The Enchanted Forest --re-discovered (Auckland) Takapuna, North Island, New Zealand
By G-2 on 18-Dec-10. Waypoint GC20Q2C

Times up, thanks to all who came.

6:17PM The area is closed until 30th Nov 2023Cheers M+S [:0)]

Shut off till end of November

Perseverance finally paid out. And a big nudge from the CO.Due to bouncing coords I found several possibilities to calculate the coords with. This brought me quite close to GZ, but my halfhearted tries to find the well concealed cache did not succeed. I also struggled with the checksums: I didn't t know they referred to the last three digits of the coords only, and not to all of them. Well, but after getting the big nudge, I returned to GZ and made the find rather quickly. I have no idea where the long gone stairs could have been, though. It's all flat and even here. Thanks for hiding and maintaining as well as helping to find the cache. Tftc

( ͠❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛) Well, well, well! Who knew I'd be the next visitor here after several months have gone by. I'm happy to say today I found the cache, let me elaborate as I do.

( ͠❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛) I cycled here on my e-bike, I bring along my spare battery so that gives me approx 50 km total. I even cycled on the boardwalk. Today, it's brilliant sunshine and no rain like last visit. I soon rounded up some numbers that are on the boardwalk, I think a few are bit of a guess from my point of view, and there are 2 possibilities of 'big twins' that I could see, so when it came time to do the math, I got close to the check sums, but not exact. So rather than go back around again to see the numbers, I decided to twiddle the numbers I had to make the check sums agree, will it get me to GZ?

( ͠❛ ͜ʖ ͡❛) Punched in the numbers I had and as others have said there are 2 sets of stairs, but my co-ords brought me to a very probable place, but no stairs! Co-ords still looked good though, on the boardwalk. Turns out the stairs are long gone, found the cache once I got on my knees. I was rapt about that! Thanks G for the hide. A lot of fun.

Not a DNF, because I never finished it before the heavens opened up! Boy that was fantastic, walking back along the board walk in extreme rain, gave fresh meaning to 'rain forest'. Had my hat on, but was soaking wet getting back to my van, off with the wet shirt and off home after that. Out west, no sign of any rain anywhere! Will be back to finish off.

Finally. This has taken years, but in my defence I usually have the geohound with me and he just wants to eat trees and dig massive holes.
Originally I tried to "cheat". I had the leaflet and used that to find some numbers that corresponded with the descriptions, but that didn't seem to match the way points. And the checksum only worked for one set of coordinates.
Then I worked out which set of steps (of the 2) were most likely. And I looked. I dodged the piles of doggy droppings. I dodged the bags of hidden doggy droppings. But I couldn't find anything.
Eventually I tried again the proper way (I think, it was so long ago) and got the correct final coordinates. But now I couldn't get the gps to settle down, and the closest I could ever get was a decaying tree some distance from the boardwalk which didn't go well with me and my "do not leave the boardwalk".
Today was the last chance this cache was going to have. I dropped GeohoundandI at Eventfinder so she could tie some small children to a bar, or whatever gymnastic coaches do in the holidays, and brought the geohound. We had a look, he ate a branch and I wanted coffee. After picking GeohoundandI up we came for a proper look. Still the gps went all over the place (apparently just like the bunch of 9 year olds she had had to coach). I was not going to give up. And after 10 hours of crawling around and poking things with a stick I hit plastic.
Note to self......next time don't wear that new merino top to poke around in the undergrowth.

Wanted to hunt this and went for a walk here Years ago, but mum didn't have patience for it & I never returned until now. Hmmm, picked up the #s yesterday, did the maths correctly and today found GZ which matched the hint, but I must be blind

The weekend is almost here but first I need to make the last commute of the week back from Devonport. Left work a little early and with plenty of caching options all around my route back I settled on Smith's Bush as a pleasant option on yet another warm day. Just the 4 caches on the loop, but all good here and soon back at the car and on the way to sit in the traffic again.
Parked up and approached the entrance with pause, there was a sign I thought was Kauri DD but no worries and I was soon enough on the boardwalk admiring the trees. After checking out some specimens I zoomed in for the find and all was good here, thanks for the Multi G.

This has taken me many attempts to find. The hardest part was the start as I got confused with the v box thing. Once I figured that all the waypoints were on the phone i made quick work and managed to get the right coordinates. Couldnt find the cache on multiple occasions and I knew the place I was at was right as there were only 2 stairs around the whole loop. I contacted CO to make sure it was there and sure enough it was! Today I decided to get down and dirty and found the cache instantly! TFTC. Fp given for the amount of time it took to get!

All ok here

Easy

Have never been to this walk before. This is absolutely beautiful. Someone has left kindness rocks around the walk, which the kids have loved. The caches was exactly where we thought it would be. Thank you for bringing us to such a lovely walk. TFTC

I had some trouble with the numbers on the markers since they were covered with mold and dirt. The CO gave me a few adjustments and the final coords, so no problem with the final. TFTC.

It was time to take my niece and nephew out on another geocaching adventure. I decided to target around Milford. We were lucky the rain held out and it turned out to be quite a nice day given the torrential rain during the night.

I have been meaning to visit this reserve for a long time, but there was always sports on and it was crazy for parking. Today all was quiet with plenty of parking. We headed off along the boardwalk. Only a few times did the traffic noise remind us that there was a motorway nearby. The kids had fun reading the numbers out and only at one point the GPS wouldn't settle, so we had two possibilities. Got the final number and calculated the final with the most likely number. Final looked good and the checksums worked so we headed out. At GZ we found some treasure lying on the ground which made us believe we were in the right place. Sure enough I had located the cache.

I managed to get the numbers needed while I was here at lunchtime, decided to return after work to sign off the final. Its a very lovely bush walk, that makes you feel a million miles away from the city. Thanks for keeping this one going for so long. Quick find. SL. TFTC.

A great fun afternoon was had, Andy and I caught up to see if we could tackle Smiths Bush today, and this multi was certainly on the list to do this afternoon.
Naturally, since I'm an Engineer, I can't (or refuse to) read any manual or instructions irrelevant of whatever language they appear to be printed in, but thankfully Andy with his expertise with numbers was along with me today. It was only when I queried the checksum that Andy just passed this off as a silly rounding error, I mean clearly the cache final had to be in close proximity to us here nearby, and an error with the least most significant digit certainly seemed like the most plausible explanation to the number we had come up with earlier.
Well wouldn't you know but he was right, and the cache was quickly found at plus or minus one or two points on the phone app, but actually given the hint we should have truely been able to find the final a lot quicker on our first time past. Thanks for the fun multi, FP added, cheers

Now the fun begins...or is that stories to follow...can't wait to see what Mr Alunb has to say. Anyhow we both were going to attempt this a few months ago on our best personal streaks ever and never actually made it this way. So now we start this on a brilliant sunny warm winters day. Left-right or straight ahead, well its a G cache so go both ways and pray. We were so close to nabbing this before we even started I reckon...hmm 300 millimetres away? Then the fun started, got the other fairly new traditional caches and worked about solving this. Alun B's maths went out the window and well I just cant use the calculator? Go figure (no pun intended) well we read and re-read and luckily I picked up the map at the Wp start point...Note to future finders as this helped us sort out our aHUM Aluns maths error. Well lots of banter and we had the cache. Always appreciate a nice afternoon out with alunb on caching so thanks dude.!!! And G2 for the nice placement!

All good

What a great place to walk around. Thanks so much.

Made my way around to this one today - had pre found it for my 7 diff types in a day challenge but found another multi by FMZ for that one, on the day.

Lovely piece of wild bush

TFTC

Great, thanks. Kids enjoyed it!

I've been leaving this one for a day when we had enough time to do it justice. This morning, I decided that day had arrived. Armed with the guide and snacks, my girls and I set off to do the nature trail. Before we'd even found one of the waypoints though, we stumbled on the final! After signing the log and laughing a bit, we carried on and found the waypoints anyway - though without the pressure to do the calculations at the end. Thanks!

We were out to do a few caches today and this was the highlight of the trip today as we thought Albert the geohound would enjoy the walk through the forest and the chance of meeting up with a few other dogs. Walked past an age group cricket match in full swing, very organised they were with the sausage sizzle and everything.

By the time we were in the forested glade we were away from the city and the smell of frying snags and could enjoy the walk. We didn't try to find the first bit as we could see the waypoints and just went around them off our phone. Downside was the phone was a bit jumpy under the trees so we had a bit of debate about one of the waypoints as we weren't sure what number was right. In the end I think we got that one wrong as we were out on the checksum by one - so out, but not by much. The east ones seemed easier or at least the phone took us straight to the right spots to gather the numbers.

A plausible final calculated we walked off to look and there it was, right where we thought. Signed the log and replaced as found, all good here. Albert finished by meeting a couple of dachshunds so we started and finished our walk with sausages on the mind.

edit: I forgot to mention that someone at some point has decorated a few of the trees so if you look closely you can see glitter, marbles and other knick-knacks - for a while until they get muggled I suppose. We even met King Kong on the way around.

Thanks for the cache, a multi is a good way to see and enjoy this park.

What a fabulous reserve this is, very enchanting. I thoroughly enjoyed our wander through here, we had no problems at the wps and a quick find was made at the end. Giving a fp for bringing me here

A very nice bush reserve. Brought back memories of being a kid checking out this bush but on the other side of what is now the motorway. Found today with Merlot58.

Found with Pazzabella and our 2 geohounds on a pleasant walk (barring the mosquitos). A nice sized multi to do before ice cream. Tftmc

Geocchi and I were curious to visit this unique piece of enchanted forest in the middle of the city. By working put coords we were able to spend a longer time in here and really appreciate the size of these trees here. Our senses were filled with a stong smell of pot (we didn't spy the owners who were clearly very nearby) and heard the roar of traffic and cicaders competing against each other. Thanks for the experience G-2. [^]
Dropped off Tb.

Good find lovely walk around the bush.Also at nets before.
TFTC

TFTC from Canada.

Great walk through Smith's Bush today. Lots of people walking their dogs. Thanks G-2 enjoyed finding this one.

Weather only minimumly well today, and the family had a slow start at the breakfast cafe. So this cache, close to Takapuna, lonely and all, represented a nice alternative to a longer walk.

A wonderful walk in the forest, and a satisfying cache to find.

(Logbook signed by the kids; Vic07, Gulla04, SikoSako in adition to me - only I log on net at the time, but I dip their coins to keep track of where they have been...)

Tftc!

rearranged the waypoints, all good now

rearranged the waypoints, all good now

need to check

Like others, couldn't find smily face and found answers ambiguous. Even trying all combinations of guesses couldn't make the checksums. Had a good hunt around possible coords and wider area. Nice walk though.

We had a similar experience to the previous cachers. Found the waypoint clues unclear and weren't sure we were gathering the right numbers. Ended up with at least 2 possible numbers for 3 of the 4 WPs. After trying different permutations of numbers to get the final, and failing, we tried using the final hint to locate the cache. Scavenged extensively around the hint object we thought most likely, but didn't find anything. Very frustrating! But the bushwalk was nice.

Since this had been activated again we thought it was all good to go. Grabbed a pamphlet and headed into the bush. We found the twin trees first and got the number for that. Couldn't find smiley anywhere but grabbed a number close by based off the coordinates and the clues. Got confused by the boardwalk but took down the number that was closest on the GPS. Got totally confused by dragon's head. Then tried to figure it out by adding up the numbers but quickly realised that it was totally impossible to do so. We had the right number for the twin trees for sure, but there was no way you could add that with any of the numbers on the entire track to get 13. In order to get 13, you would have had to have a number higher than any of the tree numbers. All the tree numbers have also presumably all been replaced with little plastic numbers on the track, so not sure if those are even still the same. We guessed the numbers based off the estimates we had and the checksums and put it into the GPS. Went to that location but were unable to find anything so I guess we were wrong.
Oh well, it was a nice walk in the bush anyway.

df

need to edit, things have changed since the beginning of this one

School Holiday fun. Found the tags and arrived at waypoint before realising that it had not been found since July! Scrabbled around for a while and dishomed a few spiders (oops) but came out with cache in hand. TFTC!

Out for the day with Vamber collecting a few caches on the Shore.

This multi took us longer than it should. With a bouncing GPS signal and the resulting multiple solutions, we finally decided that we needed to use some good ol Kiwi logic and derived a logical answer.

Thank god it worked - and the cache was soon in hand!

#4363

This entry was edited by KiwifruitsNZ on Sunday, 26 July 2015 at 00:13:28 UTC.

Well, this was a multi and a half!

We were in the area to undergo some caching with our partners-in-crime, KiwifruitsNZ, and decided that we would tackle this multi first. We weren't having too much luck gathering a lot of the answers, since our GPS devices weren't playing ball, and giving us multiple different answers. After some great deduction and basic maths, we managed to figure out some final coordinates, and voila, the cache was in hand! We still had fun admiring the trees in the area! Thanks for the multi.

Kiwiscot & Kiwi revisiting the Enchanted Forest with our latest toy in hand hoping for a better result in locating the correct numbers. Newish handheld GPS had no issues locating each waypoint. Unable to actually find the Smiley Face carved in the wood but grabbed what we considered was the correct number. Kiwiscot disappeared into the woods to play leaving Kiwi to try and calculate the final location. Ended up ignoring the checksum totals (after a few head aches) and set the final co-ordinates. Once at gz, Kiwiscot's smaller stature quickly had the cache spied and in hand. Thanks for bringing us back to Smiths Bush. We have always enjoyed our visits. Lots of interesting trees to marvel at. Gets a favourite tick from us.

This is such a beautiful area !!!!
Had never been here before ...Definitely lives up to the title name ......everywhere I looked I found other worldly types of protuberances on trees which really spoke to my imagination .....and I felt I was truly in magical surroundings ...thanks a lot Glyn for choosing to do your fun multi here !!!

Shame. Did this and forgot to log. Did the loop and checked the spots, returned to GZ. and soon found. Not many people about when I was there. Tftc.

Finished night shift and decided to go for a walk so why not do a cache at the same time. Had to apply a bit of high school maths to get the final co-ords. Fake it till you get it. Was a nice quite stroll through the woods.

We really enjoyed the walk around the location of this creative multi. The area certainly lives up to the name of this cache, as the attached photos should attest. We were surprised by how many muggles were about considering we visited on a week day. Thanks for taking the time to create this enjoyable cache.

Don't get the maths. Nice place. Thanks

Lovely place that is very popular even on on a Monday. Watch out for the tree fairies. Best magic was how we found the final even though we were unsure about every wp. TFTC

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

We did the ground work for this one a while ago, but we stuffed up the basic maths and went to the wrong spot, before running out of time and having to leave. We stopped by again today while in the area and walked straight to GZ and made a quick find of the cache! A nice wander around the bush, TFTC!

TB out.

We did the ground work for this one a while ago, but we stuffed up the basic maths and went to the wrong spot, before running out of time and having to leave. We stopped by again today while in the area and walked straight to GZ and made a quick find of the cache! A nice wander around the bush, TFTC!

TB out.

#4777. We had been in this enchanted forest before, so glad to come this morning to rediscover it. By-passed the initial container and relied on the waypoints from the cache page. Got to all the waypoints despite the challenging GPS wanderings, making homing in on the correct tree numbers quite difficult. In the end we knew we were in the right places once the corresponding features were identified. Very impressed with the Twin Trees. We didn't quite make out the Smiley Face, although there was enough in the cache page to let us know we were at the right spot. Quite a few muggles walking the trail today. Fortunately, when we got to the final, it was all quiet and it was a quick find in the end.
- Hide It, Find It, Log It Tag **COPY**
+ VIJFJE (5 GULDEN)
TFTC.

I have lived in Auckland for many years and I'm ashamed to admit that I have never been to this beautiful stand of bush. Well, that is till today. A boardwalk meanders through the trees so you never get your feet wet. Very impressive. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around finding the the various check points and the final was quickly found. I also dropped off a t.b. sadly it is minus the coin ( I found it that way). Thanks Glyn I just loved it.

A beautiful bush walk in the middle of the city, very impressive! At the beginning I had trouble with the choice which number but at the end was all clear and I found him easily.

Thank you very much

Found all the way points, and I must say the things at each spot are awesome, my favorite was the smiley.

Unfortunately either our math or finding skills need some work, because although certain that we were in the right final area, could not seem to locate the cache.

Very dry here at present
Had difficulty with the numbers but got their in the end
Great Puiri trees here

TFTC

Popped over to the North Shore this evening to fill in a space on my calendar matrix and to get some exercise. With that in mind I parked up nearby with the intention of walking around all the caches sandwiched in here. Found a trail into the "Enchanted Forest" on the pond side of things. Soon wished I had come in the front way as I didn't have any paper! Made use of the back of my hand.Had some trouble zeroing in on the exact right numbers with GPSr accuracy not great under the tree cover and the hints not really fitting my twilight experience. Took my best guess at each stage and then used the checksums to iron out any kinks. Nice quick find of the final in the end. Cache in good condition. Now, how the heck do I get back to my car from here?! Cheers for the multi-cache!

It was such a beautiful day, we wanted to get out and find a few caches. Seeing the two multi caches that start nearby we headed here. I loved this walk, and really enjoyed seeing the interesting trees here. I was born in the UK and I find that NZ bush is very dense compared to UK woods whereas this was lovely and spacious. Lots of joggers and dog walkers but we timed our retrieval of the cache and it was quickly found. TFTC.

A perfect day to do this cache. Wet and wild out of the bush area, nice and dry and boardwalked inside the bush area. Unfortunately no pamphlets at the box, but carried on regardless gathering the info. Thanks for the check sums as some numbers collected were either this one or that one depending on GPS accuracy! Enjoyed the enchanted forest and easy find at the final. Yes, a very canine muggle area, just wish the canines were under better control from their owners.

This happened to be across form the road where we stayed the night so when the little reds started to climb the walls of the room, we decided to take them for a walk. This is a cool place to wander about, fully fenced so kids cant get out, though it appears to be a frequent dog walking place so watch out for the muggles that follow them!

We really enjoyed the walk and trying to work out which number related to which clue. There are some really HUGE trees in here too. One on the red juniors found a troll toy on the side of the path so then the discussion started about trolls! And the 3 billy goats! We found the last answer so calculated the necessary final coordinates but we had one wrong. With a bit of deduction ( knowing we had the last one right we worked out what it should have been, so with a quick recalc we were off! Got to GZ and after a bit of a search Mr Red came up with the goods. This was a really fun multi for the family which involved them all. TFTC

Trees, walking and birds - you can't beat that for a nice multi. A favourite from us.

This cache has been on our to do list for quite some time so today after a catch up in the garden we set of to visit the enchanted forest. Thoroughly enjoyable walk through the mix of weird and wonderful trees meeting several muggles and their dogs along the way. Great cache page and an enjoyable multi TFTC.

We are in NZ from Australia on Chippyroo's Middle Earth Caching Quest. Today was our last full day here and more than likely our last day of caching . We are staying at the local holiday park, we signed in, parked Chups the campervan and set off on foot to grab a few caches in the area. Enchanted Forest indeed! This place is magical! We didn't expect it to be like that so close to the city. We virtually had the place to ourselves, other than a muggle family walking their dog and a man laying on one of the benches calling to the tui birds! It is the kind of place that you wouldn't be surprised to see a fearie, elf or hobbit! We collected the required info and worked out GZ - funnily enough we had both commented on that area as a good place for a cache!! It took a few minutes to locate it but we got there in the end! We took a pathtag and left one of our 'Geolux' pathtags. TFTC.

Such a beautiful piece of bush right in the heart of the city. Enjoyed the stroll and despite not being super confident about one of the stages the numbers seemed good and it was a quick find. TFTC

Enchanted we were. Wonderful trees and a noisy flock of tui feeding on trees w small flowers hanging in clusters off their trunks. We didn't even try to find the V bottle as we came in from the back. Had "aha" moments for 2 wp's but had to correct the other 2 using the check sums - so thank you for supplying them. Bumped into kiwicouple at one point. Nice to put faces to the name. Took jeep geocoin and left pathtag so PIGO TFTC

Found

Great bush with a lot of sport fields around. could not find the V bottle so used the given coordinates to work out the final. Nice cache, took GC and dropped TB for a bit of off road. TFTC

Enjoyed re-visiting the enchanted forest, knew two of the waypoint locations, but still a good walk around.

TFTC

4.30pm. Our numbers were out by 1 but we assumed that that would not create too great an error and with the help of the clue it didn't. Thoroughly enjoyed our wander around this scrap of forest - awe inspiring and has a medieval feel to it. The exercise was made all the better because our very first cache was the old Enchanted Forest cache - found virtually six years ago.
Added a gemstone bracelet & took a glass stone.
TFTC

Struggled with the Wp's a little bit. I probably needed some mind altering substances so I would be better at spotting the dragon etc. But for all of that, it is one of the nicer reserves in Urban Auckland. Thanks.

Couldn't quite get the checksum to agree but figured we had to be close enough. Very enjoyable walk around an area we never knew existed. TFTC

Came here many a time as a kid but haven't been since the boardwalk was made. Parents and i took a leasurly walk around while hubby & son practiced cricket. Didn't find the first point (but didn't look very hard as already had co-ords) also almost missed the box with pamphlets as now hidded by trees. Noticed that the face carving is actually a face 7 a half (the other face has been sawn right through the nose).
Ended up out slightly as S' checksum was 1 out but still close enough for a quick find. Thank you for an excuse to re-discover this bush.

Great to see a nice multi in one of our favourite north shore walkways, we used to bring our littles ones around here when they were pram bound now they run with gusto around the flat walkways. It was great today on a hot summer day to be under the trees. Didn't have too much trouble finding the required numbers and the final cache - the checksums certainly helped clear up some ambiguties for us. Thanks for setting up the great walk around Smith's bush. TFTC.

Tufty and I revisited the Enchanted Forest. Nice little stroll around the boardwalks gathering the data. - Pollock Knob Green Jeep TB. T4TC.

Out with BaldEd this morning visiting the caches close to home. I have always thought that this Bush should have its own cache. Well done, Glyn, on beating me to the punch. It is such a great place.

We were here in the broad daylight whereas the first time was just on dusk. It was better then as you could imagine all sorts of things happening in the twilight. I'm sure I saw fire coming out of the Dragon's Snout last time.

Cheers for the cache.

We enjoyed our walk around the Enchanted Forest just before dusk, but in our case it was discovery for the first time. Located each of the waypoints and gathered the numbers then headed for the final for an easy find there. We liked this multi and the use of the resources in the forest. Thanks for bringing us in here.

# 2388

Dan & I spent quite a while on Xmas day & Boxing day chasing this one-thanks to the master(G-2)for help when we went blind -great place to walk-tftc

5400 Enjoyed our re-discovery stroll around the Enchanted Forest... Many thanks for bringing us back.
OUT: Nan’s Flutterby
IN: NIL, TFTC

Didn't need the V part of the multi. Used the info at each site to get to the final.

Nice place to be, out of the Hot Sun (30 degrees)

No Travelbug in the cache

Put in a Green Jeep and Butterfly GC.

Thanks for the hunt.

Enjoyable stroll. Got around and found quicker than expected. FTF 598 TFTC!!!

Published

Coin drop

Tb drop