Westward Ho! (Nelson/Marlborough) Tophouse Settlement, South Island, New Zealand
By Stretch0 on 29-Aug-10. Waypoint GC2EA70

I had a quick nosey down this road today, but decided not to make a day of getting all of them. Instead, just the first three and I will be back in summer, I hope.This was a quick find. Read the signs on the way in. Nice to see this one still going, found the replacement. TFTC Stretch0.

A cool wee picture stop and a trade in the cache on a lovely springs day as wee head up the Rainbow ski field track for a bit of a tramp cache #1 for the day

Luckily the road is open today and it's not snowing yet! Quick find.

Great quick find. Start of our journey down to Hanmer.

After a day hiking yesterday, today was a leg rest day caching by car along the Rainbow road. This was a nice quick find, TFTC!

Found the cache while heading south rather than west. Nobody in the area today. TFTC

This was so quick it took us less than a minute, not kidding.

Decided to go for a drive up The Rainbow Rd for a day's outing & to grab a few caches along the way. A quick find at an interesting spot. A pity there wasnt an interpretation board about the history of the road.

On the way up the road, on Bumblebee, I had a really good look for this one. I had a replacement container with me for the power one but didn't need it. So, on the way back dropped it off here to keep it going.

Today was Bumblebees day to clear the Rainbow road as far as the old hut. This is an area we call Dippus Flattus because of the camp near the river. I have crawled through a bit of this area in the earl 90's. Had a good look before heading up towards the ski-field with no luck. I had a replacement container with me but was saving it for further up in case. Maybe on the way back...

Had quite a decent look but no luck here.

Paddle chick and I went up to Rainbow Ski Field to get a few caches a nice easy find .Tftc Stretch0

Found while caching the Rainbow with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

TFTC Stretch0

Found with NZDi at the start of our drive through the rainbow to Hanmer Springs. We have had the two days between Waitangi Day and the weekend booked as leave since the end of last year with no real plan to do anything, but a week ago I checked the bookings for the company holiday home in Hammer Springs and saw it was free today and tomorrow. After a quick word with NZDi, it was booked and I began researching a geocaching trip. In a moment of inspiration I thought about going through the Rainbow Road to give NZDi's new geomobile a real test. Although all the warnings say you need a high ground clearance 4WD and the Sportage is a bit of a soft roader, I still thought it would have the goods to do the job, and it did although I had to use 4WD on one occasion for 50m.

As we didn't know how long caching would hold us up on the trip, we considered bypassing the caches up to six mile stream as we could come back and do them any time. In the end we decided to do them all and we still arrived in Hanmer Springs before we were allowed to check in.

This was our first find of the day on our trip through the Rainbow to Hanmer Springs. The cache could only be in one of two places and I picked the right one first.

TFTC Stretch0

found while exploring with Bullertrout

This was a lovely place to have lunch after getting caches up the rainbow road. A nice find here. There were a whole lot of bees in one of the wheels. Find #492

Out and about exploring with Hubby and a wee picnic for lunch. While standing here signing the log 3 vehicles drove past me...thought I was coming here for some peace and quiet.
TFTC Stretch0

Heading out with a couple of our grandkids, hoping we might find enough snow for a snow ball fight. Not sure how that will turn out with it being two onto one.
It was nice to come up the valley again, the last time we came through here we were on our bikes heading for Hanmer, so much easier in the car with the heater on.
Thanks for the cache and the motivation to revisit this valley. Diaz09 made a nice quick find here.

I loved that one, this is my first touch of the snow today, it was cold. Thank you for the cache

I like the wheels they were beautiful. I found this one before Nana. Thank you for the geocahce

Toby, The Seagnoid and I are off on another adventure - Wairau, Rainbow Station to Hanmer Springs and back. Its been on my bucket list for ages and today is the day!! Woke at 5am to rain so we delayed for a couple of hours and decided to go, go. Should be a breeze - but I forgot geocaching gets you no where fast - so this became an extremely long day. We left St Arnaud at 9.30 and home after midnight!! But still loved it.
No one stop on this road for me today. Quick easy find here. Do love the wheels. Cheers

First find of our Rainbow Rd adventure. Tftc

Our first on our travels into the rainbow station. Tftc

Great piece of history here, bet those wheels could tell come tales! TFTC

First cache on the rainbow. Found while cycle touring

Staying at top house so going to find some caches

Didn't have this one in the Gps, but we happened to stop here while other members of our party went to do the honours regarding keys and access payments, for trip through the Rainbow. I said " I bet there's a cache here " and sure enough found it in the first place I looked. Nice one, thanks.

A nice quick find on the way home after a day at Rainbow. Tftc

Whoop whoop! Lovely little cache here! Good photo spot!

Well look at that, suddenly I'm in Marlborough again. - - - Don't usually associate Marlborough with West. The boundary sure does some odd things. I hope whoever surveyed it didn't end up being paid for their efforts!!!!
Cool feature at GZ and a great hide. TFTC .

Having been up and down this road many, many times, I knew exactly where to look for this one.

On the way into the Rainbow Road on the way to Hanmer. Nice cache. TFTC

Our first find on the way up to Lake Tennyson for the night, TFTC!

A nice quick find on the way out to the highway to get cellphone reception and catch up on some news and make a few phone calls. It's nice not having phone and internet for a while though. There is a matching set of wheels at the southern end of the Rainbow station too. TFTC

Cruising around Nelson area today, picking up caches

Tftc

Thanks for showing me this location and the cache!
TNLN

Standard text:
Sorry for logging late...

This cache was visited by me either during the one month (February 2015) of hiking/tramping in NZ together with Bärgegumperli or in March/April 2015 while on a bicycle trip across NZ and AUS.
We/I enjoyed geocaching a lot.

Hiking
Hikes:
- Abel Tasman NP: Motueka, Kaiteriteri, Marahau, Inland Track, Separation Point, Coastal Track, Marahau.
- Nelson Lakes NP: St. Arnaud, Hopeless Hut, Travers Saddle, Blue Lake, Waiau Pass, Thompson Pass, D'Urville Valley, Lake Angelus, St. Arnaud.
- Arthur's Pass NP: Mt Brown Hut, Styx Valley, Browning Pass, Whitehorn Pass, Waimakariri Valley, Jordan Saddle, Hut Spur, Arthur's Pass, Mt Aicken
- Bridle Path
The weather conditions were great for tramping almost every single day. We enjoyed the beautiful landscape, the peace in some very remote areas and the many friendly people we met on our way or in the different huts.

Cycling from Dunedin to Auckland
It is not my first tour with this [url=http://coord.info/TB4MQE4]bicycle[/url] ([url=http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=3901325]map with long loading time[/url]).
Places along the route: Dunedin, Otago Central Rail Trail, East Manuherikia track, Tekapo, Fairlie, Geraldine, Oxford, Waipara, Hanmer Springs, Jacks Pass, Island Saddle, Picton, Wellington, Homedale, Hutt River Trail, Masterton, Pongaroa, road near Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, Waipukurau, Fernhill, Taupo, Whakamaru, Tirau, Hauraki Rail Trail, Kawakawa Bay, Aukland.
After one month of perfect weather (see above) I finally got what I had to expect: Some rain... And sometimes stron headwinds. That the route was not flat at all meant usually that the landscape is great .
*

Cycling from Melbourne to Darwin
Places along the route: Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Penshurst, Edenhope, Jervois Ferry, Sedan, Tanunda, Crystal Brook, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy, Uluru/Ayers Rock, The Olgas/Kata Tjuta, Mereenie Loop, Alice Springs, Karlu Karlu/Devil's Marbles, Litchfield NP, Mandorah, Darwin.
Along the coast the weather was often wet and cold. The small roads in Victoria and South Australia were very pleasant to ride despite a lot of headwind. This changed as soon as I reached the Stuart Hwy to sometimes strong tailwinds. That's why I had some "spare" time to ride a loop in the Red Centre. Further north
As in NZ i met some awesome people.
*

Guess what I did while waiting for a connecting plane in Perth?

Greetings from Switzerland / Gruess us dr Schwiiz

*There are a lot(!) of caches which I did not search while on the bicycle trip. The reasons are mainly:
1. Stopping slows if one wants to get somewhere, especially on bridges where no one wants to slow down a fully loaded touring bike. Yes, there were quite a few days with >200 km on the pushbike...
2. Riding or resting next to a loaded (recumbent) bike attracts in some areas so much attention that stealth mode is not possible.
3. On rare occasions I rode during the night. If I had to do that there was no time to search for caches anyway [:-(]
4. Some places I did really not consider worth stopping for a cache... Sorry.

Found this one while on vacation away from my home in Whangamata. TFTC

Stumbled across this one while having a cuppa and some lunch!! Easy find!

[green] So. It is the 28 February. I am on my way to St Arnaud to clean up the left overs from a trip I and a couple of friends did at the end of January, when I see this green splodge lurking on the edge of my GPS. I thought we had cleaned out this road. Must be a new cache, or maybe a re-enabled one (my downloads do not include disabled caches). I get here and... this is all very familiar. Yup, there is my name in the log, written in nice friendly Seagnoid green. 30 January. Well, that saves me from trying to find when that last trip was!
Had to dodge about a kilometre worth of sheep to get here, then again on the way back. They are just roaming all over the road. I guess that explains the cattle stops at the start of the road!

Picking up some caches at the end of rainbow road. TFTC. Took nothing out, put sandflies in.

Making a foray into the Wairau Valley hydro scheme clearway. Territory previously untrod for us.
Intrigued to encounter this feature.
Cace find was straightforward. Cache in order, log signed. Safely re-hidden, just as found.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

A nice wee display, quick find too. Found on a big day with Team Gators down to St Arnaud and up the Wairau, this was one of 139 smilies for me for the day signed as KMTG. Cheers.

In Richmond on a wee family holiday. Headed out for the day with KiwiMoose on a caching mission through St Arnaud and up the Waiau Valley- to save on the possibility of RSI we signed logs as KMTG.
A long fun day. 150 caches total. Nice one. Bit of rain coming and going wot - quick dash between showers. Cheers.

A nice valley drive

Most of the GZs on todays road trip had good parking, and all of the logs were in good condition. Some did have a wee bit of water, but the contents were fine.

Well, work has finished for the year, and it is time for the annual road trip to Auckland. Today was from Christchurch to Picton, a longer way.

Thanks for the hide.

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A work trip up to the Rainbow Road and back and a 4WD vehicle to boot, would have been rude not to have jumped at this chance on this, the last dot-day of November for me. Had been describing our hobby to the two other people in the vehicle and seeming like fans of this sort of thing they were kindly obliging of me to grab a few (but not all obviously) ion the way to and from our destination. With a strong Nor-Westerly blowing in and around the lower Wairau Valley area these grabs on the way to and from offered some respite as they were fairly sheltered at their respective G Zs.
T F T C and for helping me turn another green box into a yellow smiley.
After following the G P S all the way back of the wheels to multiple hint items all claiming to be 5 metres away eventually retraced footsteps back to the logical place for the find
Nice interesting place for a cache

07/10/2014 2:18:00 PM
4929
This was one of the most epic weeks ever, and definitely my most epic caching week ever.

Me and mum headed up on a holiday north to Nelson and very wider surrounds. In total during the trip, we found almost 500 caches! (470 odd I think, but final results are yet to be in! ) We covered about 3000 odd km I think too. Crazy! And had our absolute best caching day ever too at 160 found. Spend 9 days travelling, caching, and having the best time ever!!

So sorry about not so epic logs, as otherwise this would probably take me the rest of my life to log, especially with two big events to organise coming up! Eeek!!

Almost every single log we signed as 'Team Polak' to avoid needing to write out both usernames taking up space on logsheet - as well as precious caching time!! Haha.

This was it - one of the caches on our big day

Consec caching day # 702

TFTC!!

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www.nzmega2015.com

For the sake of sanity we set off with sonia26642 for a crazy geocaching trip, aiming to cache until we drop. The main destination was Nelson and the ‘surrounding’ area, but then we ended up covering a few miles in three northernmost regions, plus a few in Canterbury. We were signing/stamping the log as 'Team Polak' or ‘TP’ for the two of us on this trip to save logbook space. We found a lot of different caches, city ones, road side, park side, up a hill and on an island, and we enjoyed every single one of them. It was good to be a professional thingfinder for a few days!

Today was to be our biggest day. S planned the route to cover the most possible easy to get P&G’s but we ended up not limiting ourselves to only those. D2.5? Why not? Let the brain have a bit of fun! D3? I am sure we can get there quickly!

We had great fun and are grateful to all CO’s who placed caches for us to find, and help restore our sanity before returning to our other non-geocaching lives!!

Come and join us the next New Zealand geocaching MEGA event!! Register your interest now at www.nzmega2015.com to receive newsletter updates and be the first to know. It will be a great event, come and be a part of it!!

this is an awesome place in the world,i love the nz native bush. although a wee bit of the beaten track. wont take you long tho.tftc

TFTC. I am attempting to cache for 100 days in a row while also managing 250 caches per month total in my stats. So far I am at 36/100 and 169/250 for this month. Time will tell!!
I recently drove the Molesworth Rd and was delighted to discover this road today. I will go as far as my caching info allows and investigate this road further once I am home.
Really nice location for a cache placement.
Thanks Stretch0 for placing the cache.
#3205

Nice to see things from the past up on display like that TFTC

#1733

Quick find on a nice drive. TFTC.

Our first on our journey over the Rainbow Road. Cache was well wedged and required some delicate finger-work to remove. TFTC

Found with wandercat. TFTC

Found after a way ward GPS lead us around the bushes. Eventually thought about the clue and tried the obvious with instant success.

A quick easy find as we proceeded up this unexpectedly good sealed road. TFTC

Quick find after getting key for rainbow road. TFTC.

Quick find on a gorgeous easter arvo up the rainbow. Nice wheels! Tftc

Quick find after completing Power Trail.TFTC

Interesting spot for my 1st cache on the Rainbow road. Travelling must have been very slow and uncomfortable in those days. TFTC.

A quick find on a day's drive from Nelson Lakes to Hanmer via the Rainbow road. Lovely country, I really enjoyed that trip. Signed log, TFTC

We had to come to Tophouse this morning so decided to continue on and hunt the caches up this road. This was our first stop and while I got myself organised with pen and glasses Hazedarus had found the cache. It's great to see these relics. TFTC.

An opportunistic tidy up trip today. We knew it would be a good one judging by the magnificent rainbow low over the horizon against a clear blue sky. We've never seen that before. We just can't have enough reminders how tough life was for the first settlers. TFTC

Took a little tour of the valley to find some caches. As for the rest of our mainland visit the rain continues, great for farmers and ducks but not that much fun for cachers. So glad we don't have to rely on these wheels, our make the journey much more enjoyable. Cache soon in hand TFTC.

Confusion reigned for a brief moment as I came to log this one, I thought I'd already logged all my Dansey Pass finds. An interesting co-incidence of names. Enjoyed the drive up here and hoping for another trip through this Christmas.

TFTC

great cache thanks

Went up skiing for the day and decided to stop of and find some caches on the way back.
Quick find and enjoyed the drive. Nice hiding place by the way.

Quick find after a day of ski racing.
SL TFTC

Our first time down this road in nearly twenty years. Brought back memories of when we cycled from here to Hanmer. The place hasn't changed a bit.
Cache in good condition.
TFTC

We were on a geocache rampage! #10 of the day. USA!

New Zealand Geocach found by RadarUSA and Panda (another hunter). Part of the White Lion Expeditionary Force mentioned earlier. Had lots of fun and can't wait to find many more while on our trip in New Zealand!

The White Lion Expeditionary Force set off from Blenheim in search of geocaches and SNOW! Kiwis and the USA were represented. Of course geocaching came first. and this was No. 10 in the series. TFTC Blenheim Bear

Coincidentally there was a couple of horse floats here today. Great day for a trk. TFTC #3059

First stop on the way to Hanmer via the Rainbow (the last weekend the road was open to the public before the winter sets in). A 4WD vehicle, even one as old as mine, is a MUCH easier way to travel.

Found it during the trip with cycles group crossing from St.Arnaud to Hanmer springs T4TC and Greatings from Czech republic

TFTC. Left 2000 dong note - don't spend it all at once !!

And the last cache on the Rainbow Road. TFTC

Quick find while driving up the valley

out for a drive with kids

A quick find on the way to rainbow

Quick find. XN, TFTC.

quick find tftc

First trip this road. TFTC

Quick grab.

Bitsprayer

Driven by and worked in this area many times, quick find. TFTC.

Quick and easy find at the end of our trip through Molesworth/Rainbow station, Blenhiem - Hanmer - St Arnaud over 2 days, superb trip!! TFTC.

Found cache quickly. Interesting place for these items to be. SL TFTC

quick find
great day for a beautiful drive
good one
TFTC

Doing a couple of caches up here today .What a joy to be here on such a magnificent day .Quick find. Thanks.

good view along the valley, Thanks.

The first of the day as we headed for Hanmer, a nice quick and easy grab with the olds. Many thanks

The newer GPS said to go 'this' way while the old one said 'that' way. 'This' way had us on a gravel road so we did really think of past travellors. We came back the other way!!

A great spot for a cache. TFTC

Actually drove south to get to this spot. Easy find. Wonder why these are placed here - looks like they have hooks for a sign.

Found with moneydork

This one had me doing cart-wheels!

09.45: On the way from St. Arnaud to Hanmer Spring along the Rainbow Road. Yes, it is a nice and very suitable place of a cache. We think we wouldn't want to drive this track on such wheels...[xx(]

Weather: overcast, drizzle, 9°C;
Wheelchair: no problem;

Thank you!

Oliver+Gabi

Mmmm, I like driving this road I walked right past the cache, in my efforts to get to GZ. Silly me, should have gone to the obvious spot first. Cheers Gav [7024]

This spot needed a cache. GZ a bit wet, but cache cozy. TFTC

Found on the way back from spring skiing. Have cycled past these many times on the way to hamner