St Aidan’s (Wairarapa) Alfredton, North Island, New Zealand
By Skindo on 26-Jun-11. Waypoint GC2YY9J

Gone

Gone needs replacing.

Looked for ages but no luck today.

No luck for us here

The old church was being painted and should keep it preserved for many year to come.
Found with Paua during our two day cache hunt in the Wairarapa. TFTC.

Found while on a 24 hour caching adventure with Skaga through parts of the Wairarapa.
Another pretty little country church. This was a really poorly hidden cache and did not look like a typical Skindo hide. We tossed up whether to hide it in the nearby little bush but didn't do it just in case it was meant to be where we found it. TFTC

#1374 Found during a 24 hour caching raid in the Wairarapa with Nic-jay- seeing how many we could find in 24 hours. An odd hide- very exposed and unlike all the other skindo hides on this trip. Covered it a bit better but not entirely convinced it's where it was meant to be.... TFTC! Cute church.

Sunday and tackling one of these interminable backcountry routes. This time, Waipuk to Porangahau to Pirongia to Eketahuna.
This being #44 after departing Waipuk.
A very un-skindo like hide this one. We got a surprise!
Cache find was straightforward; log signed, safely re-hidden.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

A plan was hatched for another extreme, fly down, drive back caching weekend. funkymunkyzone, alpenmilch80 and myself flew down to Wellington on the first flight Saturday morning. We met up with vista at Petone in the Toyota Yaris rental car, as he'd flown down the previous day. We headed straight out of town and made a beeline for the start of our route at Featherston. We zig zagged our way through Wairarapa, Manawatu, Wanganui and Taranaki on our way back home to Auckland. To save time and log space, we stamped the logs as "Team AMFV".

Our 1500km / 40 hour drive consisted mainly of narrow gravel roads, some of which had spectacular scenery and views. Sorry for the copy/paste logs as its now all abit of a blur having only a few short naps in between. Many thanks to all the cache owners who have placed caches for us to find on another epic little adventure. TFTC!

mike-miss, funkymunkyzone, vistra and I met early Saturday morning for a two-day-geocaching-trip and once we collected the smallest relocation car available (a green camouflaged Yaris) we were on our way. funkymunkyzone already descripted the route we took in detail and I am still very impressed how he managed mostly the driving without getting lost a single time. Clearly he has his own Topo map in his head . This was a great team effort and I enjoyed the groups spirits and its laughs along the way till the sleep finally got me after the last cache in Taranaki.

In total I collected with the "Team AMFV" 278 smiles along the way and the word "brace" is no longer foreign to me. I would like to give a big thanks to Skindo and all the other cache owners for all the placements along our tour and hope I don’t annoy too much with the copy and paste logs. TFTC

Another fly-down-drive-back-caching weekend, this time in the company of mike-miss, alpenmilch80 and vistra. Three of us flew down very early on Saturday morning and met up with the other who had flown down the previous day. We headed straight out of Wellington, stopping just once to rendezvous with the other member of the team. We cached our way through the Wairarapa, Manawatu, Wanganui and Taranaki under the moniker "Team AMFV" (google it if you're interested, but it seemed appropriate for our mission).

We headed over the Rimutakas and started off with a loop of Lake Ferry before heading north and out into the back blocks.By the evening we were up around Masterton and heading back out into the sticks, criss-crossing Route 52 picking up cache finds along crazy little roads, the craziest of which were around Pongaroa, from where we headed back down and across to SH2 just north of Eketahuna, coming over the insane hills at Pori just after dawn. Spectacular.

We all piled into our little Toyota Yaris rental car, which had probably never seen such terrain before in its life, judging by the amount of clanging of metal on stones, and scraping of underbody on metal road centre. All part of the fun though, and nothing like taking 40.5 hours (with basically no sleep), over 1500km, to get from Wellington to Auckland, stopping at 288 caches along the way - 173 on Saturday and 115 on Sunday. I enjoy driving long distances, so I drove for about the first 25 hours plus a few more hours later on Sunday - also because I had designed the route so I knew fairly well the way we were going, and this time we made no mistakes!

Sorry for the largely copy/paste logs, but it's hard work remembering all the different caches. Some stood out from the others but we enjoyed every single one of them and were thankful for every single placement along the way. This trip, and the company, was fantastic and a fun but shatteringly tiring weekend.

TFTC!!!

This cache was found as part of a marathon weekend of geocaching with alpenmilch80, mike-miss and funkymunkyzone - aka "Team AMFV" It was a full on weekend of non-stop caching, mostly on windy gravel Wairarapa roads!

I had flown down to Wellington on Friday, then met up with the others first thing Saturday morning. We loaded up a Toyota Yaris rental car, then slowly made our way back up to Auckland, arriving late on Sunday night! The poor little car certainly got put through a lot!

It was an incredibly long and tiring weekend, but great fun at the same time, with a great group of cachers! All up I found 250 new caches over the weekend and revisited a few that I had found before. Sorry for the copy and paste logs, but the weekend is already a blur! TFTC!!

Easy drive in, nice farmland. TFTC

Lovely old church. TFTC

nice little church

this one could do with some camouflage paint

Just couldn't see it. Nice spot

[Green] Popmac rings me up, wanting to do a raid on Skindoland. We bring in super-new cacher Bright_Jun and sneak in under the cover of darkness. We left Palmy at 6am, attacked the natives of Skindoland with a relentless assault lasting 15 hours (including an hour off for tea and crumpets at the Pongaroa Picnic Event), travelling over 450km. We even had spare petrol in the boot, because there were no shops where we went. We defeated over 90 of the little blighters, not even a decimation. I bet the lords of Skindoland won't even notice.

Popmac insisted we stop here and find this cache. Nice church, and a fine enough cache, but I have to come down this road sometime anyway (we are not doing it today) so I could do it then. Ah, well, whatever, Okay Popmac, we'll do this cache. Another nice little chruch, I love these country churches. Photo.

The cache was not concealed at all. Okay, so what is the interesting cut-out in the vestibule for?

All OK - thanks TreMichlLan

There has been work done at St Aidans and the cache is now gone. I have replaced the cache and it is now in a new spot.

New hint

In crook, guarded by a sentry

Coordinates changed from:
S 40° 40.732 E 175° 51.677

Coordinates changed to:
S 40° 40.728 E 175° 51.683

Distance from original: 36.9 feet or 11.3 meters.
Moved due to work been done

started at 8 this morning and headed over to get 50 caches today on a loop, didnt find a couple but hubby got to do a lot of gravel road and the weather was nice. TFTC

Found with helbaby7 and PalmyDave while caching in the district. TFTC

Well another wee church much like all the others.

Found with Sevren.tftc

Set off with Zissas for a day's caching to take advantage of everyone else being at the Mega. The hunt continues. TFTC.

Found as part of the Zissas/EthNZ substitute MEGA caching run. TFTC

A nice stop. TFTC

A MEGA Adventure

Both Nova Lightning and myself had set ourselves caching targets that we were hoping to meet in time for the NZMEGA in a few weeks. So with a plan in progress and fuel in the tank away we set.
Departed home at 6pm Friday, returned home 3.30pm Monday, 7 hours sleep approx 470 caches and a great adventure.

Thanks to all those that have placed caches especially Skindo as I think we gave his caches a bit of a nudge

Thanks for a great weekend of Caching and Bull.

Mega Weekend

It all started about a month ago when Cats&Dragons brought up the idea of heading down the line to collect 350+ caches. We both had targets that we wanted to meet before attending the NZ Mega. Plans and locations were drawn up and puzzles were begun to be solved. It took me a while to get my head around a few of the puzzles and with the help of a cacher I was soon on a roll.

The weekend finally came and we departed Hamilton at 6pm on a Friday night. 3days, 2,000km, & 11hrs sleep, later 472 caches collected. Thanks to all those who's caches I found especially Skindo with a huge number laid.

A quick find on a days caching in the Wairarapa. TFTC

Another nice find as we check out some of the many Masterton and Tararua council gravel roads. Some great countryside through this area, and fortunately very little traffic. TFTC

Quick find. A big day in Wairarapa today, 52nd out of 60 caches for the day. Thanks skindo for all these caches.

A nice evening to be out picking up a few

TFTC

The first will be last and the last will be first... We stopped outside the church to sort out the car GPSr, which was trying to send us the long way round to Black V @ Black Swamp Bridge (GC3YBHV). This was supposed to be the last cache along this route on the way back out towards Eketahuna, but the Junior Cachers had been cooped up in the car for some time and needed a run about; soon had the cache found. TFTC.

A quick easy find at another nice wooden church in Wairarapa. No service today. TFTC

Easy cache - found with Crystal Fairy. TFTC

Quick and easy find. T4TC. Did with buttels

I love taking the back road like this. A day like today with magnificent weather was made for geocaching. First half I did some time ago and today the other half from Weber to Masterton was done. TFTC!

A short diversion from the 52 on 52 trail today. Very pretty little church. Love to find these well preserved. TFTC, Biggles.

NICE EASY FIND AT AN NICE OLD CHURCH, IT'S ALSO NICE TO HEAR THAT THE LOCAL FAMILY THOUGHT ENOUGH ABOUT THE BUILDING, THAT THEY SHOULD BUY AND MOVE IT.TFTC.

#4670. Nice old church. TFTC.

Day 5 of the trip home to Christchurch, Napier-Martinborough. Came down via route 52, a great way to see some back country roads. A very quiet road and some small communities. Thanks Skindo for bringing us this way. 50/52 for the trail. Plus some extras!

Another short detour from Route 52. We were looking forward to visiting Alfredton as we hoped it might boast a cafe for a coffee stop but no such luck, in fact there was very little besides this quaint church. It appears to have an airport, so why not a cafe?
TFTC.

20/12/2012 1:11:00 PM
2026
This cache was found as part of my epic as move down south to Christchurch from Auckland - A drive that involved around 3,000km, 350 caches, 14 days, and a bit of a detour through East Cape, Gisbourne, Napier/Hastings, some back roads in the Wairarapa, Cape Pallisier and Nelson/Tasman as well as every CANZ cache along the way that I was still missing. (Hence my excuse for the not as interesting log as I usually try to make mine.) But thanks to every awesome amazing as cacher that placed caches along these roads, you made my trip awesome, and very cache happy!

I had specially planned the move to involve route 52... and it was a great day! - I learnt how to pass sheep on the road, I met some interesting locals, and wow the number of washouts on the road! Thanks so much for putting these caches out here... definitely helped me towards the 500+ in a month finding challange! - (I am still to get the official count, but I think december ended up with about 510 geocaches - of which probably like almost 150 were skindo caches )

TFTC!!

Quick find in a nice area, TFTC

11.35: On the way from Dannevirke to Castlepoint. Very neat church, quick find due to the precise hint.

Weather: sunny, windy, 16°C;
Wheelchair: no problem at all;
State: all good.

Thank you!

Oliver+Gabi

Another nice little church, TFTC

ZH & Blondie invade NZ 2012!

Our 211th find in NZ, 8th of Day 16

No.8 find in North Island, continuing the 52 on 52.... Another nice little church!

TFTC

I always enjoy seeing these old country churches up close - TFTC

Found at 2:08:00 PM. Slowly making our way South for the Mega in Dunedin we decided to take the road less travelled today after noticing the number of caches along Route 52 and we are glad that we did.

Another bonus cache while chasing 52 on 52..

Thanks skindo

Found the cache in company with an older and fellow motorcyclist who grew up in this area and for whom the Church had memories that included the place where two of his daughters were married. Thanks for the cache!

Yep, here's another quaint old church. It seems that every small community had one of the same denomination. No Catholic churches to be seen anywhere.

Cheers for the cache.

NUMBER 9, TFTC

#3000. Nice little church in a quiet community. TNLNSL. TFTC.

What a lovely little church. TFTC

No 13 of 60 caches for the day on Route 52 Road Trip.
First of 2 church finds today, both immaculately maintained.
1144hrs/43.0km.
TFTC.

Quick find - TFTC

A quant little church. Quick find TFTC

Found as part of an an epic adventure in skindoland which resulted 131 finds. A nice little country church - Thanks for showing it to me. TFTC

Completing our road trip down Route 52 from north to south.... couldn't resist a short break here, to walk in the shade of the trees and admire this little country church. A nice spot. We've seen so many picturesque little churches today as we drove past on Route 52. TFTC.

Great timing on the publication of this series, we had a trip planned to Hastings for the weekend so it worked out extrmely well to vary our route a little and pick up a few caches along the way. I had previously visited some of the areas covered but not driven the whole route. A glorious fine day with many interesting things seen and places visited, we thoroughly enjoyed the day, many thanks.

TFTC's

Find #1039. Find #14 for the day. And the second cache in Alfredton, one of the many townships we would visit over the next few hours. Mr. Yeetrees appeared to have already found it (or was he too lazy to get out of the car?) so it was a quick find for myself and agcnz. Thanks skindo for yet another church in the Wairarapa (you do build them yourself don't you?). SL TFTC.

Had a most enjoyable day with Hurricane Luke and Yeetrees driving up route 52 to clean up an area that was pristine caching territory for me. Nice little old church in a very pleasant and quiet spot. Cache was a quick find - signed log, TFTC!

So many country churches, so many different styles of building. This is a quaint one. Easy find of the cache, thanks.

# 4395

Just time for a quick detour before heading home. TFTC

Found on bit of a Wairarapa cache clean up tour. A nice wee church.
TFTC.

Was in the Wairarapa with Mrs Yeetrees on a day out to clean up a few caches that I haven't had a chance to grab since I was here last. After finding the cache at the Alfredton Community Hall, we decided that it was time to go and grab the next nearest one, fortunately there was this cache that wasnt too far from the previous cache. Arriving here today managed to find a park across the road from GZ and Mrs Yeetrees went out to grab the cache and managed to find the cache in the most obvious spot. Thanks for placing it here and for bringing us to such an interesting spot. TFTC TNLNSL (3888)

Certainly getting the skindo tour around the area today. Good fun! SL TFTC

Easy find. Nice area.

There seems to be a never ending supply of these quaint country churches. SL TFTC

I enjoy these church caches, another great one. TFTC

This is a sweet little church. Lovely peacefull feeling. Easy find! Yay!

7298 Nice quaint church in Alfredton… read the Red Warning sign about the road conditions to “Ashcroft’s Legacy”… didn’t heed the warning and decided to embark on a gravel adventure. TFTC.

FTF.Quick find.Thanks.

Published