Dragline Mystery (Nelson/Marlborough) Owen River, South Island, New Zealand
By bumandworker on 29-Jun-10. Waypoint GC2B0WG

I am archiving this cache since there's been no response from nor action by the cache owner within the time frame requested in a prior reviewer note.

Hi bumandworkerThis geocache was brought to my attention as being in need of an owner maintenance visit and after my previous reviewer note, there has been no owner response. The cache owner needs to check on this cache ASAP and either replace it or archive it, after picking up any geo-litter. See the [maintenance section of the Geocache Listing Requirements/Guidelines](http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#listingmaintenance).I've added this cache to my watchlist, and I will check back in four weeks to be sure that the maintenance has been done. In the meantime, I have temporarily disabled this listing. When the maintenance is completed, the owner can enable the listing by clicking on the link below the cache name to return it to active status.Whatever your intentions, please **post a note** here on the cache page (not email) to let us know that you are still active and maintaining the cache. If a month passes without seeing a response, then I'll assume that this listing should be archived.Please note, that if a cache is archived due to lack of owner maintenance, the cache is unable to be unarchived.RegardsTheCoddiwompler

I came prepared with some sturdy sticks and got to GZ, but could not see the cache. It must be gone.

This geocacher reported that this geocache should be archived. A community volunteer reviewer has been notified.

After reading the previous logs, it seemed as though this cache was gettable if you were prepared to lose a bit of blood. Finding a large stick nearby, I bashed the prickly stuff aside to get to where GZ was indicated, still losing some blood. The cache was not to be found, but there was another feature that promising a little further on, but the prickly stuff was impenetrable so we passed on this.

Only had the cords but now reading the logs the blackberry should have been braved for an approach to GZ
Maybe next time with longs on!
Thanks

Tyfc

Great park n grab with blunsdon. Thank you for the cache

Struggling to remember which cache it was that had a lot of blackberry. Was it this one? TFTC.

Family holiday time...loaded up with bicycles to find some fun tracks. A couple nights Kaikoura, a couple in Blenheim & then finally a couple nights in Richmond.
After a couple nights in Kaikoura & Blenheim it's now time to head for Richmond/Nelson & a couple nights there to say 'Hi' to the extended family.
Time to head back home to Christchurch today. Hot day. Too many caches to try and find along the way so just stopped at a couple. Ticked this one off & it just happened to be the last for the day. On to Murchison for Lunch, SPrings Junction for a stop & walk to the Tarn at the St James & then homewards......A fun holiday & a handful of caches found along the way. Cheers.

Walked down as not sure of road. Was ok though. Dived into the prickles and thought Eureka!! But was only a water bottle. Removed to recycle. Dived in again and got a winner. Log wet though. Needs a waterproof container I guess.

Quick wander to the river then lunch.

Tftc.

Headed out today to target a cache we needed to complete a challenge. As it was in an area we hadn't cleared out we decided to do a loop around to pick up a couple of DNFs that were now active and any other caches we came across.

A bit of a hunt here, then cache was spotted. Log signed and cache replaced as found. Added an extra rock to hold in place in case of any future weather events. tftc

Even een klein stukje lopen, snel gevonden. TFTC

The dragline remains a mystery... TFTC
..

After a DNF in the distant past (2012) we had driven past this cache many times without stopping. It was either too wet or too late or we were just too busy. As we headed to Westport 2 days ago it was on the must list - until the area was busy with roadworkers and stopping would have been awkward. No problem on our return today to drive within 17m of GZ. Having read the previous log, we had a new log in a plastic bag to put in the container.
Thanks.

Ok, 4 choices, will it be blackberry scratches with 3 choices or blackberry plus hawthorn? Oh yes, it was the hawthorn and blackberry spot. the things we endure for a cache. Then when I find it the log is sodden. I can describe the container if you would like B&W. Had a wee paddle in the river, it was lovely. Walking back to the car I startle a German woman who decided it would be a nice place to go to the toilet!!!! Not nice for me.
Anyway thanks for all of the caches you have placed around the top of the South. added to a great few days down the West Coast for me. Ready to cook the Snapper we got this morning now.

Popular spot. Six vehicles in car park, but no about to see me!

Its time to head home to Geraldine After an awesome easter road trip through the molesworth station then on to Blenheim then spending the morning exploring st Arnuad aiming for #4000 a few p and g s .nice quick find tftc

Log soaked

How much did you have to pay Hirepool to put a Portaloo within 20metres of the cache?

Got a campervan yesterday and loaded my recumbent bike after the south island tour. Heading northeast to Picton, ferry tomorrow. TFTC.

Found

We flew into Invercargill to catch up with the rellies last week. Now its home to Wellington via West Coast with maybe a cache or two to break up the journey. Karamea to Nelson today.
Van with canoes on trailer coming out as we arrived, Quick find.
TFTC bumandworker.

Another nice place I've never stopped before. A very disappointing amount of toilet paper around

Finally, the day has come and I have arrived to New Zealand. This three week long trip has been planned for more than 6 months. First of all, I was going to visit my daughter and her boyfriend, who has been on the islands for almost one year, next was to see as much as possible of both North and South islands. My daughter had done a day to day planning on where to go and what to see. This trip was not planned as a Geocaching trip, but we should definitely search for some caches all over the islands.

Day 12. Mapua - Rapahoe

Today we went to the west coast and Rapahoe. On the way there we made another short stop here to look for this cache. Easy found in its hiding place.
Logged together with Klövsson and Familjenloov. Tftc

We're visiting from Florida, USA. That was great fun. Thanks for placing the cache.

on the way to greymont moorhuhn5 and myself stoped sometimes for a geocache. we saw many interesting places and beautiful landscapes. Thanks for showing thanks for the cache and greetings from germany.

Found it with wurftaube.TFTC!

Quick stretch of legs after a long drive. Lots of blackfly es around so glad I found it quickly. TFTC

After some planning Shannonp1 and I got sorted for a mission into areas we hadn't been. Up to Hanmer through the Molesworth to Blenheim, down the Wairau valley to St Arnaud down the Shannandoa to Murchison and then home via the Lewis. 209 caches for the weekend and a pretty high success rate. Thanks to all the cache owners especially Bum and Worker and sorry for the cut and paste.

So a few weeks in the planning phase, me and Surveybase finally got out and about for a mission. Through Hanmer, up the Molesworth to Blenheim, across through St Arnaud, Murchison and then home. 209 caches for the weekend and a pretty high success rate. Thanks to all the cache owners and sorry for the cut and paste. Cheers.

Hey !! You are right !! There is no dragline here [:o)]

Thanks for the story which explains why there is no longer a dragline here

Shame really, as I like seeing stuff like that.
Even more so if it has a cache hidden on it

Oh well,
I found this cache after a stroll down from the picinic area

TFTC

Nothing to see here... cache was an easy find

Found at 11:10 AM - #5877

TFTC

On the long drive home from the mega many thanks

This was a quick detour on the way a bit further south. No problems with this find. I was surprised to see such a network of tracks though, didn't realise there was so much ground between the road and river here. Thank you bumandworker.

When I saw this cache I thought: "yes, I remember that". Its a mystery why it literally took years to stop and hunt this cache down while we pass here so often. No problems with the find. Thank you Bumandworker for placing this cache.

Out and about this weekend a bite of a road trip to the cost and CHCH to see friends and family. All and all a good weekend out. And with so many caches to chose from and not enuf time to get them all ( good excuse to go back for more) sorry about the cut and paste. But thank you to all those that have put caches out there for all to find. And thank you for taking me to some interesting places seeing some interesting sites and the time I wasted looking in all the wrong places

Found this one while on vacation away from my home in Whangamata. TFTC Replaced log and plastic bag and dried out container

Thanks to all the owners of the geocaches that we found today on our way from St Arnaud to Murchison, Inangahua and Westport. We found a lot of geocaches along the way!
TFTC and greetings from Belgium.

Yep got it no problem TFTC

Parked at the generous roadside parking and walked to this one. No problems finding it. A pity that this area has become such a toilet stop and rubbish dump.

Day 3 of caching in and around St Arnaud/Nelson Lakes. Today mostly cachemobile, and some short walking.
This was #28 for the day.
Made a straightforward find. Cache in order, log signed and then safely re-hidden.
Log in a pretty delicate state.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

Easy find

A plan was hatched to try and grab a number of caches, in excess of 120 if possible. I had already found a load between Renwick and St Arnaud but consulting the map around St Arnaud area showed some semi power trail drive by caching opportunities. Fellow Manawatu cacher the Seagnoid was asked if he was interested and a resounding yes was the answer. So the car was fuelled up at very early o'clock and provisions for munching were also loaded. An 0630 start was the plan and the day came to its conclusion around 2130 after approx. 15 hours of driving and caching.
Outcome was a very successful figure in excess of 130 caches which constitutes best day ever (for both of us), best week, month and year too. Over 500kms driven today and man I feel tired but need to make a start logging the finds, and DNFs. Thanks to all the C Os involved in making our day such a great one. Nearly all caches were well maintained, interesting and accurately plotted. There were bellbirds, beech trees, pies and water, sealed roads, gravel tracks, no sandflies (thankfully), rivers and bridges and creeks and bridges and streams and bridges and much conversation about all things caching
A great day out in good company and all made possible by the efforts of the hiders.
T F T C to all the cache owners. We mostly signed as C/S or Capp/Seag or other combos
A bonus cache not on my list but go on then

[green] Capperz called me up saying he wanted to get his ruby Busy Cacher badge, and try for 120 caches in a day. I said YES PLEASEE!!, as I too had tried this once before but only achieved 103 before night defeated me and Edvern in Auckland last year. A successful day, with over 130 caches found in 14.5 hours and 500km. Also tiring - I went to bed as soon as I got home, despite it not being dark yet (yes, we could have cached some more, but the next objective is 180 caches, and there was no way we would have achieved that!). Alas, I had to leave all the planning to Capperz, and he produced a great little plan, listing all the target caches (and more) with which way to turn at next intersection after a cache - a great way to plan a back road travel.
The day was cool, cloudy, with a little drizzle. Perfect caching weather - the weather kept most of the muggles away from the muggle areas.
Thanks to all the COs for a great day out exploring the back roads of the Marlborough region!
Logs signed as CS or occasionally as CapSeag.
There was a house truck here, parked up for the night. But we were in and out in a flash.

This one has been showing up on my radar for ages. Lots of reasons - - - too often in a rush- - - couldn't work out how to get to it - - - had to choose between wet feet or a scratched vehicle - - - and chose neither - - - and so it went. At last today was the day. The cache was in hand very quickly leaving one wondering why it had taken so long. TFTC .

Just back home in UK from trip to NZ so now able to log our finds. Pleasant early morning stroll form the parking area down to the river and a quick find. TFTC

Thanks for giving me a chance to explore some of the river tracks down here TFTC (1350)

Found on the drive north to Takaka from Christchurch for a few days there with family during my annual leave.

Have found most of the easy drive bys on this stretch of the road, but still some green icons here and there to turn into smileys. This was one of them. Had to drive through a huge puddle to get to GZ, but fortunately StreetWalker was driving at this stage. A quick find then back on track to get to Nelson in time for the event this afternoon. TFTC.

#8386. A nice wee drive down to another river access point. TFTC.

Quick stop on the way to Christchurch thanks B&W

#2190

The cords took us under blackberry bushes. Pass. Too thorny

Coordinates changed from:
S 41° 41.999 E 172° 30.312

Coordinates changed to:
S 41° 41.966 E 172° 30.267

Distance from original: 286.3 feet or 87.3 meters.
moving away from incoming tide

Finally, third time lucky. Not sure how I missed it last time, kida obvious. Anyhow, looks like the river might be working towards it, only about 3 yards to go. Cheers

Took a little bit of time to find, but got there in the end. Found on a lovely Queens Birthday Saturday driving from Hanmer to Nelson. Thanks for the hide.

Finally, second time here, river is soo much closer, tftc

We were here over 18 months ago and could not find. Sand flies got to us. None this time. Had to find the way down to cache again. River up closer then I remember. Spent some time searching. Both justanurse and I had already looked in the area the cache was found but for some reason this different stone stood out more. Stands out even more after the fact. How could we have missed that last time and taken so long this time. Off the list now. Tftc

#3773 @1225
Heading back to Christchurch after spending the weekend in Nelson. This trip it was cleaning up the caches between here and the Owen river. Cache found easily. TFTC. See my log for Granity G3. This spot is also part of the story. A few days after our raft trip down the river was curtailed, we got word that the raft had been seen washed up on the bank opposite GZ. The river levels had dropped considerably. We rushed here from Brightwater and got here just in time to claim the raft as someone else had just recovered it from the other side of the river and were trying to claim salvage rights!

Black flies, thorns and a grown over path... surely the right plsce, but no cache.
hmmmm

2nd time... unlucky? We remembered the way in, the terrain, the previous hint....but today there were many many more sandflies than we remembered. Too many for comfortable searching so we gave up!! We will give it another try... with repel on...

Found on a day trip between St Arnaud and Murchison. Once again, decided to see how close we could get in the people mover... and reduced significantly the amount of bush bashing. TFTC

The way was not the best. Blackberries and gras up to the shoulders. But made it. Thx

12907… A nice spot by the river even though we never got to see the mysterious Dragline, TFTC.

While we found a track initially, it soon disappeared, but we made our way to the coordinates and then the fun started. We looked in a variety of places, before noticing a different rock, which was hiding the cache. TFTC.

A pleasent place to stop for a breather,TFTC

After solving the mystery as to how to get down to the cache there was just the problem of the young couple parked at the end of the track who looked very "surprised" to see me. Enough said "want to know the rest, hey buy the rights". TNLN SL TFTC

A wee walk to this one. Looking at the grass it obvious this area has had some water over it in the last day or two. We added some more security around the cache in case of another flood. TFTC!!!

[purple]Day 1 of our 5 day Easter caching roadtrip. Today we were heading from Greymouth to St Arnaud [/purple]
It was nice to come back and get a smilie for this cache after not finding it last Easter. We found the track easily and made our way to GZ ready for a big search but found it pretty quickly. I dont remember the river being that close last year but it does look pretty. (photo added) Thanks for the cache

I came here in November 2011 but the river was in high flood and the cache had been washed away. This time after the long dry spell, what was a wade through knee-deep water was merely a bash through long grass to get to the cache. Found the cache in its new location fter a bit of a search of likely spots. Signed log, TFTC and good to get this off the unfound list at last!

Another find as we headed south, blackberry and wasps to contend with here TFTC

For me the only real mystery was whether I would step in a puddle hidden by the long grass or not (I did but thankfully didn't suffer too badly). A bit of a bash to gz but once there the cache was an easy find. TFTC bumandworker

Tried for this the other day but heavy rain meant we had to race back to the Owen River reservre where we where camping the night as the tent windows were open. We had wet bedding but lucky we had extra bedding in case it had been cold. Found on our return leg. Bit of long grass bashing to get into here. The river is very close and swift.

with integersmirk on our way back home from the Christmas holidays TFTC

It was a bit of a bash to get from the car to GZ but a quick find thereafter. Checked the river in case there was a bank we could walk back on but there ain't nothing there but river TFTC, good fun.

This was a bit of a mission. Lucky I had my gummies packed and handy. Shin deep in water on the access road followed by an interesting bit of swamp. River level was really high today. Took about three minutes to decide which rock was a different colour and there it was.
TFTC

Had a good hint but was unable to find and was driven away by sandflys in the end.

Had a long look around for this with no success. Sandflys got to us.

Another excuse to stop. Helps a LOT to use the hint. TFTC

Good to find this cache, very quick find, good walk. TFTC

checked cache....all good. updated hint.

Yet another DNf here, I failed in the last location and looks like I failed again. Ho hum, perhaps third time lucky eh? Cheers

Adding to the mystery. Spotted the way in from the road and then walked to area. The old and new GPS took us to the same place that seemed likely knowing the CO. Hmm nothing. Had they... checked the hint, no it matched our ideas and the GPS. A better check... then spotted another hint item. No luck there either. But we can't see how a newly replaced cache could go missing from here so we assume we were mysteriously blind. Will watch.

Came with furpurse Mum & Dad but only Mum and I went in. We didnt even see the track so bush bashed our way to the hint objects and had a thorough search in a few places as the GPS kept jumping around and couldnt seem to make up its mind. In the end we had decide that we had donated enough of our blood to the hungry sandflies and moved on to find the many more caches we had planned for today. Thanks anyway:P

This entry was edited by gracie7 on Monday, 09 April 2012 at 09:20:22 UTC.

Coordinates changed from:
S 41° 42.020 E 172° 30.336

Coordinates changed to:
S 41° 41.999 E 172° 30.312

Distance from original: 167.9 feet or 51.2 meters.

Slight move to new position (safer, shorter walk)

Replaced missing cache in drier, closer position due to deterioation of track.

Looks like it's gone burger in those floods. The wasp nest count is also more than my EPE - three within 2 m of my GZ!

Came here today on a trip from the West Coast to Marlborough. Firstly I don't recommend doing this after heavy rain, you have to negotiate a swamp where there's about 30cm of water in your way. If you don't want to do that the alternative appears to be bashing through thick blackberry . When I reached the cache site the GPSr was placing me about 3 metres out into the river which was flowing powerfully after recent heavy rain - I could hear big boulders rumbling down in the torrent. The bank has been quite heavily undercut by the water and quite a few broom bushes were hanging down on the point of being swept away. I had a good hunt for the cache but no luck - unless I'm stupid and/or blind I suspect the territory it was on has fallen into the river and it'll be well downstream by now...

Don't remember the Dragline but I was impressed at the sound of the boulders rolling down the river bed - plenty of water in the river after the heavy rain we've been having these last couple of days.

Nice stroll beside the river.

Bitsprayer

I can see from my gps that i have different coords so they must have changed after i had down loaded this some time ago which will be why we didn't find the cache.

Bit of cross country to this one. TFTC

logging in a TB

Thanks for getting this one up and running again. No trouble this evening. TFTC #2074

Found cache after a short search. Nice area. SL TFTC

Nice wander along the riverbank and decided to head inland and voila...there was the cache! Also met two kayakers from the Isle of Wight after they recovered from a dunking at the G3 rapids upriver. Lovely spot. TFTC

Fixed

Nearly got the vehicle stuck in the soft sand. A nice little walk to the cache though.
TFTC

Coordinates changed from:
S 41° 42.028 E 172° 30.349

Coordinates changed to:
S 41° 42.020 E 172° 30.336

Distance from original: 76.7 feet or 23.4 meters.

new spot

.

This one may well need checking or still be a mystery - theres been a huge flood through here. It was quite a misssion to get to and I could get as close as 6m reading on the GPS at the edge of the river with not a native in sight that I could see. The bank has come away in places so maybe the cache has gone for a trip down the river.