Elgnard's Butterfly (Wellington) Muritai, North Island, New Zealand
By kingedwin on 03-Oct-09. Waypoint GC1ZD3A

No luck here today. It was very busy (at one point there were five different groups of people here!) so that meant I couldn't search as thoroughly as possible.

I remember seeing this puzzle over a decade ago and for some reason Ive never grabbed it. Had a beautiful walk in the sun today and found the cache. Its in great shape even after over 18 months since the last find. TFTC

One of those 'You cant beat Wellington on a good day' days, and it's Easter Monday. No better way to end a long weekend than getting out in the sun for some geocaching fun. Plenty of caches over this way for me still to find.

I do not remember solving this one at all, so was probably several years ago - I do not get out this way much. However, having come along this track to find a different cache, when I looked at the map I saw this solved one sitting here and so carried on to find it. And find it I did, no trouble here and cache is in good shape.

Thanks to kingedwin for placing this cache here.

Monday - 18/04/2022 3:12 pm
mystery cache small 3.5/3.0
Find #4,215

Love maze puzzles - they are so easy to solve, especially if you use my technique, which does not rely on finding a path from one end to the other. Anyway, solved a very long time ago.

Alas I di not bring the bike log. Stupid!! So I had to carry the bike up the steps before I found a place I could hide it off track. It's an expensive, ie, light bike, so carrying it up all those steps was actually no big deal. Walked on to the top, and was caught up by a family who had never been geocaching, so I showed them this one - luckily it is an excellent example. Dry inside, decent size, has treasures. Gets a favourite and a path tag.

Today my phone says I need a puzzle cache for a puzzle dot-day, an odd size (virtual/other/not specified) for an odd dot-day, and three finds, for my aim of getting my calendar up to ten per calendar date. And of course climb My Vinson while I'm about it. It one of those awesome Wellington summer days so I decided to get on the bike and head out to Eastbourne. Eastbourne sure is popular today! Everyone was out enjoying the fantastic weather

Woohoo!
Puzzle found: only 7 dot-days to go
Today up to 10 caches: just 34 to go
Odd size found earlier today: 21 to go. That will be tough.
And I found a multi at the library earlier. Today is a multi dot day, only 113 left to go. Yeah, not trying for that one!

I don't remember when I solved the puzzle (I think it has been sitting in my solved pile since before lockdown) but I do remember it as it was quite unique and a nice tribute to Elgnard. I like the hand-drawn maze. Today's weather was looking good for a walk in the hills and I was hoping to find this cache to fill a spot in my D/T grid (I still have a long way to go). Nice easy find at GZ. Shortly after I'd replaced the cache I heard voices and a couple of walkers with a couple of dogs appeared, so that was good timing. Had a great walk, hadn't been up this way for years. Thanks for the puzzle and TFTC

This cache has been on the to-do list for quite some time and I finally made it up here today. On my first arrival hovering muggles caused me to defer and I went up to Mt Hawtrey in the mean time. On my return different muggles were nearby also just hovering. So I left again and the muggles then left too. So back again for a 3rd time and with nobody around finally. GSEL has replaced the cache in good spot which made it quite easy to find despite not knowing if my coords were close to it or not. Hard to believe that Gr33nslime found this as a 1000+ day lonely cache considering the regular stream of visits since then. TFTC.

#9145. I had been listening to the cricket match between Australia and NZ (which we won by the way). The weather was significantly better than forecast so I decided to head over to Eastbourne and find a few caches on the hills up behind, taking the MacKenzie Track. Bit of a slog up the hill but my fitness must be starting to look up as I was not too puffed by the time I reached the ridgeline. This cache was a surprisingly easy find as it was sitting out in the open inside its plastic bag. Not sure but suspect it had been located by muggles and was now visible from the track. After signing the logbook I found a spot close by where I could hide it securely. Covered the container with with some wood. Its now beside a small tree stump and just 5m from the track. Enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks for setting this one up kingedwin.

Solved this a wee while ago and was in the area today so made the find. A few of the hint objects about but spotted the cache out in the open. Rehid better before moving on. TFTC.

All in good order. Little search but reading other peeps logs encouraged us to persevere. TFTC.

Success on my 3rd attempt, after obtaining more details on the hint item from TWD, plus the cache picture that Gr33nslime logged… though still took some searching. Cheers kingedwin!

Cache # 4,832 - I solved this one shortly after it came out - yes way back in 2009! And have not tried for it until today. Had thought about it a number of times, including a few months back, but had usually put it off as "something to do later". Barefoot Guru's DNF put me off a bit, as I know how thorough they are in their searching. CelloJoss and I resolved to take advantage of the beautiful holiday day today to take a walk to Butterfly Creek, so I peeked at the cache page and was pleased to see it had been found earlier in 2019! So we decided to give it a go ourselves.

First pass proved fruitless. About 10 minutes into the search a family arrived and settled in nearby, so we decided we would continue on our walk and try again on the way back. I also phoned a friend who had found it previously, but their memory wasn't quite clear enough to help us out a huge amount.

On returning we then spent another 30 minutes of searching. We though we had the hint object, and went based on the memory of the friend and the last log, and still came up empty. Decided to just go a bit further towards the coordinates on the GPS and get them down to 0 (they had fluctuated around a bit on distance) and suddenly discovered a much more obvious, although concealed. second hint object, and 30 seconds after that had the cache in hand! So nice to have cracked this one after nearly 10 years. TNLNSL. TFTC and the adventure!

Found today on a lovely walk with The Wandering Dragons. They had quite the story to tell on this one on the way, and they were obviously happy to eventually put their hands on the container. Container in great shape, and certainly not about to be accidentally discovered any year soon! Thank you.

# 1370 Im not sure what it is but i am feeling a bit sentimental towards the lonely caches. This one was one of them, being unfound for 1150 days. With only one DNF, from an experienced cacher, it was hard to know what to expect. The puzzle was actually difficult to solve for me, only because i was using MS Paint and i can liken using that tool for this task to something like having fat fingers and trying to use a calculator watch (ha, remember those?) In any case I managed and thought i would head out today to find.

At GZ i stumbled across some council workers who were in the middle of their smoko, and thought they would present a problem but they stood up and went on their way... leaving behind a digger! They were upgrading one of the tracks here and the digger was probably 5 m from GZ...

GZ was a great deal of nothingness. I struggled to find the hint item, and if it was what i was looking at, then the cache was not there.... fumbling around for probably 20 minutes, moving three years of plant detritus from spot to spot wasnt really that fun, and i sliced my hand open for the effort (gloves, why do i always forget these). I then ventured back to the hint item for another cursory glance at the bare patch i had made, and then looked a little further afield to a BIG pile of plant matter and casually pushed it aside to reveal a bagged sistema! Wow, what luck! And just in time because I was about to call it a day. Will have to admit this is the most cleanest and tidiest sistema cache I have ever encountered! yay for the single use plastic barrier! Signed log and replaced in the place i found it... which i feel is not where it is supposed to be...... as a little far from hint item.... but there it goes....

Cheers kingedwin for this one, i know you dont cache any more but its lovely that you set this one up in memory of your friend. I enjoyed venturing around his archived website, he seemed like a character. Fav from me, as i enjoy mazes too!

Spent a while climbing through bush at gz, didn't spot butterfly or cache.

Solved at home and walked up from Eastbourne to collect the cache. It took a while to get my hands on it at GZ - a combination of the terrain being a bit rugged, and the cache not being found for a while. Was relieved to finally sign the logbook, and I replaced the cache in exactly the same spot for the next finder.

Solved this one a while ago, and kept my eyes on it as it would have filled in a hole in my DT matrix (I've found a couple of this DT since then). Found myself with a bit of time early this morning so I made my way up the track to grab. I spotted the cache before I saw the hint object, but it certainly would have been helpful if I required it. TFTC

The puzzle was easy enough to solve. The cache
was a bit more difficult. I eventually found it, but after a bit of a search and squeezing through some tight spots. TFTC

We had a lot of fun and exercise finding this cache. The clue was a huge help.
TFTC

Got to GZ via the Butterfly Creek track, excellent walk through lovely native forest. Tftc.

Solved in an idle moment yesterday, and I took advantage of the one forecast decent day to slog up the hill and grab this one. Bit of a motorway up here - passed by 8 people on the way up, but was able to feign (?) unfitness until they went on ahead and I could resume my climb/search. TFTC. Cache in excellent condition, took GC to move it on. Log edited to note counting this towards the DGSC challemge

Nice easy puzzle to solve.
Decided on an after-work walk up this way.
Didn't take long to spot the nice clean cache - ain't no water getting in there!
TFTC

Last find on a very successful afternoon of caching - 11 finds, no DNFs.

A fun little puzzle to solve! By the time I got to GZ, I was absolutely shattered having been up and down this hill all afternoon. No problems finding the cache and pleasantly surprised to find a crisp clean new replacement cache. Don't think this one will have any problems with moisture! TFTC.

I've organised with the CO to replace the cache in very near future (hopefully week beginning 14.10.13) so will post another note when done.

As per my (and others) found logs, cache needs some TLC.

A tricky little puzzle but fun to solve. No problems finding the cache but there was a lot of water in it, which I tipped out, and logbook was saturated so I placed a record of my visit on a fresh piece of paper with the logbook. There is quite a big hole ripped in the bag so no surprise that the logbook was wet, but it sure seems odd for it to get damaged to that extent. Enjoyed the walk here today.
(Got the wrong date on my "needs maintenance" note, and couldn't change it. It should be 5/10/13)

TFTC

Solved last week, and headed up this morning. Considering how much rain has fallen over the weekend the track was in fantastic condition - all the new wooden drainage channels must be working well. Made good time to GZ, but then struggled to find the cache. Tried here, then there, and eventually back close to where i began. Found a plastic bag and pen, thinking it was remnants of a cache, before finding the real thing. New log book is totally saturated and i was unable to write a single character. Container half full of rusty water. Believe the seals are shot, and the plastic bag has holes in it. Will contact CO directly to discuss a remedy.

A fun puzzle, and not too difficult, with an enjoyable walk to collect the prize!

TFTC!

Bit of a Sunday afternoon romp around the hills, combined with a spot of caching.
Note that last find was in May.
Relatively straightforward find on this one, but cache in pretty poor state I regret to report. All as per the previous finder, if nor even more waterlogged. Definitely in need of maintenance and some TLC. Log signed as best I could, cache safely re-hidden.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

Got a pleasant surprise when I put my calculated coordinates into my GPSr during a walk in the hills to find that GZ was 10 metres away! Took a little bit of searching to come up with the cache and had it in hand when I got well and truly muggled by a woman who said she thought I looked a bit weird scrabbling around in the bushes! Luckily she knew about geocaching when I came clean about what I was doing. Funnily enough in my two or so hour walk, I only saw 4 people in total so she just appeared at the wrong time. Unfortunately the cache was full of water again and the new replacement log book is completely soaked through. Was able to sign my name though. TFTC

Replaced wet logbook, cache is up and running again

Straightforward puzzle, especially after applying some common sense
Damp log book, replaced the bag it was in and blew on it three times. Hope that helped.

Sorry, guys, I'm out of the country at the moment, will replace wet logbook when I get back

Great little puzzle, even I can solve it. Log was quite damp but I can't see why.

Log book has got very wet.

Needs new log book as its very wet

Worked out the coords some time ago and successful day after a nice walk to GZ. Logbook wet. TFTC

The puzzle was a little more difficult than I first expected. I then headed out on the Konini Track so I would travel over ground that I hadn't been on previously. This was a great walk on a warm day.

It was sad to read of Elgnard's death.

Managed to solve this one some time ago and was finally in the area to track the cache down today. Some fantastic views from the GZ on a nice Wellington day. TFTC!

Find #551. This cache was one of two main goals for the day. Fix up our cache we had placed 6 (!) metres away from this one (which got published and soon archived after the proximity issue was discovered – then back from the land of Lazerus by unarchival!), and to find this cache. We were initially doubtful of our success today, as agcnz had spent three quarters of an hour searching for it.

We were extremely lucky however to discover it after a little more than 5 minutes of searching under a now sunny sky after the morning’s drenching. Great little puzzle that we solved quickly… we are quite surprised that there has only been 12 finds before us in a little under 20 months since it was published! SL TFTC.

StreetWalker had solved the puzzle, so decided to look for the cache after Butterfly Creek. After reading the past comments, we went straight to the hint. Hmm, qrnq gerr, there are a few of them. Found the most prominent one, and the cache was spotted within seconds, phew. Haven't done much walkng lately, so the legs were complaining on the approach!
TFTC.

#1877 (6/6 on a Sunday arvo). Approaching this from Butterfly Creek was a good option I think; still a bit of a climb to get to GZ. After reading a number of logs that said it took a long time to find, I was pleased that Troodles found the cache quickly. TFTC.

5173 An awesome cache, well worth the walk, loved the views... could see the snow-capped Kaikoura ranges. Many thanks for the puzzle and bringing us here.
IN: Wild Nature Czech Dog Geocoin (he enjoys walks in parks)
OUT: NIL, TFTC

Solved some time ago, so had to pick up while in the area today. Found reasonably quickly by a friend of one of the EU crew who came along for hunt. TFTC

#324. Nice walk on a hot summers day. The cache took about 20 minutes to find, there were just a heap of places to search, but I found it in the end. Nice puzzle, thanks for bringing me here, SL, TFTC. -clip, -figurine, +doll, +badge, +ball, +car.

Used to enjoy walking my dog around here when I lived in Eastbourne a number of years ago. Enjoyed the early morning walk on a warm muggy day - TFTC. Master waiiti20 struggled on the uphill but blew me away on the downhill!

[This entry was edited by waiiti20 on Friday, December 18, 2009 at 5:19:14 PM.]

had fun with the puzzle ,nice walk up in the hills today ,wind was blowing a bit today,quite a few mini muggles on the trail today,as with agcnz it took me quite a while to find the cache was within a a few inchs of it a few times,but got there in the end . - AA batteries (well needed for GPS) -TB + Karabiner
TFTC

We hunted around for about 30 minutes, not helped by our GPS receiving a weak signal, we think due to cloud cover. Maybe we will give it another go, next time we are visiting Wellington.

Had this on my "must do list" for my trip. The cache nearest to where I live in Dunedin is one of Elgnard's, and I had a little contact before he was so tragically killed in the mountains. Really enjoyed the climb up but unfortunately couldn't turn up the box.

Found on a walk to take advantage of the fantastic weather this afternoon. Took me over 45 minutes to find the cache which is much longer than it should have taken. I had been within centimetres of it several times without realising it before I finally turned it up. Signed log, TFTC

#833. 3TF. Nice walk on a track we haven't done before ... not this section anyway. Nice geocaching cube inside cache.
+ Travel Bug Dog Tag
+ huhugrub pebble
TNSL. TFTC.

Solved this puzzle a while back but hadn't really had a chance to look at this one, decided that it was time to go for a walk and see where it takes me, this walk definitely deserves a 3 star, arrived at final GZ and a bit of a search finally revealed final hiding place, as I was leaving the skies clear giving me the opportunity to get a few photos, was worth it just coming up here for the views alone, thank you for bringing me here. Took Flick the Fire Engine TB. TFTC LNSL (1116)

A cool puzzle that I solved last night in the warmth of my living room . A brisk walk to GZ this morning in the cool air soon warmed me up. A short search and Happy Days FTF !!!. Got the log signed and the cache replaced just before a short sharp hail shower came through . Altogether a Cooool cache . I haven’t been this way for years so it was great to come back again, all be it briefly. Thanks for setting this one up [^]. TNLN SL TFTC

Travel bug Flick the Fire Engine is in this cache.

Published