Water hole Fun (North Canterbury) Gore Bay, South Island, New Zealand
By yobbonz on 13-Nov-09. Waypoint GC2147G

Difficult access at 3rd river crossing, couldn't get there safely

Tftc and greetings from Czechia

Great little walk to a hidden valley!
Thank you for this

We found the nearly there track and followed this to the stepping stones. From here things got very difficult climbed up and across got to 38m but barb wire fence and dense bush with sheer drop off made this impossible. Walked on track to 200m past cache down to river and tried coming back. This turned into a 90min bush bahing, climbing, fence crossing, cliff crawling nightmare. Gave up and returned. Be very careful.

Very overgrown track, but was well worth the effort, beautiful spot, TFTC!

Off to the water hole for a nice quick find. Glad the last cache showed us the way and we have no maps at present. Nice scenery. tftc

Finally after the third attempt we finally found the box. A good start into the new year! Happy 2020!

Been coming to gore bay for years and heard of the "secret swimming hole" a few times but never actually found it till now. Thanks so much for the directions to an amazing spot

This month is Adrenaline Junkie weekend, given that I will not have much chance for caching thoughout the rest of September, Taybeedragon and myself are heading to the Hurunui. The plan was to bring Zara and make it an overnighter, but instead we just brought Toby for a day trip.

A bit of a problem finding this cache - there are two Buxton Campgrounds and we found the other one first. The green spacce opposite that one didn't seem like a rest area, and we could not find a track out. SO for the next person, use S 42° 51.251 E 173° 18.692 as a way point for the correct rest area and trail head (the location of Polish Troll geocache).

Almost gave this a miss, it's getting late in the day. But decided to go on anyway, bringing some torches along (well, I had my cellphone, which provides a pretty awesome light). Didn't need them. Could not find the stepping stones - we ended up crossing the stream a number of times, and near the end simply walking in it. Very slippery in places. Love the shelving/terracing at GZ!
Went up the bank looking for the cache - steep and slippery up there. After a while I realised this was unlikely and came back down to the water level where I promptly found the cache.

Getting dark once back at the rest area. Made dinner. It was full dark at pack up time. Head home.
Thanks for an excellent day out, and this cache gets a fav.

The Seagnoid, Toby, Zara and I are off to Cheviot for the weekend leaving early Saturday. Well that was the plan. A new plan emerged with a day trip to Cheviot with Toby and Zara resting up in Blenheim. Lets Go exploring the Hurinui.
We are returning from the lookout and stop here. No wrong camp ground. Visit the map across the road to check it out . Then return to visit Polish Troll again for the entrance to this one. Bummer - should have worn my gummies - too late now. Feet now wet but managed to keep my clothes dry across the creek. Crossed a bit of farm land with an electric fence - yes it was working but very low zits. Scrambled under it on the return journey. Torwards GZ there was some amazing flat rock shelves. The creek get very slippery right at the end and the bank was also slippery while trying to navigate it. Although I did not need to in the end so it worked out. Snagged and tagged and now for the return journey.
Back at the reserve and its 6pm so time for dinner curtesy of The Seagnoid and the camp stove. Now time to head towards home, arriving in Blenheim at 10.30. Great day out but should have taken Zara along for the trip. Cheers.

????

Came across this by accident before I even knew about geocaches! Left a gold sparkly hair tie as this is all I had on me

Nice spot for a cache. And, a great little walk. Wish I’d brought my tog so I could take advantage of the swimming holes!
Thanks for sharing it with us.

It's been a while since we went for a nice long day of caching with sonia26642, so we decided that it was time to do it! We started nice and early and headed up north to target mainly those neither of us has found, and some odd one one of us has. We had an amazing day of adventures!! We have been signing the logs mostly as Team Polak to save time and log book space Thanks for all the great caches along the way!!!
What a mission here! Path finding skills first, then multiple water crossings, and then for the search itself. The log book is saturated in spite of the cache sitting nice and snug well above water.

09/09/2017 12:09:00 PM
8413
My very ambitious goal is to clear out enough caches so that I only have 500 caches unfound within 80km of home by the time I go back to work from maternity leave.... but new publishing unfortunately makes that harder!! And with only one week till I return to work, and almost 600 caches within 80km, I don't think I'll find 100 more in that time, but may as well get close!
So today I took annual leave off motherhood, and hubby looked after baby, while mum & I went off geocaching!! Plan was to get the 30-odd caches within 80km of my home that were in a kind- of- bunch up north-ways.

We ended the day with 32 finds, and quite a lot of them had been unloved for months! But came home a little later than hubby was pleased with... oops! Haha I hope he lets me out next time too!

This was a mission. Firstly, getting here was a mission, and then, finding the cache was a mission!! Haha! The water was probably higher than it was when this cache was placed, we had to cross about half a dozen times, and then struggled to get to GZ on the algae covered rocks. Once near GZ, the coords had me very very far up the bank, so up I went... bush bashed like crazy, but turns out that the cache was much closer to the water, and mum called that she had it!

But wow, looking at this water hole, now I see what they're talking about when they talk about the degradation of our rivers. I would definitely not be swimming in that water. And all the rocks were quite algae covered/slippery, and the water was quite brown!!

Crazy to be the first finders in almost 2 years!!

TFTC!!

Quick find after a nice walk up the valley, although managed to get a large splinter in my heel right at the start. Managed to get all the way up to GZ without getting wet feet, last couple of steeps slid down and into the stream. TFTC

Found with Mporokosa - TFTC

Fun is an understatement! Super spot! Better than I anticipated. Truffles enjoyed running through the water, biting the little waterfalls and sniffing all the smells. We followed the stream until we found it best to head toward higher ground. Eventually we made our way up and above and looped back to the start of our hike. It was a fabulous day weather-wise. Thanks for bringing us to this gem!

Another day parked up at Parnassus so a few more caches in the bag. What a neat little track and waterfall.

A new bag is required to keep the logbook dry.

Cheers for the cache.

Took the uphill route for a start, then realised we had to turn off before going up. Doh.

A nice walk up the river bed, A wee bit slippery in places. Cache well exposed so moved to a tree where the was more cover, slightly up stream of where we found it. Left a replacement log in the car, so maintenance still needed.

A good day for caching with Kiwi Moose.
For speed and to save valuable logging space we regularly sgned KM + KR or some other variant

Thanks to all the CO's for their hides.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For info on the next NZ mega, go to: [url=http://coord.info/gc587bc]nzmega2015[/Url] |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Well, we stuffed that one up by taking the direct line. After climbing a few metres to one of the new house sites, decided that perhaps we were going the wrong way. Back down, found the path and off we went. A fun we wander up the valley to the GZ and then success. Cache was a bit exposed to back where the hint says it might be. A great day out and about with Karma Reprint. Cheers

Found it, took a little while as it was starting to get dark. Tftc

Found it - what a great place to visit. My city kids were a little out of their comfort zone following the sheep trails and the sheep were very interested in what we were up to.
The cache is pretty wet so might need some maintenance.
Thanks for showing us such a beautiful spot.

Found it ,first find on this one for nearly fourteen months the lid was off & logbook was too wet to write in so cleaned it out but it needs a new book. Very proud of the find because we are just newchums to this & we did it without any help !!!

Gave a bit of a clean out and made a bit more open

I had some spare time on the way south today so went for a drive to Gore Bay - my first ever visit. This cache caused me a bit of grief, the access track was very wet and hard to follow with the recent spring growth. I ended up taking the farm track then bush-bashing to the cache from above and returning the same way. Fortunately it was a quick find. Signed log, TFTC!

10:55
Found during nice walk from Cheviot on a scenic route. This is really nice place, I had to cross the electric fence twice. The watr is nice and cold, and the stones are very slippery.
Nice place for relaxing. The grass on the track was wet also.
TFTC

Had a bit of trouble locating the parking area as we mis-interpreted which camp to park at as there are two. The correct one is at the northern end of Gore Bay.Rocks slippery,but awesome spot. If water level elevated,could be very tricky getting to this one,as you have to cross the river four times.. Dont be like us and follow the fenceline,follow the river bed.

Loved the wander to the waterhole, such a great spot. Tftc

A great walk up a valley. Very interesting. Shame about lack of flow for swimming these days.

Well that was a challenge getting there and back, rocks very slippery. No TB Grrrrrr. TFTC

Was on my bike so biked along the track a way till it got too much. I tried to make this a more difficult terrain by going up a steep bank too soon along the track, but soon found my error and cache in hand shortly after. Warning to be foot sure on the clay rock in the river; very slipery when wet. Great spot will upload a photo.

What a great location. Used to live in Gore Bay but I have never been up that valley. Nice walk. GPS a little confused in the ravine but managed to find it. So had a muggle as per log book so some leaves covering container to make a little less obvious.

Very popular track in a most unexpected place. Think we had half of Gore Bay helping to look. Two lads with their names in the log finally found it quite un covered but safe. Thanks.

Cache looking OK nice walk, well up for the week end. camping.

NZ12. I was staying the night here in Gore Bay, and was happy to see several caches around, even if there was no place to get dinner. Oh well. Last for the night and it was a great walk in the evening light. The stream was flowing well, but it was cross-able in the right spots. The last bit was VERY slippery, and like many I went too far up at first. Other wise I am very happy to have done this walk. Thanks.

8627.48 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & First Geocoin in Orbit Copper A#104

Albida

Just wow! What a fantastic place, a new surprise around each corner..a real gem.

First we went up the wrong way and wanted to get to the creek, then we tried to get through the gorse bushes, found a dead sheep in the creek, and at the end battery of my iPhone went flat, my wife dropped her sunglasses into the creek and had to walk barefoot through the cold water....but we didn't find the cache

Third time lucky, 1st was just after origonal flushed out, 2nd time creek in flood. Even today had made coord error, started wondering, "surely not this far up bank!", lucky had detail with me, another 40m to go after correction. Yip, I had fun in the water hole...and found a gummy leaked !! Neat spot. Cheers.

Interesting area, slippery (when wet) all the time and I´m not kidding. I have almost didn´t got to the toilet early enough (bad lunch and horrible experience:). TFTC!

4503. The second day of a two day trip to North Canterbury to complete the final two dates of a geocaching year. This is our third cache on the final day of a year of geocaching dates. A quick and easy find on a muggle free day after a lovely walk in the rain. This would be a great spot on a hot summer day. We will spend the day doing Gore Bay and Napenape Beach caches. Thanks, Rodney & Iris.

Kids enjoyed a nice cold swim on this one. It was an unusually hot day for April. TNLN. TFTC.

What a great wee walk. I had a really neat experience with the Fantails who were not afraid to get close. TFTC.

awesome walk i got stung by the eletric fence 11 times

The twelvth find of the day on a caching trip taking in the back roads from Waikari to Motunau, Gore Bay, Cheviot and Culverden. A hot but enjoyable walk up the stream to the cache. The GPS was a bit erratic but found the cache eventually (after walking straight past it without seeing it!) TFTC.

TFTC. A wonderful gorge to explore. The rock formations are impressive. The cache was placed sensibly and readily found. I recommend following the river all the way and that there is no need to deviate upwards, which definitely takes you to private land.

GPS coords put it in private land - scrambled all over the steep thick grass slope but no luck.

A really enjoyable cache. Managed to loose the track a couple of times so was a much quicker exit than the way in. TFTC #2360

Neat little waterfall. Quite slippery and muddy tho. Enjoyed the walk thanks (sorry if that date is out by 1 or 2 days)

Delightful little hike into a well hidden piece of NZ nature.
TFTC!

Great walk in just on dark.

Bitsprayer

Muddy track up to this one. TFTC

A real adventure in the rain and in the middle of the knoght. TFTC.

Oh man this was a fun cache. At night. In the rain. Hehe. Had fun strolling up the track, and as we approached GZ, the river and rocks. Flow wasn't too bad. Not enough to get wet socks anyway. Although it was a little slippery in places Lots of fun though. Cheers Gav [7620]

this was great. A surprising walk with strange watery caves and electric fences to go over and under.Plus an element of 'danger' with slippery areas. Lots of fun.

Started off on the right track but quickly got a little lost on farmland as the track disappeared and there were some new electric fences between us and where we guessed the cache site was. Two year old geocacher was too tired and hot and grumpy to continue so we gave up for today! Will be back. Beautiful quiet spot with amazing birdsong. Water was pretty manky so not convinced about swimming in it!

Very pretty valley, would've liked to have headed up a bit further but was pushed for time. Found the cache without too many worries.

T4TC

Found smartly enough but the walk up was slow. Had to negotiate an electric fence twice on the accent and again on the decent. After finding the cache put Jacob (3yr) in his togs and Dad (age undeclared) got down to undies for some fun in the water, almost went into the cave downstream from GZ but Jacob wouldn't have any of that.

The weather was not very nice on the day we searched for this cache.
The wind was blowing throught the river bank.

The location is very nice and would be ideal for swim in nice weather.
We had some lunch and enjoyed it.

TFTC

The walk to the cache was longer than I expected, but it was worth it. Terrain of this cache (2,5*) was harder comparing to GC18J9T (4*) I took today's morning.
Took some car toy and golf ball from the cache and left piece of puzzle and bracelet and panda bear toy.
Thanks and greetings from Latvia!

tried this one last night but took a wrong path. Came back today after reading the cache page and with better footwear! Was more of a mission than we thought it would be. Interesting spot, nice hide. Took spoon, left plane. TFTC Starteled a bit of the local "wildlife" on the way back!

I come to Gore Bay every now and then but I never knew about this wee spot. It was a very hot morning when I walked up to this magic spot and on arrival I found just about every mans dream.( But thats another story lol ) This lovely spot is well worth checking out. TFTC. Cheers Bo

Neat walk up here, magic spot. TFTC

Agree with Peter " Best cache of the day - possibly the trip." what a magic spot well worth the trip up their, cache all safe and sound after all that rain we had..

Still the cache of the day - possibly the trip. Made better this time by having a cache to find why didn't you have the cache here last time? AWESOME. Highly reccomended.

** Coordinates Changed From **
S 42° 51.302 E 173° 18.506
Distance From Old: 464.9 feet or 141.7 meters.
The last Cache has been washed away so new cache now and a new spot as well.

beaut type of cache....but it is gone

think the cache has been washed away will try and get up there soon.

Cache of the day. Very enjoyable. Would have been better if the cache was still there! have photo of empty GZ for owner when I get to my desk.

This cache may have gone for a swim I think as this little stream has been a raging torrent on 2 or 3 occassions this winter. I believe that GZ has been under water judging by the "high tide" marks, or else the cache has been buried.

Between the steep clay cliffs lays this nice little valley. Although the mentioned water holes are not really tempting.

Dieser Cache ist dem Geburtstagskind Guido gewidmet! Happy Birthday!

TftC

Steve

PS: You have to cross the river three times...

Very nice place near a beautiful surfing beach. It was the birthday of our beloved friend Guido. As he is a great geocacher and got us addicted to it we went on a tour on his birthday and found three caches, which we devote to him.

Needed a bit of care getting to the cache site. We may have been on the wrong track. TFTC

nice walk up stream, water low, may have to move cache as the stream floods in winter. TNLN

Found it with the help of my mother who grew up in the area, swam in the swimming hole as a child but had never noticed the cave. Enjoyed the walk.

A first visit to Gore Bay for Netty and I. This was an interesting expedition we weren't really expecting. Good fun. TFTC.

A nice stroll from the polish troll.
Kiwi-Spingbok

1100hrs Boy the cattle had stomped around a lot, watch out for their 'leavings' of copious quantity. Today was very hot and dusty but we would still probably not take advantage of the water holes. Thanks for the walk. 'The Italian Job was here....!' Our blog www.motorhominginxs.blogspot.com

Nice little walk up the valley. Pleasant birdsong and gurgling stream at GZ. Glad the dew on the long grass has dried out otherwise I would have gotten pretty wet. T4TC.

Now that was a nice little discovery! We liked the track into this well hidden little valley. Ver remote, very quiet. Thanks for showing us this place and greetings from Germany, Team Loopi

Fairly straight forward walk and a clearly defined track, perhaps there have been people coming up here from the motorcamp over Christmas?
Not sure I'd want to swimin there, bit too muddy for me but I enjoyed the visit.
TFTC

2TF. Overgrown - yes - head-high grass for Mrs W.E.K.A.. Track - questionable - maybe after another 20 or 30 cachers have visited. Coordinates had us on the wrong side of the creek, but the cache was soon found. Interesting features at cache location. TFTC

Woop Dee Doo.We are the first to find this one.And it is also our first to find It's quite exciting.But what a laugh as while we were praising ourselves and filling out the log book Peter the muggle snuck up on us,he came out of nowhere.So we had to tell him what we were doing in such a remote spot.And he told us that he was ploting a course for an event that he runs every year it is something similar to Orientering.He was such a nice chap and we talked for quite awhile.TFTC We will always remember this one Cheers yobbonz.

Published