Kakamatua Stream (Auckland) Parau, North Island, New Zealand
By M@ on 12-Nov-09. Waypoint GC20YE3

Due to the threat of Kauri Dieback disease, this cache has been archived as it lies within a kauri protection zone.

See Waitakere Ranges track closures for more info.

Cheers, M@

Had a plan to try and find this one sometime over the summer break and with a fine morning and all day free I teamed up with Mel_Ramsay to try our luck along the stream.

Had a bit of rain along the way but in no way could we complain about anything else. Great walk through the stream, across the stream, through the trees and more often than not through the cobwebs.

Once we got to GZ we realised that the spoiler wasn't going to be of much use to us (as far as we could tell anyway) but after some searching we had the cache in hand. Finished up with lunch by the waterfall and dipped the toes quickly before heading back.

About 5 hours all up, 7km slogged and a pretty sweet day all round. Thanks for a great cache M@!

With a precious day off work, what better way to spend it than doing a good solid stream walk with a cache at the end and some good company....so that was the plan, and with the help of evilno9, the plan was successful. A very enjoyable slog up the stream combined with a bit of bush bashing, cliff climbing, cobweb eating, and the inevitable arse over in the water. Once arriving the cache zone it took bit ofmdigging around, as the spoiler pics have certainly changed a bit, but the find was soon in hand. After a quick dip in the waterfall and a quick bite to eat it was back down stream again...this time with a few less cobwebs! For the awesome cache...another great place to visit

I was going back out Whitford way this morning to try and finish off what I had started yesterday trying to clean up the Whitford/Beachlands/Maraetai/Duder Regional Park caches. I ran out of time to do the Whitford ones. But as it was a great morning with the forecast for it to stay that way I decided to do this one.

Left home early and finally started the trek at 0725 hrs from the suggested carpark. 20 minutes along the track out of the bush came 2 K9s with bright orange visibilty jackets on. Not a sight one normally sees in here. Meant to ask their muggle owners if they were working on the track. A bit further on came to Foys Folly and then deviated down this little stream to meet up with the main Kakamatua Stream. Ah, the first stream crossing was here and managed to get across with dry feet. I wondered if this was going to last especially after reading the previous logs. Finally made it all the way up to the GZ and with dry feet at 0915hrs - 1 hour 50 minutes. In places there seems to be a faint trail that I was able to follow but in other places I had to do a little bit of bush bashing until I had to cross the stream again.

Thanks to the spoiler photos I soon had the cache in hand. Thought of leaving a TB or Geocoin here but as the previous visitor was 9 months ago thought better of it. Had a drink and a snack bar and then left again at 0933hrs. Going back was a lot easier as I knew where I had to cross the stream and where the faint trail was. Got to Foys Folly at 1033 hrs and back to the carpark at 1055hrs. The Trip Odometer had a round trip of 6.2 km but the GPS did lock up for a while before I realised what had happened. It won't be far out - something in the order of .2 or .3 km.

A great trip in the fantastic new Zealand bush. A pity about the pines at the start though. Thanks, M@.

Cheers for the cache.

Took the day off to do this one. Fantastic little stream, quite easy going (even the deep bits were fun on a hot day). The cache was not in its nook, had rolled downhill a couple of metres - made sure it was firmly wedged in place this time.
I wandered up to the lovely waterfall pool, but only got in halfway. Just downstream of the pool a flash of blue amongst the gravel caught my eye, and I dug out a long-lost radio signal tracker. I bet someone got into trouble a few years ago for losing that - maybe it was used to track kiwis fitted with a transmitter. Attached a photo (with dipole antenna now extended)
Had a great day , thanks M@.

3000th cache find

Well this one had been in the planning for some time, and as usual for this sort of event, with some great company. Unfortunately a few piked out at the last moment so the group was a bit smaller than expected.

Great walk in, much easier than expected, "twinkle toes" Jim even managed to do the whole trip with dry feet, but the rest of the team didn't or didn't try. Only 31 stream crossings in each direction.

Thanks for a great cache, one that partially restores my faith in this pastime, not a bus stop in sight .

Bit of a celebratory get together afterwards, photos to follow.

TFTC

What a pleasure to be part of the Sp8s 3,000 find team. A beautiful day and some lovely bush - great range of trees, and quite a few birds hovering nearby. Mr TT did his usual act of keeping dry feet for the entire trip , whilst the rest of us just waded on through. Lunch in the sun at the cache site, a side trip to the waterfall, then back for celebratory drinks all contributed to a great day out. Well done Sp8s - a fitting cache and reflects what we think caching is all about Thanks M@.

3833
A brilliant day out to help sp8sm8 celebrate their 3000th find, your forecaster certainly got the weather right. Congrats and well done on your milestone. Managed to keep the socks dry... until the first stream crossing, then it was... just wade on through. Great spot for a cache, many thanks M@ for bringing us here, always enjoy these ones, especially when found in great company. Thanks again Nick and Fi for inviting me along for a thoroughly enjoyable day, cheers YG4.

Out west with the boys (greenblat, tws, ogp, mm1968 and tofska), intending to do a bit of a hardcore mission down the Anawhata stream. Headed down the Chateau Mosquito track but the stream was still pretty high after the recent rain so after some mulling it over we bailed and went back up the track.

The backup plan was this cache and a possible FTF. M@ came along for the walk but remained suitably quiet regarding directions discussions and then just smugly sat eating his lunch while we searched for the cache. Superb location and a great walk/wade/bush bash in. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks M@ for another great cache! Oh and FTF #285 for us. TFTC!!!

The first half on the way in belies what comes next.

A wonderous criss cross through meandering stream. Lunch at the falls adn then return home.

Seemed twice as far on the way back. Good company makes it easy.

Worth the diversion and glad we came.

Thanks for bringing us hear.

This was a pleasant outcome to a day that started quite different (see previous log). The first part of the trip is easy going - in fact the track is wide enough to drive a bus down and they've filled across the gullies to make the grades gentle - must have been a reasonable road in it's time. The scenery changes and it's into the journey proper along the stream. Once you get into the cadence of swapping banks between terraces, the going is not too bad at all, but it's definitely a wet-shoe trip (and we all took slides of varying degrees along the way). The cache is in a delightful location, & we took our time to have a little explore up the sides and to the falls. Thanks for the cache M@ and the rest of the guys for the day out.

Wow - what a walk, splash, wade and climb this cache turned out to be. Worth every step .

TFTC !

Out and about with some of The A Team. The owner taggeed along to.

Great walk, great fun.

Fun crossing the river 100 times.

Photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045157&id=1289556552&l=fed5762cb5

TFTC M@

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