52 Cache Pickup - Queen of Spades Ngaruawahia, North Island, New Zealand
By McCutchan Cache Clan on 20-Sep-11. Waypoint GC34EMG

Hunted for while but no luck

Biking trip with the kid in the bike trailer and a friend along for the ride.Cache attempt 16 for the dayTotal finds 14 out of 17 (total of 17 attempts this trip)Not the easiest place to stop, but with bikes, was able to get far enough off the road to be safe.Spent some time looking but no luckReading hint and logs didn't help, and the rain was starting to set in, so didn't want to hang around too longDeicided to give up, go get one more so we were 1/3 done, and then head home before the rain really started

I found everything intact Ground Zero, as described. In the hint. However, the log to need an upgrade for sure. Thanks for the fun!

Went through this power trail today with JTP2001. It was a nice day for it - overcast, but not raining until the last few of the trail, and a pleasant temperature. I drove down from Auckland, he drove up from Hamilton, and we got going from Ngaruawahia northbound. A reasonable success rate without too many challenges, although there are still a few gaps to fill in another day. Thanks heaps to McCutchan Cache Clan for getting these organised and looking after them, this was a fairly enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Note: we were unable to sign the log here as it was too damp (and a touch infested), so have attached a photo as proof. TFTC!

Completed the power trail with Bapboy1996 today, meeting 'halfway' between our respective cities. Had to miss a few on the trail due to muggles nearby, and some DNFs, which Bapboy has logged. It was a pretty successful day though, which ended on 50 caches thanks to some extras we found nearby too - this is about 2.5x my previous most in a day, and about the same as I've found in the last 8.5 years thanks to a bit of a hiatus. Was also the first time I had properly attempted a power trail so that was a fun adventure, I'll definitely bring snacks next time though. Logs are signed as Bapjtp, but some were quite damp and were unable to sign, though we attempted to dry these ones out where we could. The roadside could definitely do with a CITO at a few spots. TFTC McCutchan Cache Clan

Well this was a cracking game of cards...a bit of twisting; a bit of sticking; mostly came up trumps, but I was also dealt a few bad hands.
Many of these logs might be similar, so I will chuck in some interesting(?) facts which I found on the internet...so they must be true
FACT! :

The Queen of Spades is a 1949 fantasy-horror film based on the 1834 short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

Thanks McCutchan Cache Clan
#4569

New container now in place

will checkout and fix

Attempting to do a few of this series on our way back to Auckland today but rain is threatening. Giving it a go to add to our numbers - wish us luck .

And yes we got attempted again. This is our 14th of this series today - we are trying to stop and head home, especially with the rain coming in. But with Geokids in the back it’s always - just one more .

FYI - log was muddy and wrecked - hole in container. We put in a new log but container will need replacing.

TFTC and this series .

Container needs replacing as has a hole.

Headed down this way today with the intention of collecting the Pickup 52 trail of caches, and any others along the way....as am in need of some numbers for my goal for the year.....

Thank you to the CO's for cache placement, and bringing me to these locations.

Let the adventure begin......as I was travelling by car and by myself, I didn't attempt all caches in this series due to unsafe car parking/walking.....

TFTC and the series....

Quick easy find TFTC

Easy find once I started looking at the right tree! TFTC

????????

Found with my family gogoguises ??????

Thanks for the cache ?????? found with my mum and dad gogoguises.

Cache very dirty and damp, unable to sign log. TFTC

TFTC watch out for the blueberries

Tftc

After the DNF from the previous cacher, we didn't hold out much hope in the dark, but managed to find and there were no brambles either

Advantage of there being 2 of us- divide & conquer... co-ord & hints gave us 2 possibilities. Found no problem - exactly where it should be.

May have fallen out. Too many prickles.

New container in place ready to be found

Nice find ty

Nice quick find

Quick find

Couldn't find it ️

Found. Log sodden as hole in bag. Put in dry log but had no bag. TFTC

Quickly found! With snails in the cache

Such a fun day caching with SarahB20 and sharing turns to find the hides along this series along a route I'd never traveled before. Tftc

Kathykaches and I have been looking at this trail for a while and finally today we managed to complete it. It was a great day of parking and grabbing, running out of petrol, driving to Huntly for a top up of fuel, then back to caching, lots and lots of caches We had 5 DNF's for the day, so only managed to find 47 of the 52 on the power trail. Of course we had to find 3 others to make it up to 50, a new record for one day for both of us. Mostly signed as SB20 + KK. Thanks so much for placing all of these caches and maintaining them. Sorry for the copy and paste!

Day Two of our 11 day binge trip we are signing as NNES.

Yay school holidays! Time for a road trip with my friend Ethness. I flew from Christchurch to Wellington. The idea is to drive up to the top of the North Island and back. We planned the trip ages ago.

Thanks McCutchan Cache Clan for placing this geocache 7697 find for me.

Sadly there was no large event in New Zealand in 2019 but there are a few Mega events planned in Australia. New Zealand will have another large event in 2020 in Auckland. 
======== NZ Mega 2020 ========
Planning for the NZ Mega 2020 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. Thanks for hiding this geocache.

The school holidays are here and NosyNel and I are on a road trip north - to the far north. Today is a numbers run and for me, time to complete this series that I started in January 2015. TFTC and series. Signed NNES.

***======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](http://nzmega.com) - you won't want to miss it!

Nice and easy to get thanks

Just passed what looks like a speed trap but, luckily, I'm hunting caches so I was going pretty slowly for a change. TFTC.

On a mission for the Cache Carnival challenge. Trying to make as many finds as possible this morning, This series was tailor-made for this purpose. Tftc

Nice and easy. Great. Found together with Pyphant and Greenkiwikids and signed as Team Piraten. Tftc.

Easy find.

....../. )
.....'. /
---'. (_____
T.F.T.C.._ ((___)
........... ((____)
..........((____)
---.____((__)

Down from Northland for the weekend along with Lis's Crew and DaffyNZ, with the challenge to get 200+ caches in one day and set some personal records. All logs signed as Team G0LD ( Geocachers 0B8, Lis & Daffy )

After arriving in Hamilton on Friday evening, we grabbed a few caches and then Saturday was the main event. With some good planning and teamwork, we managed 214 caches for the day.

Today was time to head home, but we had to make the trip really worthwhile and get some more on the way. This trail looked appealing and although it was drizzling at the start of the day, we charged into it anyway, continuing our good teamwork from yesterday. Part way through, the drizzle stopped, the sun came out and it got really hot again.

A few more DNFs on this trail than yesterday, but still a neat series that added good numbers to our weekend tally. Apologies for cut & paste logs, but no time to make notes about the individual caches on the day, especially with the damp conditions. TFTC

Out for the weekend with Team Gold (Go 0B80B8, Liz's Crew, DaffyNZ). Thought we would look at this series on our way home. Thanks for the challenge.

I'm down from Okaihau in the Far North with 0B80B8 and DaffyNZ on a three day caching mission. We aimed to get the Kiwi puzzles, the NZ series and The Eyes Have It series in one day. Not a feat for the faint hearted geocacher. 

We arrived in Hamilton on Friday evening grabbed a few caches and had dinner in the lovely Hamilton gardens. We then set off to grab a few more caches.

On Saturday with careful planning we managed to get a massive 214 caches. We worked really well as Team GOLD and had a great day.

Today we're heading home caching along the way. I started this trail back in 2016 on my way to the Turangi Mega. We had started at the wrong end and today I was keen to finish it off. It was drizzling at the start of the day. The team in the car were on signing duties to protect the logs from damage. Soon the sun was out again making my job much nicer.

Thanks for the series

Whilst staying in Hamilton, I decided after not doing well with the caches locally to make the trip up here to complete the caches that I didn't have time for yesterday. Todays caches were not so good, as the majority were quite badly soaked, and I ended up with quite a few DNFs. Still, it was nice to have a drive in the countryside and add a few more finds. TFTC.

Easy find thanks

Found with NZFlossy

Out on a road trip with NZBiscuit collecting this series and catching up as it has been awhile since we have been out caching together. The weather was not the best and I was the runner while NZBiscuit handled the driving like a pro as a lot of the parking was in hard places. We had a lot of fun and thank the CO for the series. Some of the containers are broken and have wet logs while some others are all good. It wasn't the day to do maintenance as everything I touched go very wet. TFTC

These little containers just do not keep out the water.

Nice park n grab - tftc

I was quite keen to complete the current Hidden Creatures souvenir challenge and so I thought that I would focus my attention on this series. So I came down from Auckland to begin just as the sun was coming up. I was in absolutely no hurry at all and just enjoyed the experience. Over all I found most of the caches with only three DNF’s. I also met Team BOPnJAM in the process which was cool. It was quite adventurous at times with the traffic and trying to find places to park… but I got there safely in the end. Some of the log books were also too mushy to sign. So thank you McCutchan Cache Clan for taking the time to set up this series. I really appreciate your efforts in doing so ?

We are going along just fine..this is such a busy Rd today ...all good here thanks except two trees two logs not sure how that works signed both thanks

Well I have a bit of a reputation for finding multiple cache containers, and this was the first in this series - yes more to come!! Found one container and signed, noticing that the others we were following hadn't signed mmmm. Walked along to another tree and spotted another cache container. Signed both. Thanks for the cache MCC.

We had some extra time today and thought this power series would be a nice trip down memory lane for us. Thanks for some easy to find caches, but you do need to watch the traffic on a Sunday afternoon.

A plan was made with Team BOP to come to Huntly and do some serious caching for the Hidden Creatures souvenirs. 52 Pickup was a good place to start and we signed BOPnJAM to save space on the log. Most were nice easy finds so thanks for the series.

Out for a day's caching with Team BOPnJam. Most were quick easy finds and a little bit of maintenance. This was a card game I never found enjoyable, but this was a better way to play the game. Thanks for bringing us over this way.

We made up a team BOPnJAM with a group of cachers from the BOP (McJandals, TNxPro, Philip Perry, FrogyBeCaching and Davidson Clan) and Merlot58 to complete this 52 cache pickup series and to earn some some of the Hidden Creatures souvenirs. Great weather and great company and a lot of fun - TFTS

Out with friends today collecting caches for the hidden creatures souvenirs this power trail was a good option to get half the souvenirs. Looks like it was a busy day on the trail with alot of people having the same idea.
Thanks MC Clan .

Another big trip planned this time in an effort to obtain all the Hidden Creature Souvenirs. Team BOP (Davidson clan, McJandals, Frogybecaching, TNXPro & myself) joined with a couple of Westies (Jag50&Merlot58) to fill up the van and finish this series... and most of Huntly as well! We signed the logs as BOPnJAM for expedience and to save on log space.

I've always thought this was a really good idea for a power trail but getting motivated to do it was an issue. Today we've got a good team on and were able to knock this off in a couple of hours. 95% of these were found quickly with accurate coords and a good hint. Some logs were mush, some containers were broken and at least 1 was missing entirely (although I don't recall dropping one here). All of our cache repair kits will need restocking when we get home but we're all stoked to have *'picked up 52'* caches.

A big thank you to the McCutchan Cache Clan, we had a good day

***

**What are you doing Labour Weekend 2018? Wellington is set to host New Zealands largest Geocaching Event of the year! Check out the details on the [WENZ Website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's [Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/). Once you're registered and have logged your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page](https://www.geocaching.com/…/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellin…) you're all set, see you there.**

Out with team BOPnJAM today to knock off the long anticipated 52.
This series didnt quite win our hearts, but we aced it and managed to score the full deck with a little maintenance on the way. It sure was a good way to clock up a large number of caches in quick succession and were were glad to have completed it.
Thanks for the series MCCC.

With Hidden Creature souvenirs up for grabs. A plan was hatched with our Westie buddies. We were all ready for a stormy rainy day but the weather gods were good to us today with no rain until getting home at 10pm. A great numbers trail with many of these caches needing maintenance, we will definitely have to restock caching kits as many log sheets were mush and unsignable!!. Still a fun day was had by all and many thanks McC for giving us a reason to come here. Please excuse my cut and paste logs in advance due to numbers. Cheers

Sunday trip on the bikes to complete 52 Cache Pickup - Waikato's power trail. Great company of Janno216. We just had one DNF today. Plesant day - great wetaher for cycling and joy! Thanks for placements. We had great time along Waikato river.

Some time ago tramyard and me already thought about doing this 52 Cache Pickup Trail. Today we both were free and it didn't rain so we made our way to Ngaruawahia (what a name !), prepered our bikes and started our journey.

All the Caches were fairly hidden and very easy to find. A couple of them were really wet so we were not able to sign the logbook. We only had one DNF, so we were done after three hours and made our way to the Bonus Cache after a nice lunch breake.

After this tour we had still time to find some local Caches.


We had great fun finding all These Caches!

Thank you McCutchan for hiding all of These!

Half way for the day. Number 4 so up to 48 found.

thanks for the cache

Fun day out, thankfully with little rain, with cragger, laval and Dragon.Griffin collecting this series. We found all except 2, a few were quite wet so we dried as best as we could. I think we did them back to front but found ok parking in most spots so was no issue. Loved the document that you uploaded which we ticked off as we went.

Thanks for the caches.

I was out on a fabulous day caching with Keylev, Laval & Dragon.Griffin.

Thanks for the cache McCutchan Cache Clan.

This was a series that myself and Keylev had wanted to do for a while. As it was the school holidays we made a plan to complete it today with Cragger and Laval as well. We did the series back to front which meant some parking spots were a little tight, especially with the amount of big trucks steaming along that road but we completed the series with two only DNFs. Unfortunately it was those two that had the codes we needed for the Joker Bonus. After a few tries with different coordinate scenarios we settled on one that was plausible and made our way there and soon had the cache in hand.

This was cache number 36 and a quick find , TFTC!

Another quick find thanks

last full day in the Hamilton/Auckland area, awake at 5am so decided to wait for first light and head off and get some caches, on the way to visiting a friend in Tuakau via Auckland to attempt a few challenge caches that I qualified for awhile ago.
set off around 6am when the sun hadn't quite come up yet, but by the time i got to the first cache it was light enough to see what I was doing, headed towards Ngaruawahia first to get some petrol and then on to having a go at the 52 cards power trail.
All was well here, noticed that most of these caches had really good parking opportunities, only a few had a couple of interesting spots, lucky I had set off early enough where there was no traffic, until further in where more and more traffic came down this road. All caches were simple finds.
signed the log and replaced exactly where I found it. thanks for the cache.

log is very wet

Happy Easter

NZPatoto and I set off to find the Pack of Cards caches. 53 in total. We were going to bike but as I wasn't feeling 100% I offered to drive and NZPatoto did the finding. There were times we both did the hunting. Our road was very busy, with a cop car travelling south with lights flashing. SH1 heading south was at a crawl until lunchtime. Parking was interesting, would have been better in a 4x4. A few times I would drop NZPatoto and then find a park. I did manage to find 8 and there was 2 DNF. While we had lunch and a coffee we solved the Joker cache. #16 of 53 Found by NZPatoto. Found the container full of water. Has no lid. Found log too wet to sign. I searched for lid and found it on ground - lucky find for lid. TFTC

Nahkins and I set off to find the Pack of Cards caches. 53 in total. As Nahkins wasn't feeling a 100% she did the driving and I did the hunting. There were times we both did the hunting. Very busy road and not many places to park it was drop me then find a park. I found 42, Nahkins 9 and 2 DNF. While we had a cuppa we solved the Joker cache. #16. I found the container full of water. Has no lid. Found log too wet to sign. Nahkins searched for lid and found it. TFTC

Big write up in under the Ace of hearts. Thanks for keeping us caching all day

Nice trail and we had lots of fun... more details from me at the Ace of Hearts.

Tftc

Stopped at every cache along the trail, replaced log sheets and containers as needed, relocated 2 of them to better places. Trail is now 100% ready, happy cache hunting.

Check the drop box link in Ace of Hearts GC34EG3 for an updated spreadsheet that contains updated information for each cache.

Couldn't find any stump within 3 minutes. Saw lots of geotrails crisscrossing the area. Time to move on.

Guarded by prickles! Tftc

More in the stump than behind I guess, but we didn't struggle to find it which was good as we thought it might have been gone since Gorby didn't get it. Chalk one to us...TFTC.

A quick search but nothing...

Having an enjoyable trip along the river bank. Thanks for another one. Log very wet.

I was in Hamilton for the weekend for the Dahlia Show. Today I planned to find 120+ caches - the pack of cards series was the first to attack. A lot of the logs were full, and I just stamped where I could. I replaced some with paper where the containers weren't too wet. I just found 41 of this series - 7 DNF, & 4 didn't stop to look as they had had some DNF's. Thanks McCutchan Cache Clan for this series.

Log is somewhat wet and if it were dry there is room to sign YAY...just not today. TFTC!

got it tftc

Nice spot in the shade tftc

I set out today to find the caches on the 52 Cache Pickup power trail. Thanks McCutchan Cache Clan for placing the caches.

On a mission today to find 120 + as a team of 4. All logs signed Naki 4
Team is Blenheim Bear Thatsneat Tmninjaturtle and 2 Bulbars.
It was a fun filled day finding many sorts of different caches and visiting many interesting places.
Many thanks to all who placed these caches to help make it such an enjoyable day

Found this with the team "Naki 4" (Blenheim Bear, 2Bulbars, TMNinjaTurtle and myself) on our mission from Huntly to Hamilton on our hunt to 120. Was a long day but pleased to have it completed! Thank you for the cache.

Found this cache during the Naki 4 team (Blenheim Bear, 2Bulbars, Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtle and That’s Neat) run on the 120 caches in one day on the 3rd Oct. Many thanks Mission accomplished, this one is a wrap. TFTC! Blenheim Bear
This log posted with CacheSense for Android!

On my way up the line for a week of r&r and stopped for a couple of nights in Hamilton to pick up some caches. Decided to do this power trail to up my numbers. Another quick find.

Glad the road is quite as no real off spots here.... Log signed as b&p.Tftc McCutchan Cache Clan. Find # 3009

See Ace of hearts, TFTC

Found this series a couple of months ago...not sure of the date. Have just found all the details of this picturesque trip up the river. Have not traveled on this road before. Thank you for the placement of all the caches.

350 On way back North

No luck here today.

We have hit a little bit of rain but not enough to put us off, we are getting through the run and in great time, thanks for taking the time to place the caches, we have placed our cards in the caches and our paracord keychains where we were able.

Dodgy as area!! Have to Skoot fast lol nice area tho, love the river flowing next to here

Number 16 done. While I search husband puts coordinates into cars GPS so when I hop back in the car we whizz off and I have just realised I have not noticed the view on the other side. Is there a river over there?

Again, no stumps here. Found cache in the GL fork of a tree.
TFTC

The next couple of caches meant the most walking, as we could not find an easy/safe place to park. We hugging the river, so we have a lovely view and a cache to find to keep us motivated

Tftc

Doing power trail in reverse. Story to come on the final log. TFTC

It took me a little while to work out what the clue was meaning through all the long grass...