Big Rock (Dunedin, Otago) Halfway Bush, South Island, New Zealand
By daywalk on 28-Nov-09. Waypoint GC218NY

Looked everywhere sround the big rock other big (but smaller) rocks and off track slightly to no avail. Had 6 year old and dog with me so couldnt have a more thorough look

I dont really need much in the way of prodding when someone suggests a visit to Dunedin. Headed south with gonefishing to attend the Mega Event over Labour weekend. Thoroughly enjoyed myself. No preset targets. A case of just get out there and let the good times roll. A detour while on the way to the OSC cache. After an initial search in the wrong place we followed the instructions and soon had our hands on the cache. Great view down the valley from here. Thanks to everyone involved in organising the Mega. You did a great job guys!Cheers and TFTC

Down in Dunedin for the Mega. Great to be back for another Mega 12 years after NZ's first Mega here in 2012. Finding a few caches with Boxhill and having a few laughs on the way.Picking up a few caches on Flagstaff, making the most of the the best weather day this weekend. Thanks to the detailed instructions this did not take too long to find.Thanks to the team for putting on a great Mega weekend, and also to all the COs for placing and maintaining the caches.TFTC daywalk

Cache 1553 shooting up to Dunedin for some impromptu DT hunting this is stop 1 of the day, the trail coming down from the top is a nicely cleared trail and nice and dry currently a bit of an ankle twister in places but didnt take to long to arrive at, for some reason I found this 1.5 difficultly cache harder to find than I should have lets just say I was fair cursing the horse but found it eventually then enjoyed the view. Cache stop left me frazzled and Ive left my over ear headphones there somewhere DOH but anyway T4TC

What an amazing place!! Never ventured this side of flagstaff, never knew the path (which is appropriately named!) existed, and certainly never knew about this big rock. The cache took me a little bit to find as I initially went too far down, but then popped up and saw the container! Sat and admired the view for a bit, it was absolutely stunning! I really really loved this! The path down was an interesting one, definitely easier going back up I think!

Out for a quiet stroll this morning. Lovely view from here, TFTC. It’s dry, tucked away in its hidey hole.

Parked at the bull pen. I went up the fire track most of the way to swampy doing caches on the track and on side tracks. Then came back via Flagstaff. Took a little over 4 hours.

Snared the two target caches of the day, Old School and 50% Favorite. My legs are pretty beaten up, between Old School and Walkaways of Otago - Swampy I did my fair share of bush bashing.

Popped down to the Rhododendron grove too because in my mind a 260 m vertical is just a small detour.

One of the caches found on this sort of loop walk was my 10,000th physical cache find.

Detoured on the way back from a workparty at Ben Rudds. Track well-cleared, in excellent condition. Mr D removed a gorse bush that was obstructing the easy way in to the cache.

The third catch on the lid broke off... so put the cache inside a snaplock bag to keep it together. The crevice it is in keeps the cache absolutely dry. Will bring a replacement box in due course.

No caching during Covid-19 alert levels Level 3 & 4.
This includes virtual waypoints - we need to stay home except for essential outings.
Working together, we can beat delta and keep our community safe.

[https://covid19.govt.nz/](https://covid19.govt.nz/)

[https://wiki.groundspeak.com/display/GEO/New+Zealand?fbclid=IwAR2GUaxN7zpUQI2Suglt1ggVnCqw8V1emnygD1Tdw6YTu1f4LUcIt92oZhs](https://wiki.groundspeak.com/display/GEO/New+Zealand?fbclid=IwAR2GUaxN7zpUQI2Suglt1ggVnCqw8V1emnygD1Tdw6YTu1f4LUcIt92oZhs)

Missed the easy way in at the end. Blind or what!! So clambered up from the bottom. More precarious and thorny but successful. Cracking views.

Container going brittle but safe from elements where it is.

Re enabled because of the move to Level 2. Stay safe; be kind.

New Zealand is under Level 4 lockdown from today for at least a month, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I am disabling all my caches for the meantime to remind people that we MUST break the chain of infection.

Covid-19 is now being spread within the community, person to person. We know that the virus will remain on surfaces like metal and plastic for up to 4 days.

We have only one chance to stop the Covid-19 virus spreading further. This is to BREAK the chain of infection by keeping each household separated completely. During this time each of us MUST keep isolated and only share with the people in our own household.

The best advice is to act as though you are infected... which you might be. We know there are cases in Dunedin... I might be infected and so might you.

If you touch a cache container, you will leave viruses on the plastic, logbook and pen. Those will remain infectious for up to 4 days. Suppose some other person finds the cache tomorrow. They are likely to pick up those viruses and will get infected.

Playground equipment is out of bounds for exactly that reason- touching surfaces can spread infection.

Each of us has to do our bit to save lives. If the Covid-19 virus spreads, a lot of us will die. Maybe your grandmother, or my friend who has just had a bone-marrow transplant.

Stay home, stay safe, let's get to the other side of the pandemic before we go geocaching again.

#6022. I am down in Dunedin for the weekend. Had a work meeting on Thursday and Friday and decided to stay on to do some geocaching. So have hired a rental car. Today I am mostly going to walk the tracks up around Flagstaff Peak. I had this one placed on a possible list as wasn't sure if there was a route to it or a scrub bash. But once I got to the trailhead there was a freshly cut track going through the dense scrub all the way to the rock. It is quite a spectacular rock outcrop and a great view. I am glad the description had a detailed set of notes of how to find the cache. Otherwise I think I would still be in there looking. But I found it within 3 minutes. A nice big container as well. Signed the log and replaced the cache as found. Then it was a case of following the path back up to the main track. Thanks for hiding it here daywalk.

A walk needed to be done today, although the forecast was for lots of rain and Mr spoonz was working. Up to the Bullring I went in search of this one. Having found the large rock in question, some scrambling about was involved and just as I decided that the rocks were getting too slippery with the light rain, the cache was spotted. Hooray- and thanks as always, Daywalk.

OMG second rule of geocaching ( after don't forget your pen) read the %%$##$ description before looking for the cache.
down in dunnas for the night and out on a mission with KJR . spent well over half an hour looking in every nuck and cranny around the boulder until KJR decided to read the description properly . Doh!
after that it was a quick find as I went bush to retrieve the cache great views tftc

Met up with BCD after this mornings event for a bit of a mission. We headed further up the road to find another cache but were stopped in our tracks with a padlocked gate. Was a good 3 or 4 km uphill so we decided since there were lots on our afternoon agenda to backtrack and leave for another day. After a couple more stops for BCD this was the next closest so I was like why not?! The track up had a lot of little rocks and was quite muddy in parts but we finally made it to the Big Rock and spent a good half hour searching. No luck but not being one to give up and call defeat a last minute check of the cache description gave us the vital information we needed and after a short scramble BCD soon had cache in hand! Log signed and admired the view for a bit before making our way back down. TFTC

I spent a while admiring the view before going to find the cache. Thanks

Set off on an awesome morning weather wise off to find this cache again. After missing the track because we were talking so much... we finally found our way in. a great walk down to the cache site. Found what we intended to find but the cache was in full view and not tucked away so after we logged our visit we carefully put this back where it should be according to CO hint. Easier to find as the bush was quite thick last time we were here. TFTC

A plan was hatched last night and what a perfect morning to carry it off. Misses the track again but soon hand the cache in hand once we got to the rock. Assume some children have found the cache as common names like Polly are written in the book. They must of wandered about our caching names.

For our weekly Wednesday walk the CO decided that we should incorporate a trip here so that she could check it out after a couple of DNFs. I was keen as I had never been here. We came in from the bottomalong the recently cleared track. What a track. A type of track that I enjoy as long as you don't have kilometres of it. the Green Hut Track crew have done a great job. There were 10 of us and I went ahead to have a look around before the CO arrived. A quick find and in a place that muggles visiting the roack are generally not likely to find it.

Checked today while passing! Have added a description of how to get to GZ on the cache page. Do it now, while the track is in such good condition...

With eve07 having completed her rambers it was off this morning to get it. JRB5050 said there was a new track to this one. Spend over an hour looking for it and then started down the sign posted track. Got there in the end with only a few scratches to show for it. Eve07 waited for me before looking for cache. 20 minutes later we are still looking so really think it has gone. Now for the climb back up (at least I didn't have wee Eve in my backpack).

Was looking forward to this one so we had a way-point for the start of a new track. Well that didn't go quite to plan as well as it should - so after looking for quite sometime the ham sandwich came out to nourish my starving tummy, and a piece of special chocolate from Germany gave me that bit of sustenance to find a way into the Big Rock! We decided to do the Big Rock track (long story here) - and came through pretty well. Had to pick up the dog as the gorse was too hard to walk on for her. Finally made it to GZ and waited for retrieve that simile with p&vee. But sadly all I could find was a laminated A4 paper with woowho written on it and a small candle. I bit strange I'm thinking... but the view yonder was just wonderful. Enjoyed the trek all the same but had to put the dog in the back pack to get her out of there safely.

TFTC

Well, we got more bush bashing than we bargained for based on the description When we parked the car, we could not see a track marker anywhere, so decided to head into the bush anyway, direction cache! A 'few' scratches and bruises later... About one third up, we did come across a marker and did a pretty good job of following it. Amazing location for a cache, thanks for dragging us up here!!!

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27/12/2014 10:57:00 AM
5393
Spending Christmas this year with my family, and of course, lots of caching in the mix that means!!

This was suggested as the morning walk...

And well, we parked at the bottom, but couldn't find a marker. In the end, we managed to find what looked likt a path, and partially followed that - though in the end, the path abruptly cut off, with fallen trees, and overgrown gorse.

Spent the next 250m bush bashing our way on up. Got attacked by stinging nettle too!!

But in the end, it was like wow! We made it from down there!!! Good having the GPS on u - I wouldn't bush bash without it anymore!!!

The path back out to continue along the track was a little easier to spot

Consec caching day # 783

TFTC!!

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Did not expect the path to be this overgrown or the rock to be this big.

If anyone wants to go up from the bottom, now is the time as we have done a little bush bashing.
TFTC

Found it with swollibman on a nice walk once again up the pineapple track. Thanks for this cache and the nice spot to take well deserved break

A good spot to stop for lunch on our walk today. Searching all the rocks around the big one with the flat platform, getting frustrated so we stopped for lunch. A good vantage point from there to figure out the location of the cache and sure enough it was signed in no time.

Fortunatly I am quite good at following overgrown tracks.
In another year or two though the gorse will be a bit of a problem, it would really benifit from a session with a scrub bar.
Cheers and thanks for a cool cache,
S.t.

With the extra info from recent logs and the maintenance by the CO I thought I would attempt this again after I couldn't find the trailhead six months ago. Today the entry was very obvious. Followed white fabric ties for about 100m and only came across one of the CO's yellow ties. Then the trail petered out. Backtracked and tried to pick it up but no obvious trail so started making my way as best I could. Seemed to end up following something but whether it was a human trail or not I'm unsure. There was lots of pig damage to the track just in from the firebreak track. Eventually found myself on what looked like a rocky dry watercourse but it took me to the rock. Have seen this landmark often from the road below so there was quite a sense of achievement to actually be here. Believing I had arrived at the rock on the wrong trail I looked for the "right" one to head out but there was nothing obvious so simply retraced my steps and was soon back at the firebreak track. Good to have this off the "To Do' list. TFTC.

Great trek through heavy bush. Couple of moments of hesitation but made it in and out! TFTC

This entry was edited by psopho on Monday, 26 January 2015 at 09:04:47 UTC.

Found with PC Sniff on a lovely day. Basil the dog lead the way - not always the correct way - and we followed as best we could. Thanks to Nurse Matilda for the note about where to enter the tagged track. Thanks to daywalk for another fun cache.

Found with jrb5050 on a great wee walk. We kept losing the track but eventually made it there. Great views and a nice place to sit for a while in the warm sun. Gaiters would be a great help for this track as there is plenty of low gorse. Great cache many thanks Daywalk

Back up Flagstaff today to clean up a few previous DNFs! Thanks to daywalk for checking on this one, and the trail to it! Depsite the hard work put in by the CO, I still had trouble finding the path!
For future seekers - ignore the gravel/trail looking thing near the published waypoint on the track - the actual entrance to the track is just a little to the right of this trail! Once you get past one layer of bush, the trail should be obvious. However, it was not until the way out that I saw the markers on the bush!
I could tell I was getting near when the area opened up, granting me a great view out over the road. After that, a bit of a search, and the cache was in hand! Thanks for brining me to another interesting spot!
Dropped TB.

Good weather for a visit this afternoon. The track is in excellent condition - the only problem was finding it! Just needed to drop down the bank to find the start. But it was embarrassing a short distance further on to find I was on a very overgrown route following the old fenceline, and it hadn't veered right as it should have. So a cup of tea and a text to get the coordinates of Big Rock (yep, forgotten to load that), retrace steps, track very obvious now (of course) going around an overgrown flax and heading in the right direction. A bit of gorse regrowth (ouch) down the bottom- dealt with one small clump over a scrambly bit by the Rock, but it needs a proper work party. Cup of tea enjoying the view from the cache, then lots of broom and especially flax trimming.

Have left the track start unmarked from the Firebreak, but once you are standing on the bank you will see the way through and lots of yellow fabric ties. The rest of the track is unmarked but you shouldn't have any trouble following it. In the tussock, your feet will find the track.

Not sure why I've not attempted this cache before now but today was the day. Reading the previous logs I thought I would try from the lower of the trailheads. Found the orange tie easily but from there the track is indistinguishable. The big problem is tree branches brought down in the storms earlier in the year. I pushed my way through the initial obstructions in the hope of picking up the trail behind them but I couldn't. So came out and headed up to the upper trailhead off the Firebreak Track. Again, found an obvious entry point but the trail then stopped. There is a good deal of broom and gorse making progress difficult. I see from the logs of people who found the cache some time ago that this was regenerating then and a couple of years on it's now pretty dense. So pulled out from this end as well. I suspect that if you had used this track before and knew where it went you may be able to find it but I would guess that progress would be slow given the gorse/broom/tree branches. As it stands I think a pretty significant bush-bash is now necessary to get to this cache and I wasn't really equipped for that today. Someone who knows the line of the track needs to organise a working party perhaps? No success for me today but still fun to check it out.

Was by the other day, and had a look for the track, but no luck. I didn't have much time to bash through the bush, will try again soon! It is looking pretty overgrown, but its probably a matter of getting through the first part and finding the clearing.

Out and about today, grabbing a few caches on the back side of Flagstaff. On our way to Ben Rudd II and Walkways of Otago. Bought Wallace the wandering gnome with us for his first visit of the Big Rock. Found with Aoraki Sheep.

Nice to find the track to this one, enjoyed the views from GZ before homing in on this one. Found with debsnz

Enjoyed finding this one. I came across someone's "food cache". NOTE: the camo bag wrapped in twine is not the geocache.

I have also Just been given a heads up that if you just write TFTC it implies "Your cache sucks". Oops looks like I have accidentally told a whole bunch of people that their cache is less than ideal... TFTC



This entry was edited by Jtoschi on Saturday, 14 April 2012 at 09:38:53 UTC.

and I never knew this track existed... HOTA

Came across and down after completing Rambler's Reward.
The mist was clearing and after clambering about a bit on the boulders and finding the cache I sat and finished my flask of coffee before going back up to make my way down the very muddy firebreak track.
Got back to the car soaked through but happy to have completed two great caches.

Great to get this on off the list, cool views from here, could see were I have walking over the last few months, or you could say rambling .-Bitsprayer

We approached Big Rock from the firebreak after Plundering the Castle. Thanks for marking the trailhead. Arrived at Big rock and eventually GPS was resding zero metres. It had to be here, somewhere, and it was. Great views from here today on a nice afternoon in the hills. TFTC

Checking and restocking. Pleased to find the track is still in good condition- the gorse is gradually starting to come back, but it's only small still and doesn't get in your way. The top of the rock has been cleared recently.

We initially planned to take the approach from Whare Flat Rd, but after spending some time searching unsuccessully for the start of a track at the coordinates given, we gave up on this idea, and headed for the fire break approach. We found the start of this track easily, and the track itself was quite obvious the whole way down, although we too saw only one yellow taped tree. The cache itself didn't take long to find, although our idea of no bushbashing and no climbing differs slightly from the owner's. TFTC

- Snow Wolf geocoin

TFTC SL what a lovely walk went in from the fire road walked right passed it so came back down the road a bit only saw one yellow ribbon further down but track good so enjoyed this one reminded me of Rocky Horror one with the boulders, all in tack took some pictures very very hot in here had a bite to eat drink sit down climb around and away.opps meant to say loved the books hmmmmmmmmmmm didnt read them though

This entry was edited by poppy57 on Saturday, 27 November 2010 at 21:41:27.

Nice walk to the rock while performing maintenance on a cache of mine nearby. Dropped off Geocoin. TFTC

What a great rock, spent ages climbing around it
TFTC

The mission today was to run into the Rhodo Dell cache and grab that. Had just enough time to do it but the going was quicker than anticipated so decided to return back up the track and try and nab this one. Took me a few minutes to find the track as I ran right past the start! Once found I was pleased to find it had been cleared recently and I could trot along quite quickly. Cache was a pretty quick find once the GPSr got me in the right area. Loved the view from here and regretted not having more time today. Will have to return with lunch on another occassion I expect. Took the Corona bottle opener TB. Many thanks for a great cache!

Battled through the bush, keeping mostly to the path, found a good flat spot in the sun to have a bite to eat and read up on what I was meant to be doing. Fossicked around a bit, admiring the chimneys, etc with the eye of a (very) ex-climber and then found the box, filled in the log, dropped off a TB, and went on my way.

Found the path more easily on the way back, that's always the way, isn't it?

TNLN. TFTC.

No. 624
One of a series of caches I linked together over 14km and 1000m of ascent and descent. Just a magic day tramping and caching in the Autumn sun.
Bit of a grunt up to this one but got there eventually.
Magic spot for lunch.....
TFTC

I broke away from the main bunch of trampers today to go get this one sitting near the top of my nearest list. The track in is indeed getting overgrown in places, and the gorse has really bolted away in the section approaching the cache. I have tied tussocks tops, see photo, to mark the track through the tussocky part, and tried to break down some of the broom. It really needs a proper work party to attack this one, though.
Cache was an easy find, and I found a nice sunny nook out of the cold SW to have my lunch. Dropped in Sleepless Night Flu virus geocoin. TFTC

With a bit of info from Stegan the cache itself didn't take too long to find.
Nice location.

The track in is a bit indistinct in places I think I only saw one cloth marking. I had to backtrack a few times.
Made the track a bit more obvious in some spots for the next visitor. TFTC.

[This entry was edited by gibler on Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 2:56:35 AM.]

Christmas Eve. What better way to avoid the in-otwn madness than a spot of edge-of-town caching. Took it on with ZCA from the bottom and found fairly quickly. Very nice views indeed from the cache location. Co-ords seemed to be spot on, thanks.

Nothing quite as good as caching on a Christmas Eve I reckon, thanks for the stomp up from the bottom very beautiful if some what scrambly at times cheers

Found it this time and without the GPS. Never thought of looking there the first time - put too much faith in the co-ords being right.

** Coordinates Changed From **
S 45° 49.761 E 170° 27.338
Distance From Old: 27.9 feet
Changing co-ordinates.

Hmmm... thanks macgeonz. I'll alter the cache co-ords to your readings, which interestingly are almost exactly the same as our initial one-shot "mark" for this hide. When we put the cache in place we did a "proper" averaged mark, giving our trusty Etrex Vista time to do 150 readings, and it assured us the coordinates had an accuracy of 3.5 m. Maybe the ghosts of past climbers were interfering? Or more likely, the satellite signals were bouncing off the rock face that afternoon... Anyway, when looking for this cache trust the Easy difficulty rating and your geocacher's nose for the obvious hide. And wasn't it so refreshing to see a relatively new cacher being able to get a FTF?

[This entry was edited by daywalk on Tuesday, December 08, 2009 at 7:44:20 PM.]

Enjoyed the walk in and the great views when we reached the rocks.
Took quite a while to find the cache (co-ordinates a bit out), but with the aid of the information in the first paragraph of the cache listing we found it.

For others looking for the cache try S45 49.758 E170 27.333 (Accuracy 2.2M Average count 300), this is 9 Metres away from the listed co-ordinates.

Thanks

FTF!
It looks like someone has been to the $2 shop. I must go myself.
My co-ordinates were a bit out. + or - 6m, and my GPS60 was 11m away?
No swaps, sorry, but took the Geocoin to move along.
Great spot which I've been to before, but not for the young and foolish. One or the other, but not both.

Wish I could say that was a whole bunch of fun but all I have for my efforts are gorse prickles.

Published

Dropped off coin into cache. Spent ages sunning ourselves on the rocks and enjoying the view.