to GZ. As others have mentioned, it took a while to locate as I went to what I thought was the right rock door but had overshot the mark. After back tracking I noticed something that didn't quite fit which was the cache, yay! Dropped a TB, TFTC!

took very long. was a hard one deffonitly read comments for tips. no trackable found. ttfc

Spent ages looking in the wrong place, once we found the correct flat rock we started to narrow it down, we passed over it a few times before it was located. As others have mentioned you don't need to climb the cliffs.
Thanks for the find and what a great spot !

Well what a way to waste an afternoon. Finally got it after being a long way off on another flat rock. Saw the tree branches and then started looking. What a relief. Thanks for the cache

Awoke after night shift to my wife informing me we're
taking the kids camping at Waihi Beach! I'd heard
stories about this caches' difficultly so I was quite
excited to find it. We probably spent 20mins on the
hunt before I spotted something not quite right.
Macwatts' comment also sums it up pretty well.


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Found it. Co ords not quite correct ....I would describe the flat rock as a "large rock with a flat top" from here look at the bank below the track it is slightly to the right with your back to the sea

Climed over lots of rocks but couldn't find it will have to try again sometime

TFTC. very pretty spot. With keylev. Caves at end of beach a lovely surprise. Bigger than I thought and evocative of Swallows and Amazons. Cache took some time to find. We went a bit terrain 4 for a bit! Finally came across it. No need to scale the cliffs.

Found on 28th December 2015 whilst with my nan and forgot to log this. It took us a while and a lot of climbing over the rocks. Tftc

After having had 2 DNFs on this cache and a somewhat cheeky comment about raising the difficulty I brought in some reinforcements from Wellington. THey were up here on holidays over the New Year and we decided to take advantage of a lull in what has been some bad weather to take a walk to the beach. I forgot to look at the clues/photos that others have posted and I couldn't get much mobile reception so was stuck with the old GPS. Nevertheless, I gave out the description and hint and within 10 minutes we had the container and signed the log. I had been in the about the right vicinity before....I could see the flat rock which is a little to the right of the cache looking back to the sea.

TFTC - finally!!!

SIgned with Poppymjr and Gracermr

Great little beach, shame the sun wasn't shining.

After about 20 mins of clambering over rocks, BINGO!!! Yay a fave from me. All good here. No TB THOUGH.

DNF for me today after about half hour searching will be back another day

We were staying at Anzac Park so there was no chance we weren't going to look for the cave and the cache. What we weren't expecting was meeting up with the same geocachers we were camped near at Lake Taupo....so we set off together. Searched around for a while before we could get the hint and a photo to line up but when they did we went straight to the cache. The cave was much easier to find. A great location to explore. TFTC No Fixed Aboder.

Cache about 20 meters off c o-ords - heading towards the sea. In the area pictured. Beautiful place! Must check out the caves ~awesome spooky stuff

2nd trip to the cach

this time the GPS took us straight there

the clue about the rock was funny considering how many rocks there are there - but the second part was bang on

Thanks for a great cach - and the chance to find this amazing little beach

Another try another DNF.....the kids and I decided to have a look for this one after coming up to Bowentown to check the progress of the bach.....slowly coming along....though I suspect that it will be finished before I find this little blighter. High tide today so the search began from high.....the hint again proved next to less than helpful....seriously the big flat rock....which one!!! ha ha...The biggest and flattest appear to be too far along - my gps was putting these around 50m too far....but the GPS reception is stunningly bad. I am starting to feel sympathy for those people who took several visits on one of my caches, nevertheless, we all had a great time clambering around the rocks and today, we even found time to explore the caves at the other end and pick up around 12 spent beer bottles, found scattered around. We will be back!! Maybe upping the difficulty might inspire me as then it would fill a gap on my D/T matrix

I never thought I would say this but this was my most favourite dnf ever! What a wonderful secret beach and the adventure of exploring the caves was awesome - we sure do live in a beautiful country!! Unfortunately we didn't find the cache - we weren't prepared for any climbing today so will have to definitely come back for a second go!!

Wow a tricky find , going to have to come back another day for this one.

Very frustrating DNF. Had two families looking and a very indecisive GPS. Will send MightyQuinn and DeirdreH back to hunt another day! We will be back!

Tricky little place to find it as the gps is a bit off. But we persevered and found it eventually.

What a find! Took my dad with me for his first Geocache, turned off GPS as sucking up battery.. Follow hints and not description

Must remember to attach photo at first log-in! -

Gps all over the place and too many possibilities for the hint. Spent quite some time looking around but no luck today. Nice spot though

Gutted - couldn't managed to find this. Frustrated beyond belief, know it will be somewhere!! but having had a heart pounding slip of my own and the five year old nephew falling on the rocks and hitting his head to was time to head home. Know my technology isn't great but couldn't even get remotely close (ie under 15m). Not sure when we will be in this part of the country again to give it another bash.

10.40am - Tide was in, so which rock?, after what seemed for ages found it. No rock door so fitted one for you, cache all good. SLTFTC

The fun of the Geocaching License Challenge moves into another gear... Gap (of Fap and Gap) and I begin the next license with a trip to Waihi/Whangamata. The weather is beautiful... hot and breezy.

We were determined to find this brute of a cache... Both of us have had DNF on this one before. The tide was in and that was most helpful... It dictated where not to search. Gap and I crisscrossed our way across the many boulders, searching high at first. It felt like ages and we were beginning to get frustrated, when Gap held up the cache. What a relief to finally clap eyes on this one. After three visits, I'm going to miss coming here for rock climbing workouts... TFTC.

GPS all over the place ... me too! Love a challenge, so I'll be back.

Caching with emm-jay and martz10 having a grab up around waihi. Tftc.

Took us a while for this one but we got there in the end! t4tc!