De Price of Progress! (Waikato) Mangatawhiri, North Island, New Zealand
By G-2 on 10-Jan-10. Waypoint GC1WZA6

I had forgotten that the route to Auckland no longer passed this establishment. It's a bit like a ghost town now, very sad. As you say, the price of progress!?

Found on our way home after a great weekend caching in Auckland. Buzzybb found it before i even got out of the car.

On the way back home after a weekend in Tauranga. Nice to turn this one into a smiley this time around. Tftc

After a little scrabbling around and looking at a couple of likely looking camo items it was not, found the cache as described..Tftc.On my way to coromandel to visit my family today.

Heading home after a weekend away in Tauranga. Yep - Kiwi can remember stopping at the castle cafe on numerous occasions when travelling away from the big smoke. One final visit thanks to geocaching. TFTC

What a load of rubbish. Not the cache, the area around it. Didn't realise I would be able to park right next to the cache so I parked a bit up the road and trampled over all of the litter.

A nice quick find here. Amazing building. TFTC

Nice quick find while nobody was around. Dont recall ever going into the castle for an icecream. [TFTC]

Replaced cache with CO’s permission. Now a brown pill bottle with log sheet.
I had often wondered what had happened to the castle. Now I know. Thanks for bringing us here.

No luck, found a V bottle but was just rubbish

We can remember stopping here many years ago on road trips down south. Today we stopped to find the cache while exploring the area. We parked very close to gz, and soon had the cache in hand which was well covered with natural camo. TFTC

Sorry for the delay in logging - Mr HeMaLuDy was back in the area today and discovered all of the caches he was looking at we had already found but somehow forgotten to log online. I blame the very early start we had that day, dropping the teens in Ngatea by 6 am (from South Auckland). We then cached our way home again. We remember stopping here a few times for an ice cream to break up the journey with the kids. Sad it is closed now. Nice quick find in a very quiet place

Took me a sec to find, as it was well covered! Once I did I quickly signed and put back, so it didn’t get too wet! This is #2 on our trip to Tauranga.

TFTC!

#110

Out geocaching on World Record day - exploring some more of our local region. We have driven past this castle so many times over the years and awesome to discover a geocache there. Thanks for the placement and thanks for the smiley .

This was always a great place to stop when traveling through, yes progress... I'm in no rush today so detoured to grab a couple more caches. Very quiet along here today, great camo, found by feel as it escaped my aging eagle eye on the first pass, TFTC

Allok here

Searched all over GZ, but unfortunately no progress here today. Loved the history here though.

Unfortunately couldn’t find it

Allok

One a trip to hike the Pinnacles with Keylev and Cragger. Been looking forward to this trip for months and it's finally here! What more can a person ask for, good friends, hiking and caching!

Wow! Neat castle! Seen this on trademe and but looks like its still up for sale. Maybe when I'm rich. Cache was hidden well but a Keylev nabbed it without an issue. TFTC

Heading to climb The Pinnacles and we were ahead of time so thought we would stop for 'just one cache'....well as we all know that turned into a few more than one...

Noted the DNFs but thought we know G2 caches...must just be well hidden so definitely still worth a stop. Checked out the fun little castle here - would have been a great spot in its heyday to stop for a coffee. Then remembered we were on a mission and had to meet another hiker so we didn't have a lot of time to waste.

Had read the hint so didn't even need the use of the GPS. Wandered up, felt around and aha there you are! All good here!

Thanks for the cache.

On a trip with keylev and B4Dawn.

Thanks for the cache.

No find today.

This geocacher reported that the cache might be missing.

No luck today

Had a quick look but muggles at store across the road so left for another visit.

The castle has a for sale sign outside it.

Tftc found with Lex007

#4 on roadtrip with Sportynz

I have passed by Mangatawhiri many times, today I had some time to spare so collected the smiley faces around town. I remember the castle from years ago. Thanks for hiding G-2

Had to call in the big guns for this.

The Castle is still not operating but the lights glowing in the windows gave it a magical feel.

#8794. I have been up in Auckland for the past week and now its time to drive back home to Wellington. The trip home is never a quick or straight one when you have geocaches to locate and bird watching places to explore. I was diverting here to look at the shorebirds at Miranda and picking up some caches on the way. I used to drive along this road en route to Coromandel quite a lot in the past so wasn't even aware that the castle was now on the side road. Have stopped here in the past for ice creams. Hopefully the new business picks up a loyal clientele. The cache was soon located as described in the hint. Signed the log and replaced where found. Thanks G-2 for hiding it here.

North Island Campervan trip Day 4

After the fantastic holiday I had a few months ago traveling around the South Island, making the most of one of those incredibly cheap campervan deals available at the time, I figured it was worth taking a week off work before the stresses of the usual holiday period to enjoy some of the delights to be found around the top of the North Island.

This would be a great chance for me to seek out some targeted caches such as the TMGT ones as well as some that would help me with my Jasmer grid, missing minutes (for a couple of challenge caches I'm working on) and any other caches that caught my eye.

I had just picked up the campervan and my intention was to make my way over to the Coromandel and end up in Whitianga for the night. I was looking forward to the journey as this is not a route I have traveled often, and never since discovering Geocaching! For this part of my journey, I was just looking for simple park 'n' grabs, not too far off my route, and this one seemed to fit the bill.

I was able to park right next to this one, but at first glance I wasn't able to locate it. But with a little rummaging around I soon discovered the nicely camo'ed container. There were no issues at all with this cache or the log, which was signed and replaced before I was back on my way again.

Thanks for setting this cache up.

How did I ever forget about The Castle?

Good Morning and good bye NewZealand.
TFTC

Found this one on our drive up to auckland. My partner can remember this from when he used to drive between auckland and rotorua awhile ago. Thanks for the cache

We had a very nice holiday in New Zealand. Almost every day beautiful weather. We traveled with the camper home from the north to the south island. we have found a lot of very nice caches. Thanks for showing the nice places where we found the caches.
Greetings from the Netherlands

Found this one after a awesome long weekend in Whangamata with lots of fun, tracks, love and caches for sure! Saw the castle before and got curious about it, with this cache I got to know about it. Interesting history
The place seems to be working again, as well the gas station across the road, but it was closed as me and Line_Moh got there late. She was already salivating while thinking about what would eat and drink, hehehe
TFTC G-2

Beautiful building exterior... I hope we could get the chance to go inside and enjoy the food next time.
Easy cache to find. TFTC.
Signed off as IMA ️

Wow, what an interesting place for a cache. It seems a shame and a waste. Found the cache then went and bought drinks across the road - the shopkeeper was a nice man, we just wondered how much business comes his way these days. TFTC.

1st find since April
Awesome

Every time we come up this way we talk about this place. Can't believe it's still here. This is a pretty cool location to have a cache. Thanks for bringing us back here. Tftc

The longest task here at GZ was to extract log book from container as log extractor was found loose on the ground. Replaced as intended to be. TFTC!

Nice quick find here on our way up north.
Tftc
Tim and Viv - ddm

It's sad to see this once busy road and fabulous cafe reduced to this. The castle was a landmark on our journeys to Thames for many years and then the bypass took it away so we are pleased this cache brought us back for a visit.
We made a quick find or at least we thought we did as we discovered a brick with a piece of pipe inserted which had all the characteristics of a cache, except for the fact there was no log. Initially thinking it had gone missing we briefly contemplated replacing it but as we had a search around in case it was on the ground nearby we came across the real cache.
Not sure what this decoy is, it may be a coincidence but it does look suspiciously like a cache hide so we are a bit confused.
But at least we found the real cache and have returned both that and the other one to where we found them.
Thanks G-2 for bringing us back to this great spot.

I'm from Switzerland and spend 4 months in New Zealand on vacation. Found this cache after a few minutes search, thanks.

What an interesting place for taking photos....my Swiss mate found the cache after i had translated the hint to him..there was not space for two to look at the same time !! thanks!!

Such a shame the cafe is shut geocaching brought us the way thanks for that

Looks like it is closed again. Stopped off after an afternoon at the Miranda pools

Wow what a change. SL TFTC

The Central North Island, Day 1: Auckland - Coromandel

Today we headed out for our last great adventure in New Zealand, which was to cover The Central North Island, as far down as Ruapehu. We set off from Auckland on an overcast day, and was met with rain for the better part of the morning and afternoon. That still didn’t stop me from caching, as I had been well-prepared with a raincoat and picked up only the easier ones. As the rain cleared up, there was a nice stiff breeze that accompanied me in my hunts along the Thames Coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. A relatively good, if somewhat damp day, overall.

The following is the specific log for each cache:
All quiet here today, sadly... also, there was the rain making things a little more gloomy. Very very quiet these days, which is only a good thing if you are caching, and I was, of course. Thanks for showing this interesting building and TFTC!

Found as per description. TFTC. Good container!!

On A road trip with Dee+ME. on our way to far north. Cheers.

Our first NZ cache on our family Motorhome holiday. So beautiful and green!

School holiday trip to Auckland/Coromandel with the family. After a couple nights at Hot Water, a few at Tauranga and a final night in Miranda it was now time to head back to Auckland; return the rental car and fly back home to Christchurch. Stopped here for a quick find and sign along the way. Yep - the price of progress....a shame in some ways....

Love these nice quick park n grabs and what a cute random castle! Log was almost full so added a strip of paper for the next finders

Love a good stop and grab. Nice castle too. Tftc

New log
Thanks

Taking an off the main highway route to Thames and picking up a few caches along the way. Quick find

Looked in the obvious places but nothing stood out.

Found cache! Cool restaurant, so much potential! Hopefully one day someone sees the beauty in her and fires her up again! Thanks for the cache!

Rather quiet out this way now & not so many cars! Or pies & ice creams!

Killing time on way home from Auckland easy find 3rd one for us 97 to go to goal of 100. Castle looking a bit sad but at least it's easier to find a park here now.

TFTC

I also miss the stop off at this cafe. My memory was of great ice creams. Thanks for the reminder.

A quick find here today.
Signed the log and replaced as found
TYFTC

Easy find. Tftc

Nice quick park and grab on the way home from a school visit. Remember driving past here on family road trips. All looks great tftc

Man, last time I stood here I was a kid. Now I'm standing here with my kid hunting for another cache! Thanks for the memories and thanks for the cache!

Yes we used to pass by here quite often too. Must be hard for retailers to know that their income is going to dramatically drop with the new route - a bit like Pokeno and numerous other places. Anyway, great spot here, TFTC

Quick park and grab after missing 2 other ones nearby. Tftc

Quick find and an easy and safe place to stop.

Found on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula together with Mel180 ! Thank you for the Cache !

Today i picked up Dirtyhelmut in Auckland. Quick found at a rainy day. TFTC

TFTC. Holidaying from Australia with Peerages and collecting some caches as we go.

TFTC. SL Thanks for bringing us here. We are travelling from Australia with Pegasus46 enjoying NZ and the friendly locals

Used to always get ice creams here with the kids on the way to Miranda. Nice quick find. Signed and replaced. Thank you.

Found while visiting NZ from Victoria Australia we were exploring the area and passing through, such a lovely building, webmaster to stop and see if we could add a smile, thanks for the cache and the fun

We never stopped here when there was a cafe here as it always seemed busy and the cars roared past regardless of the number of people around. Sad to see it fall on hard times, the service station across the road now scratching by as a local store seems to be doing a little better but not by much. With state highway two now diverted it's much safer to stop here and we had the place to ourselves - geowife went to investigate the castle and I retrieved the cache. All good here, thanks for the cache.

On our way home from coroglen. What a great iconic place so sad to see this once was the major motorway now its a ghost town. Thanks for bringing us back here.

Road trip around the Coromandel with lots of caches to find. Quick easy find. TFTC.

Found on our trip around New Zealand, greetings from Switzerland.

Good hide. Inked log Team VPMH

Found with the VPMH Crew from the USA doing a bit of caching around the North Island. TFTC!!

Pinch me I'm in NZ! Hello from AZ, USA. T4tc

Found with a lot of help from Team VPMH

Nice quick gc on the way to Paeroa from Auckland TFTC

We used to stop here every time we visited my nana as a kid so I was excited to find this one. Found it really easily but a few vanloads of workmen showed up to the old petrol station and I had trouble hiding it again.

FITW FMZ
A late night weekend caching trip. There was no muggles around as it was really late/early morning.
Found it easily. TFTC

FITW FMZ
A late night weekend caching trip. There was no muggles around as it was really late/early morning.
Found it easily. TFTC

Great recollections of this place. It was always too busy to stop here. Had bum up and head down for a while hunting for its one and couldn't believe I had initially missed it. Thanks for the memories and the cache G-2.

Yes G 2 I remember many a day at this place..long cue s.. traffic busy as...now it almaost a ghost town lol thanks for a well placed cache

Took us a while, but Corunnaroad finally spotted it. Always sad to see the old businesses closed down. TFTC

What a sad looking building. Took a while to find. Thanks

Was heading to Kaiaua for the night in my new geocaching mobile (motorhome)

Thought I should pick up one cache on the way.

Was a quick find inbetween cars passing

Quite a sad melancholic place now...

TFTC
#455

Een mooi kasteelcafé. Grappig.
Bedankt.

Jammer, dat het café gesloten is: een lekker bakkie zou er best wel in gaan. Nu genoegen moeten nemen met slechts de cache.
TFTC.

found

found