Swan's Arch (Auckland) Te Atatu South, North Island, New Zealand
By Kiwicouple on 15-Jul-09. Waypoint GC1Q1EB

Can't find it, calculated GZ ok. Please can the owner check

M25: looking around, my eyes can't seem to see the cache. I'll keep trying, but I have to go work soon, fortunately, it's close by.

M25: I'll come back another time, now off to work.

Cache seems to be in reasonable nick after Flossies tlc, just a small amount of moisture. Certainly easier for me to reach it

Driven past so many times. Worked out GZ in the car came back. Found GZ but no cache then spotted a sistema. Used branches to drag it back. Ditto lid. Paper log.
We have driven past this arch so many times on our way here and there, but have never had the chance to stop. Today, regardless of the weather, we decided to give it a go. A quick run across the road and a photo of the plaque, then we sat in the car to work out the coordinates of the final. It still wasn't raining so we headed to the final location. I thought it was one side, Daddypig headed a bit further back. After a squelch through the mud, my gps suddenly counted down to 2m, and a quick count of possible hint items put me at a suitable location. No cache there.

But as I peered through, there just out of reach was half of a sistema tub with some green tape on it, and a couple of feet further behind it was the lid. Cue, find a stick, then find another longer and more branchlike one, a reach through and try to fish the cache out. It didn't take that long before we had both parts of the cache. The log was long gone, probably washed away on Anniversary Weekend, so Daddypig was sent back to the car to find a piece of paper.

And that was it the cache replaced. It probably needs a touch of attention such as a ziplock bag for the log or a WITR log.

This geocacher reported that the container is damaged.

The results from my calculations were not leading to anywhere logical as per hint - I have no idea what else I could modify to get the right numbers. But anyway, I suspected the hiding place and looked as per hint item, but the area was covered in mud, and had a very high mud tide-line.

At work all day today, so I tried getting a cache during my lunch break, but that was a fail, so I had to wait until work was over - and then my bus got cancelled so I decided to just get on the next bus to Henderson instead of waiting for the one heading to the city. And when I got there and started looking at caches on the map I noticed this one again that comes up every time I'm looking at filling spaces in my Jasmer, so why not, today can finally be the day I go and find it!

I've been past here on my bike but never in the park before, so it was nice to visit today and learn a bit about it. Great cache page! Did the projection on the fly and then walked over to find the final. I saw some DNFs in the logs so thought it might take a while, but I actually somehow had my hand on it straight away. The names on the log went right back to 2014 but there's still plenty of space on it. I got to start off a new side

Thank you for setting this up! I got to see a lovely sunset afterwards too. (#1531)

Such an obscure story and such an eye catching memorial that will keep it in mind for years to come. I hope he was happy with his books and I wonder what happened to them. Yippee, dot day done so I can go back to knitting. It's always great to do a cache when you have met the COs and can remember who they are, ( from yesterday's Albury Park event). Thanks Kiwi Couple.

A nice quick find today. Thanks for placing your cache and checking on it when I couldnt find it last time I looked.

Ms_KR and I are in Auckland Auckland for a break and we are exploring the region while we are based here. The weather was good today, and we made the most of it, getting away at 6am for an airport pickup, and a few caches too.

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

No luck today.

I'll have another look when the ground is not quite so wet. Cheers.

Next time.......

My First one!!!

Will try this one again

Nice wee walk alongside the creek path to get here, I'd spotted this feature months ago when passing in busy traffic so the option to walk in was taken, though a park n solve n grab would also have sufficed. Read the details and did the maths and started the search, checked every option and then some before a second sweep revealed the cache. All good here and replaced as found. T F T C kiwicouple

My sole 'job' today was to go and get the gas bottle filled and with no nearby options Google directed me to Triangle Road for a trip. Turns out that wasn't right so diverted to Lincoln Road and that was just the thing. Whilst in the area I vowed to pick up some local hides from supernannny and some other nearby ones before heading to the end of Te Atatu peninsula for a first taster out there of a couple. The rain came and went and I snaffled the Waikumete Soldier Adventure labs too whilst 'nearby'. A good day for caching, thanks all COs.

Well buried

Think we were looking in the place but didn’t find anything.

Out collecting some more caches out west, which brought me to this location. Always enjoy the intersting places that caching takes me, which I would never have visited otherwise. This was a nice quick solve, and found in the second place I checked, TFTC

On the way home from dentist appointment in Henderson I stopped off for a few more caches towards the last hidden creature. A nice little offset cache. Wasn't sure whether the offset was from the cache co-ordinates or the plaque, but the hint narrowed the search options down to two places. GPS sent me to the wrong one first of course. Thanks a lot for an interesting cache location.

Saw the Arch on a TV show a while back so was pleased to see there was a cache here - two birds, one stone and all that. A reasonably quick find which gave some time to enjoy a pretty cool, quirky place

Sigh.

Charlie my little girl found it. Her 2nd find. very happy

After dropping Tinytree and Mrs B at a nearby pool I had a few hours to find a few caches in this area. Found the info easy enough and after a quick calculation quested where this one would be and found in the second place I tried. Cache in good condition. TFTC.

I tried the multi, but ended up searching in the wrong spot. After a nice nudge from a PF, I returned today to make the find. TFTC.

Out and about for a spot of cache detection today. Taking full advantage of the nice Autumn weather. Finding Multi caches turned out to be a real sub theme today. I parked up and crossed the road. After checking out the information board I made my way to the monument to perform the calculations. It wasn't always exactly clear what should and shouldn't be included in the calculations. In the end I made the find with a combination of rough calculations and following my nose. Cheers for the multi cache placement!

Ben & Dad foud this on the way home. A good way to end a day of work.

Great little cache..... easy find. TFTC

Found with help from magdajh. Great spot. TFTC

Nice quick find again for the morning tftc

I visited 3 weeks ago and took a photo of the plaque so I could make calculations. Returned today and looked at where GZ should be, only to find that I had miscalculated the distance. Did some calcs on the fly and located the cache which is in great condition. TFTC

Found with keylev. Thanks for the cache.

Found with keylev. Thanks for the cache.

Out and about with a few of the SEAC team and saw this nearby as we took a little walk - it would be rude not to stop!

Found the information quickly enough but it took a few moments for us to find the right spot and there it was!

Thanks for showing us this little spot - it was cool.

As we were on our way back to the playground and car park after finding a blues clue, we decided to dash across the busy road to check this multi out. Quickly had the required answers but the guys disagreed on the direction to head in. We finally figured it out and a little bit of perseverance from UncleSam paid off when we heard the magical words "found it!" Cache in good order, swaps made by the littlest members of team SEAC and we were on our way again. Rain still getting heavier! Thanks Kiwicouple for the cache!

Was out with Keylev & NZTravellers for a day of caching, so out West we headed.

Loved the Arch, very cool. Didn't take us (or should I say "Me") long to find the cache

Found with tommygun9
Didn't take too long to locate. Cool little area
Thanks for the multi

After my DNF a while back I had a reconsider of this one for this weekend's mission. I calculated a new final location - one that looked much better. Not sure how I stuffed up last time, I can only assume I missed one key word on the plaque and it made a big difference to my distance math.
As I was not sure if I had true or mag on my app, or which direction to apply the correction, I was prepared for a few areas but fortunately spotted a very likely area that I should have noticed last time I was here as I had given this area a quick look.
T F T Multi C kiwicouple.

Out and about and we were close by retrieving a puzzle so swung by here as we have had this on our to-do list for a while. Having done a number of projections now and got the hang of dialing it in to the GPS this was a quick solve. Got to the projected point and discovered we still had two choices to make. Made the right one first go and had the cache in hand.

Interesting to learn about the elusive Mr Swan and have a meander around this folly. The girls in particular had great fun climbing it !! Pretty straightforward once we read the directions and hint
TFTC

Headed out to fill in some smileys and tick off some caches for our geolicence challenge today. We had lunch in the shade of the arch today, both boys enjoyed jumping off and showing us their "mad skillz", we just thought they we mad! Nice easy offset, M2 was in like a shot even before B read the hint TFTC!

#988
FITW ivss_xx
Out on a cold late evening walk... we had to find few caches tonight to tally our finds, so that we can achieve our milestones tomorrow. this one was already been found by ivss_xx, so had no much trouble in finding. tftc.

Have driven passed this one many times saying I must stop and do it. Well, today I did. Quick calculation of Bearing and Distance but no compass so using the eye-chrometer, I figured out where it should be and eventually got the cache in hand. Thanks for the interesting Multi.

I didn't like where I calculated the final to be but gave it a good search anyway without joy.

Took a while to find was about to go home then booooom! Puzzle hard to work out had all the numbers right jus couldn't workout what to do with them so searched the whole park lol

14:40
First I tried to figure something out by looking at the sign at the coords but couldn't figure out anything, of course. Only then I saw the stone and understood things.
After, I still had to wrap my head around the sentence "the number of members with 1 initial by the number of members with 2 initials by the number of members with 3 initials" but eventually I also did that and was able to look for the cache.
Success!

Thanks for the cache!
#3526

Yay 200th cache quick hunt around tftc.

This ticked all the boxes for me. It is by my routine dog walk and I'd never noticed it before. An interesting, informative, and not long winded multi. It helped me practise my gps projection skills at a level that I was capable of. A pretty little park and nice sized cache. Thank you Kiwicouple!

Nice little multi would of been better if had of stood in correct spot to redirect but clue was spot on tftc Lokky 1 18 March 2015 13:10

Last find for Feb. Been driving past this spot for years so thought I would see if there was a cache there. Maths was simple, but the whole true/ Magnetic thing threw me. Not sure if i needed to add, subtract or just leave it alone. So did all three and searched the most likely contender and came up with the goods.

I was out for a bike ride picking up some of the nearby Blue's Clues caches and had to stop and do this one too. I never knew this was here! It didn't take long to get the information required but then I had to figure out my magnetic from my true! Once I had that done, it didn't take long to find the cache. Thanks for this lovely little multi

On way home, after some nearby caching. Always wanted to stop and explore a bit more, and today was the day. A clever hide and multi. Thanks again for the hide.

Found it without figuring out the puzzle,because in my first attempt with oneranger it led us straight to there.Then i had a light bulb moment maybe it near that..............

Decided it was time for a multi after finding all the trads today. Great pick with a great history. TFTC

I've been wanting to do this one for ages and ages! But never quite got around to it. I'm glad I did today (Sunday). I can remember years ago when the creek still ran thru the arch, the arch then was original, hand't been done up like it looks now. I was sitting in my car after gaining the required info of the plaque when Ngatifox showed up with 2 youngs boys with her. So instead of going to the cache straight-away I waited until the boys worked out the final destination and they found the cache for us, signed with them, Ngatifox has been here before and nice to bump into you again.

Awesome story. Master Fire's maths faster than mine. Kids had a photo on the Arch. Thanks for the cache [^]

Found by accident

[A friend took me caching, it's been too long... walked from the wave pool, to this lovely park., funny to see the picture at the top of the cache notes, and compare it to the current version. Like many, we used magnetic north at first. Once we had that sorted out, it still lead us somewhere obvious, but wrong. Went round and round the target, then spotted] a rectangle[, and it was soon in our hands. TFTC!]

My second attempt but got it this time. Couldnt get the distances right but looked all around and located it. Nice cache.
Picked up a TB

Found using my new smart phone.

Replaced log book with New Improved Waterproof Sheet.

IN: Jeep 4x4 #0039 Travel Bug

A Gift of Love Geocoin

Rover Land and Sea Travel Bug.

T4TC

Nice little park I had never noticed before. Lovely story to go with it. Log book damp, but pencil provided did the trick.

Never noticed this before, thanks for the bit of local history. Log book a bit soggy.

After sorting the true bearing it was an easy find. Interesting history... TFTC

True. That's an important factor. Found easily once sussed

Have always driven past but never stopped, great little park. Located cache log book damp. Tftc

GPS not much specific help. A little bit of logic and searching found cache in end...cheers V.

Called in ready to replace the cache after the DNF logs, only to find the cache still in place.

Had a bad run today with lots of dnf logs on caches that others hadn't found either. This also seems to be gone.
This log posted with CacheSense for Android!

After RuruNZ worked out this one, had a look where she thought it was to be but no luck and I didn't have it on my gps for some reason. Oh well - will get sometime when back in Auckland.

DNF with Whitepaws9, all calculation well then arrival GZ, searched as unlucky today...

I think its been muggled
No luck to find it
thanks

There seems to be a space where the cache once was but nothing. I'm thinking this one may need to be checked

Really pleased to get this find , as have always been fascinated by Henry Swan's life story ! We were glad of our gumboots though !

Did the maths and found what I though would be GZ but couldn't find anything within reach. Did manage to cut my hands a bit on some blackberry so I at least have some scars to tell the tale. Used the hint as best I could but ended up a DNF. Thanks anyhow.

well ... not sure what i cant do about multi's but always seem to get stuck at the first find... did the maths three times got to similar areas but just nothing to easy reach like every one else reckons... still it was not all lost to my utter surprise in the weirdest place.. there was my favourite quava tree bursting with fruit..mmmm

Was in Auckland with a little time to spare and in the area so decide to swing by. Some very fascinating old history here - thanks for the cache.

While biking round the area went for this one too.

Wow cool seeing the old photo with the water and all, love old photos!
Was a bit confused at first though as to which sign to use, but then i became blatantly obvious once I'd read all the questions!

And then the GZ was actually obvious too... I'd thought that's where the cache would be, so it was a nice easy as find. And the place was pretty empty too.

TFTC!!

After completing the trail, thought to test my skill in projection and made the find after admiring this awesome place.

TFTC kiwicouple.

grabbed this one whilst on a stop whilst riding along the great riding path, no difficulties finding this one, great hide. TFTC.

I was working in Henderson today and decided to do a small detour on the way home. This turned out to be a quick and easy find. TFTC.

Found orginally as part of phasevisitor team, now created own account, re-logging as yorkshirekiwi83.

Our 400th find!!!!yay

Spent the afternoon caching with ClanMcPherson.

We had a walk through the park to complete the new series. Quick easy find, TFTC.

Have had this on the to-do list for ages but as with most close to home caches, it was put off for no good reason. Finally came through for a day of local caches and hit this one. Performed the calculations and after a short search had the find. Cool little spot with some interesting history. TFTC

Am always driving past here and always thought it was an interesting spot. Didn't ever realise what it use to be, so was interesting to read about the history of it, and good to know there was a cache here! Between myself and evilno9 we managed to do the maths and pointed in the right direction. After a bit of digging, and once we got the right spot, the cache was soon in hand! TFTC.

Our 400th find!!!!yay

Spent the afternoon caching with ClanMcPherson.

We had a walk through the park to complete the new series. Quick easy find, TFTC.

Left it to our companion accountant to do the maths resulting in a nice quick find. No encounter with the local neighbourhood watch though. Quite disappointing really! I've never been told to skidaddle before!

Found , no problem. TFTC

I must have been overlooking something very simple in the co-ordinates... Old man came out and told me he'd call the police if I didn't skidaddle. His words. Haha. Didn't feel like explaining what I was doing and left. Great little park. Will go back when he's asleep. About 6pm right?

Driven past here several times but never knew the history that related to the area. Did the maths and soon had the coordinates for the cache. Quick find in an interesting little spot. Thanks for bringing us here.

Returned for my second attempt at this one after a little help from kiwicouple re: my starting waypoint and found after a brief search.

TFTC and thanks to kiwicouple

I believe that I worked out the bearing and distance correctly but I simply couldn't find the cache.

What an awesome little park, and to think there used to be a stream running through it. My what time does to a landscape.

Found easily, a nice little park that I'd never of known to visit, if it weren't for the cache, so TFTC!
Took Jandalfan micro rose GC, left toy car SL

Fascinating story. Beautiful arch. Would never have stopped on our own. Left our compass rose micro gc to start its adventures. We hope it gets further on its travels around the world than Swan did. GINO TFTC

A quiet pretty little spot all by itself, never knew it was here TFTC

#593 Heading out west for another purpose today, but adding some caches along the way. Have to say bearing and distance can confound us, but was tickled today to work it out. not that it was very difficult really. Thanks for the history, always driven past here and never taken a closer look. SL. TNLN. TFTC..

A very interesting spot for a multi, this didn't really take to long to answer the questions and then head off to the final. A very nice little spot, thanks for bringing me here. TFTC TNLNSL (2095)

Drivern past for many years and never before stopped to see what it was really all about. TFTC.

Second try at this one. Brought Sidekick this time and he found it .

3.00pm. Fascinating spot. Hadn't realised the story was for real when we read Maurice Shadbolt's book "The Dove". Located the cache without difficulty despite floundering around with trying to re-set the GPS from magnetic to true for the projection. Didn't need to bother over a short distance.
Took a Kiwi Button/badge and left a TB.
TFTC - interesting spots like this are an added bonus to geocaching.
[8d] M&P.

Thanks for bringing us to this interesting piece of history-good to see it has been restored-tftc