John Williamson's Claim (Central Otago) Lower Nevis, South Island, New Zealand
By phiki614 on 17-Apr-10. Waypoint GC26Z9R

Awesome wee spot for a cach

Such a cool spot to introduce some more muggle friends to the world of geocaching. Have decided to do a quick day trip and explore a little of what the Nevis has to offer. Good spot to stop off and have a break.

MPLC

Such a cold place in the wind,even with the sunshine. Loving the drive along here & what a great place to stop off & find a cache. No problems with finding it. A favourite for the great location, thanks.

Hi there phiki614 - The chance of a cache or two on the 'back roads' today was too good to miss. We haded out from Wanaka and via Cromwell to the Nevis Rd, following it until it comes out on the highway between Garston and Kingston. A great day 4wd'ing with many creeks to cross and the opportunity to help a chap who was bogged. While we only found 3 caches for the day, the driver is not a Geocacher, so I didn't ask him to stop too often. I found your cache at 1232pm after a short search - and the container and log were both found to be in good condition unless noted in the Fieldnotes below. TN, LN, SL. Thanks to phiki614 for this cache - the 2nd of 3 finds for the day.

FieldNotes: The cache and log were both found in good condition.

A great adventure down the Nevis road this afternoon. Lots of river crossings to negotiate with our camping trailer. We decided to camp nearby and then set off to find the cache. Quick and easy. Lots of photographic opportunities later this evening. TFTC

So much history tucked away out here. Cache is in good shape. TFTC!!!

Found, awesome drive through the high country. Interesting spot, tftc.

Travelling from Te Anau to Wanaka today, I’m going via the Nevis road for a bit of adventure. Definitely some interesting driving to get here! A short walk and a quick find, surrounded by the remains of past enterprise. Signed log, TFTC!

One rough road. Wish I had a snorkel on the Ute. Some of the crossings further up the valley were half way up the door. Would be a nice place to have a good look around. But not when it’s bucketing down like today. Tftc

TFTC, great lunch spot!

On our South Island roadtrip. Nice drive on Nevis Road. Thanks for the cache "Old Man Williamson"

Found

Awesome

Today I had decided to travel in my cachemobile from Kingston to Garston and then along the Nevis Rd.

This is some road. Glad I came in my 4X4. A shorter distance between rear axle and rear bumber would have been nice in a couple of places.

Cheers for the cache.

Keodbd

Nice little stop here on our adventure through Nevis. Funnily enough just after Id found the cache and we started off again we seen a police car cruising past. He was nice enough to wait for us at the next gate and shut it behind us. Great track and location for some caches. Thanks to all COs.

tried our luck a little bit down the road to see if we could strike it rich, alas no luck. but the bonus was finding hidden gems like this piece of history.
tftc

Nice day for a day trip. Great to visit some of our early pioneering history.
Cache is nice and dry.
Beautiful sunny day.

On the school holidays on a nice day to go up the Nevis. A great view. I have not been up the Nevis before. With annielin, downsouthinv and barkingbonkers.
Tftc

At Kingston and the rough lake meant no fishing today .
So what to do?? ....I know... a trip over the Nevis was the call.
Packed mum and dad and other important people into the cache mobile...
Off to Cromwell, and up the hill we went.
We had a nice drive to pick this one up.
Great to see the remains of a time when day to day life was less glamorous.
He could not have asked for a better place to stake his claim.
I wonder how he kept the fire places going as there is no obvious signs of trees
tftc

Found it. Busy place

Found 30/12/2017

Amazing journey thus far. Tftc

This is a wonderful place. 4x4 to here from Garston. On the way we come across a motorhome that was stuck. One just like my own. Was coming from the other direction. After arriving to this cache, there is no way I would have done what he did.

Love the old buildings and landscape. Tftc

Found on the way through from Cromwell. Tftc

As we had a free day today a drive through the Nevis was suggested because not only had we never been there, we now also had the right vehicle to do it in. Came in from the Garston end, with a pamphlet telling us all about the sights we would see along the way (printed 2002). This was probably the first place that we could actually match up to the descriptions. What a barren place. Buildings were interesting though.

We are cycling from Cromwell to Garston, and naturally we have to log a few caches along the way . Tftc!

A quick find and a nice drive. Cache had fallen down and was rather close to ending up in the water, fished out and placed in a better position inside hint item. TFTC

Wow this is such an interesting piece of history. TFTC SL.

Many interesting places to look at thru here. A great drive.

A fascinating place to visit - what a lot of gold came out of this area.

Found with Chosen1978. A stunning day for a drive through the valley. Cache found and log signed. Thanks for bringing us to this wonderful area.

Found this during a beautifull drive through the Nevis!

Enjoyable drive through the valley. Very warm and no wind. Caching or not we were always going to do this trip. TFTC.

A beautiful day out in the 4WD on the Nevis today, very much enjoyed the trip. We went off the main road and had a bit of adventure on the road which was not the best, but all part of the fun and we and the vehicle survived, lol. Thanks for bringing us here. TFTC

Just amazing what our pioneers were able to achieve

My goodness these gp;d miners changed the landscape but what a tough life they lived,

Amazing country

Sixth cache for the day, going well.

good find nice hiding place TFTC

Just such a lovely spot on this very cold day. TFTC

An amazing spot. Would not have liked living here tho.

Awesome valley to drive through!

Like the hiding place. had a confused for a minute. What an amazing location. TFTC

On trip with 4x4 club, we had stopped for afternoon tea (around 4-5pm). Since it was getting later in the day it was decided to head back home (back the way we came towards Cromwell). It was then that I found out that someone in the group had a GPS (I still need to get myself one). I found that we were only about 600m or so away from this cache so I convinced the driver of the truck I was in to take me up the road to locate this cache. It didn't take long to find it Was a great day out, I have never been to the Nevis Valley before its so beautiful. TFTC

An awesome spot visited on a tour through the old Nevis Road (south to north). TFTC.

We thought we'd do just 'one more cache' after the ski hut. Didn't have much difficult getting the Forester through all the fords, and loved the drive, the scenery, and the cache location. Lovely! Carried on back out to Bannockburn, and then back to Queenstown for dinner. Cheers Gav +1

Found on 20 Apr, late in the day after returning from a trip to Kingston, whilst camping at Nevis Crossing. Such well made buildings these old houses, we noted that the fireplace has seem some recent use.
Interesting to note also the number of muggles who have found this cache "by accident", thanks for putting it back.
TFTC.

Found on 20 Apr. Quickly found by Mum while I was looking in the wrong place!
TFTC.

Our last find of the day on our Easter Sunday trip over the Nevis!

Nice spot, nearly tempted for a swim.
TFTC

This entry was edited by wardsmithfamily on Tuesday, 10 April 2012 at 09:53:25 UTC.

Nice place for a morning tea stop on our trip over the Nevis in Austin 7's heaps of fun..

Found 6/2/12.You see a lot more when you are geocaching.I don't recall these stone ruins from previous trips.Great cache.Thanks.

Plenty of evidence of past activity in this area. TFTC

TFTC

A very belated logging. Having ridden the annual Garston Bannockburn bike race for the 12th time last Saturday I realised that we had found this on our way through last year but not got round to logging it.
Great to have the excuse for stopping for a few minutes and looking at the view.

mental note to ones self, learn to trust gps they seem to know better. Had a cuppa tea in Johns House. fantastic.

Initially drove past this one, heading from Cromwell end to garston. Had to do a u-turn,and as a result went three times through nearby ford, which was running quite high - over bonnet of our truck. A lot of breath holding and finger crossing to get through!!!! Interesting stop. TFTC.

Found this one on our 4 weeks holiday in the South Island.
A long way from home in the Coromandel

Enjoyed the chance to test out the 4WD SUV cachemobile on the drive between the Lower Nevis and Upper Nevis Valleys. Many fords and 3 quite tricky, severely rutted and rocky sections to negotiate - I had to rebuild a small section of one of them to enable the vehicle to cross a deep watercourse.

The weather today was in stark contrast to what this place must be like in the middle of winter. Severe danger from sunburn had us quickly returning to the shade and air conditioned comfort of the cachemobile for the 51km drive back to Cromwell. Thanks for the cache.

TFTC

Interesting place I would like too be here in the middle of winter . . I've been told how deep the snow can be . . . TFTC

This cache may require a statuis of special equipment I wonder. 4WD in certain conditions?? up the terrain as a result??

Nice quick find, dog enjoyed a swim in the lake

Found along with the other Nevis Valley caches whilst on a 4 day new year camp in the valley. took travel coin to carry on its journey.

found it with central otago hilton on nye - great cache out in the middle of nowhere, but a facinating location none the less. a nice peacful location now, but one must only imagine now the industrious surroundings back in the day. we slipped off from family and friends camp to 'get the cache' which is 'only 18k away' and got back 2 hours later! awesome route up to the cache winding up the nevis valley alongside the river and across the valley flats. look forward to revisiting the site one day soon - TFTC!

14.10: On 4WD-Tour through the Nevis Valley to Glenorchy. Using the hint wasn't as easy as we thought first when approaching this place. There is quite a number of objects to inspect[8)]. After doing our work on the cache we sat behind the remains of the stone hut for our picnic with coffee and muffins.

Weather: quite fine, sun, some clouds, light wind, 21°C;
Wheelchair: difficult, steep terrain;
IN & OUT: nothing;

Thank you and our best recommendations for this one!

Oliver+Gabi

Our third find for the day after a lovely picnic and unplanned proposal. What a magic place and location at the house we thought was the Nevis Valley Bowling Club but later found that in fact it must have been a private crib as the Nevis Valley Sports Club was further down the road. Mr Guzzi bowled a few bowls and Mrs Guzzi played with her hockey stick instead of golf clubs. Left travel bug as the box was big enough. Nice dry hide. We now decided as we had come this far we would continue through to Garston and wow what an adventure this turned out to be. The river crossings and large rocks on the road and lack of road in places made it a challenge. Luckily we came across another couple with the same idea and we teamed up to give it a crack. The photo’s show that it was touch and go in places.

Great place to leave this travel coin

The first to find after the road opened on 1st October after being closed at Commissioners Creek from the first Tuesday in June.
+ a marble, - nothing.

First to find - yipee! Awesome spot. Road rather wet and rough but our good old pajero got us there and back no probs. A great day! TFTC

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