Greystoke (Manawatu) Marton, North Island, New Zealand
By angela&ian on 23-Nov-11. Waypoint GC39KH1

It's a concern that private property has to be crossed to to visit this Reserve and the landowner has not welcomed this. A DNF from the current CO, and visits are very rare. Now archived and hopefully a future cache could be placed in an accesssible and approriate public place in this area of attractive countryside.

Greystoke (Manawatu) was transferred from angela&ian to user edvern

Thanks Angela&Ian for bringing us to this reserve that we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Unfortunately we we weren’t able to locate the container even after widening our search around all the likely larger trees.

I enjoyed a few hours in the Rangitikei area today finding a few caches. Took me a while to find as my GPS suggested it was somewhere else. Tree cover will do that. TFTC

It is with the very greatest of pleasure that i finally visited this cache having seen it come out years ago and never actually getting around to detouring off SH1 to go and look for it. I did not know that this reserve was there and i took a couple of photos at the site.
A few months ago we set aside a day to have a geo day and we set this date on our calendars .
We invited T along to go with us and we all set off early this morning. We a little light rain while around Ohakea and Bulls but then no more rain until we got up to the Tutaenui reservoir where we did get wet.
I had already located three of this series so it was good to complete the series after having got them all solved a while ago . I took nothing and left nothing and all was well with the cache . Thank you for this old cache in the area : )

Spring is only a few weeks away and we are at the start of yet another new month (seriously, how fast is this year zipping by???). I normally like to try and get a good caching outing in early in any month to take the pressure off my own desire to find 50 caches each month, so jumped at the chance to create our own pod with Haydn.seek and deltatea. We managed to cover a lot of ground and end up with no DNFs which is always a bonus. My personal haul was 35 for the day.

The weather looked like it would threaten us with rain all day long, but we were very lucky for most of the day with only a few passing light showers - until we got to the Tutaenui Reservoir where we managed to get seriously wet. But that was towards the end of our day so didn't spoil our caching at all.

Believe it or not, I've never actually been to Marton before in all my years (over 30) of visiting and living in NZ. I was glad to be able to put that right today.

It was mid afternoon by now and we wanted to head up to get the newish caches around the reservoir. But not before we detoured off slightly to look for this old one and it's more recent neighbour just down the road. Getting to GZ proved to be no problem, and once in the right place I made short work of finding the good sized cache. No issues to report here, and the log soon had 3 new names in it before everything was replaced as found.

Thanks for setting up the this cache. I'm sure you'll have heard the suggestion before that with the name of this cache, I'd almost expected to find the container swinging in the trees

I hadn't been in this vicinity before so thanks for bringing us out here. Great reading up on the history of the area. Tftc

Nice to be out and about after being confined to quarters for almost all of July. This cache placement reminds me of my job forty years ago as a Parks Assistant with Lands & Survey Department, looking after parks and reserves just like this one, in Taranaki.
First find here for over 6-months. Cache container full of water which I emptied but couldn't do much else as I have my partner’s car with definitely no ‘geocaching crap’ in it.
Needs a bread bag! /s TFTC

**14,612**
Stopped in here brief to snatch up this cache on our way home. Those are some pretty big bulls in the area next to the entrance to the reserve. TFTC

Find number 7763. My daughter is doing the Te Araroa trail And I have been a support person for a few days as she paddled the Whanganui [I was the other in the canoe] and cycled from Pipiriki to Whanganui. A 7pm crossing of the river at Koitiata where I met her and we camped for the night. An early start as she set off to walk to Bulls and I cached my way back to Hamilton. Doing just specific caches.
Interesting reserve. Had to pass some cattle in the paddock but no problem. Then once in the bush I looked without luck. Eventually resorted to reading logs and soon had the cache in hand. Thank you for the placement.
Sorry previous log was on wrong cache.

Escaped from work a bit early and decided to collect some smileys. Got here a bit late to do the walk but early enough to find the cache. The sun was off to bed in a blaze of glory. Thanks for the smiley.

(# 6683). A trip to Marton and Hunterville to grab some caches. Left early as the weather was meant to turn bad in the late morning. So much for weather forecasts as it remained partly cloudy and dry all day. A quick find after parking up outside the gates. Walked through the paddock and said hello to the sheep. Made sure I didn't touch the electric fence but luckily I am tall and my nether region remained safe. Everything in order. Thanks for bringing me here.

Had called past here once before but was a little nervous about entering the area through private property. After the recent Maintenance Log I thought I'd re-visit and tip-toed down the driveway, through the paddock with the sheep in it (fortunately they were all on the other side), over the electric fence wire (long legs make that easy) and through the gate - phew. After that, cache was a quick find in an obvious place.

A while ago in response to a comment of a geocacher I had a sign made to show that the land is indeed in public ownership. Peter is wrapt and plans to erect it beside the gate into the Reserve.
The County put in a cattle stop but it was found to be too narrow to be effective so this is barricaded off.
To get into the Reserve go up the other driveway to the small gate which allows access to the paddock which has an electric fence to keep the bulls away and allows easy access to the Reserve.
At present the cache is just through the gateway but we will work on re-establishing the original cache site.

Farmer not friendly at present so please stay away. Will visit and report the outcome.

Couldn’t figure out what we were doing wrong on this one, I was reading the description but it was taking us further and further away so we retraced our steps and then it was a quick find but not before the hubby fell flat on his face after tripping on a tree root. He was not a happy camper. But after a spa last night to soak his weary bones it’s a very funny tale to re tell the kids today. TFTC

[#12,087. Enjoyed visiting this hidden reserve in Marton. Crossed the cattle stop and then across the small paddock to enter through the small gate. Quite a little gem in here. GZ and the whole place was all quiet at the time of our visit. Quick find as the cache was right out in the open. It was in good condition. Although a little damp, the waterproof log book was doing its job excellently. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Replaced slightly better – just out of immediate sight – ]under a large tree.

[Continued on the main marked track for a bit afterwards … and saw some huge fungi along the way. Cool.

Excerpt from the *Department of Lands and Survey Scenery Preservation Report for the year ended 31st March 1940*:

> When the Greystoke Settlement, near Marton, was cut up for soldier settlement in 1916 a section of 20 acres 3 roods (8.4 hectares) was withheld from disposal with a view to its reservation for scenic purposes. The area was in good bush which had always been fenced off from the rest of the estate and preserved in its virgin condition by the owners of the property. The land has since been held by the Department, and during the year the original purpose was carried out by the formal reservation of the land under the Scenery Preservation Act.

> During the year special Scenic Boards were appointed or reappointed as follows: … the Rangitikei County Council, to control the Greystoke Scenic Reserve.

Thanks for the placement, and for bringing us to this site, and …

.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.
.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.]

What an amazing spot. Unfortunately when we arrived the weather was somewhat average so we only ventured in to sign the log and leave again.

I’ve driven down this road more times than I can remember and I never realised I was passing a reserve each time!

The boys and I crossed the paddock and as we soon as we entered we saw the camo. A quick sign and we were on our way again.

This CO’s caches have to be the best I’ve found since getting into geocaching - the amount of reserves I’ve encountered that I never knew about it has been amazing.

It’s such a shame it’s sat for so long. More people need to discover these amazing places.

TFTC angela&ian!

For my personal challenge of working towards getting my calendar on GC.COM to be at least the same shade of green or darker I need to sign off at least 4 caches today. I won't grumble if I find one or two more I decided to do caches near Marton today.

The logbook was a sodden mess and the container had about 5 mm of water in it. I tipped the water and removed the mess inside. I put in a waterproof logsheet.

Cheers for the cache.

3.55pm
Day 2 of our road trip
Breakfast was first on our list of things to do today, but a couple of caches got in the way first.
As we filled our stomachs we read about the 43 multi's here so our mission was to clean out Marton and look at other caches we had solved or qualified for.
Great day but still a long trip home.
Thanks to cache owners who's caches we collected over the weekend. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap), and NZFlossy... Day two of our mission into the Manawatu to get a push on the Mythical Creatures souvenirs.

It rained heavily overnight, and we wondered if the rough weather would hang around. Fortunately, we awoke to a much improved morning. The plan was to find breakfast, then make a dent in the multitude of caches around the towns of Marton, Bulls, and Sanson before heading homeward...

It was unclear how this one should be approached, as there were no signs indicating the existence of this bushland. Using initiative, an entry was gained, but the cache log was in such poor, wet condition, it could not be signed. TFTC.

Day two of a road trip with squirrel nutcase and Gap of Fap & Gap. We have come down to the Rangitaiki in pursuit of caches for the Hidden Creature Souvenirs and were rewarded by beautiful scenery as well. We spent a short night at a motel in Marton and were on the trail again early - and even though it had rained in the night we didn't get any during the day just a bit of wind in places. Thanks to the cache Co's and my travel buddies for a great weekend
One of the last for the day and it was getting a bit cold - found how to access the area and walked in and spotted the cache laying out in the open and log saturated.. TFTC

Heading over to New Plymouth for a couple of nights for work. I’m leaving today so I don’t have to get up at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning and I’ve got no plans in New Plymouth this evening so it can be a leisurely drive and a few on the way caches.

This one was a detour off the route. I had visited the local before but there was a bull in the paddock that put me off. That was early on in my caching career and I havent been back as the logs with the scary neighbour put me off. But today is the day and I put on my big girl pants and braved going into the wood. No trouble finding the cache but the log book is so wet it is unsignable. TFTC

I ventured into the reserve and quickly located the cache. The log book is utterly saturated. TFTC

I was surprised I had never visited this one earlier when I noticed how long the placement has been here. A quick find as it was lying out in the open, replaced a bit better.

TFTC

This was always going to be a bit of a caching trip in the company once again of HKCB. Having though about it and done a fair bit of planning over the past couple of weeks this was a chance for a reasonable clean out of an area that we don't normally get to. So with families in mind, rather than setting out on the Friday evening we left home at 2am on the Saturday morning to make our way south before either the heat of the day or there was too much traffic on the road.

Some stats for the weekend
- Distance Traveled = 1457 kms
- Petrol = 3 x Fills
- Time Away from Home = 42 hours
- Straight Driving Time = 6 hours
- Sleep = 4 hours
- Caches Found = 250
- DNF's = 3

So after a straight forward drive down here this was the first that we located of what was going to be a very long day, and followed by another very long day.

While I apologize that these are 'copy & paste" logs, I would just like to say thank you to all the CO's that have have put out and maintained these caches for us out of 'non-locals' to find. It was a great weekend and we traveled though some amazing countryside.
A key learning from the weekend was that a Mazda CX5 is not designed to ford rivers.
So thank you for the placement, thank you for the cache.

Stopped here on the way south to Wellington today. I have passed here on SH 1 countless times so it was about time I put this one to rest. Fortunately the rain was holding off and the cache was a quick find after a walk across the paddock. The whole area feels as if it is private property and I wasn't entirely comfortable going in. I'm quite surprised there's no signage for this reserve, no wonder it gets so few visitors.

I went out here today hoping for no one to be around, there was a tractor in the reserve and a string line across the section, but I was brave and quickly went straight to the cache and returned to my car before anyone saw me, nerves were all over the place after reading he previous logs. TFTC glad I'v finally done this one.

This has been on my list to do for so long now after reading other logs I was worried I was going to get a telling off to getting this one, had nothing to worry about parked on the side of the road, went over the old cattle stop across the paddock, walked in way to far and had to come back soon spotted thanks for the placement.

Not attempting this one today, a bull is currently residing in the entry paddock

Was down in Wellington for a few days, and decided that I'd make an extra long weekend of it and transfer a rental car back to Auckland and cache along the way. Unfortunately for the rental agency that ment nearly tripling the km's they thought I'd put on it!

With the rental car company only giving me 48 hours to get the car to Auckland a little bit of planing was needed to maximise what I wanted to accomplish, and with only a few DNF's it turned out to be a very successful trip. So a big thanks to everyone who had placed caches along the way, and for showing me some great sight's along the way.

Day 1: Foxton through to Bulls.

This place didn't quite feel right, but made my way over to GZ. Was glad the cache was out in plain sight as I didn't really feel like hanging around for a long search. Quickly signed the log and made my way back to the car. Thanks for the cache.

Wasnt sure about this one. No sign of it being Council owned land and I felt like I was trespassing.
Went through gate and over a small footbridge and there was the cache sitting on the ground in plain sight. I signed and left it there and decided to walk the track and upon coming to the clearing I heard a ute pull up at the house next door and banging and crashing and a bit of yelling so I hightailed it out of the clearing and back to the car. Would have loved to have explored more but the only thing that made me feel like what I was doing was legit was the cache was there. If I had not had seen it I would have probably left and not looked back. TFTC though

Where to start with this one!
Parked up on the road as wasn't sure what the deal was here, proceeded through the cattle stop.
Jesserfly and myself were approached by a tractor riding local and a dog.
He introduced himself as "the neighbor from hell" but didn't seem to bad to myself.
I could say he was irate and ranted for a while, but I wont, I could see his point especially with the examples he gave.
What I will say is that if approaching this cache please have some respect for the land and the surroundings, as it seems that there has been some issues in the past.
Cache located as prior posters have said, at beginning of track, it was moved here by the neighbor, have left it where found, as to not further any more issues at this location.
Cheers
~G

Coordinates changed from:
S 40° 00.779 E 175° 25.866

Coordinates changed to:
S 40° 00.649 E 175° 25.751

Distance from original: 954.6 feet or 291 meters.
At CO request

You might want to update the coordinates of this cache as they are way off.

I place it at S40° 00.649 E175° 25.751 some 290m from the posted coordinates.

Cheers.

In unexpected location (as mentioned by so many others) but so in your face you can't but help see it.

I place it at S40° 00.649 E175° 25.751 some 290m from the posted coordinates.

Not sure what is going on here caches no where near the gps coordinated

Finished our Sunday afternoon loop with this one. Quick and easy, although the directions made it sound harder than it actually was. TFTC.

Had seen Greystoke come up on the GPSr over this way so while here today had to give it a shot. I was expecting a bit of a walk but got just through the gate and across the little footbridge and spotted the cache.

The GPSr was telling me the coords were S40 00.650 E175 25.750 which appears to be about 290m from the coords where the cache is shown to be.

So a much quicker find than expected - TFTC.

Wow cool didn't even know this place was here & my auntie lives near by in the old school house! Cache wasn't very well hidden, we think it should be hidden further down the track. Followed the markers as far as we could go (tree had fallen) so didn't know what was at the end of the track. Maybe a lil sign on the gate saying greystone so you don't think u are trespassing would also be good TFTC!

This entry was edited by Dr_Rob & Rach on Sunday, 01 March 2015 at 03:06:47 UTC.

Fun Cache. Parked on other side of road. Bulls in the paddock, track over grown. Co-ordinators wrong.....but we found the cache in like 2 mins by luck. Planning on going back to explore more when time permits Found with the kids of Bulls CALF OSCAR. Cheers

Straight forward find after a morning in Bulls. Thanks for the cache.

Parked just inside the cattle stop had a short walk in the reserve before we found the cache on our way out we had to negatiate the bulls in the paddock many thanks.

Overdue updating of the co-ordinates. Apologies

Needs an owner check to verify the cache location and update the co-ords. We took co-ords for where it is now and came up with almost the same as WEKA: S40 00.650 E175 25.748

Parked on road next to cattlestop and walked through paddock to small gate..cache was an easy find..did with Geodatum..TFTC!

Used the info from WEKA's log for a quick find with PJMacNZ. We didn't meet any irate farmer, but someone had left the paddock full of bulls for us to brave! However, we walked through without bothering them and they didn't bother us. TFTC

Be warned if you go up a driveway you are in the wrong place! farmer will come out and growl he is sick of geocahes coming up his driveway so gate is right next door to his driveway

Tftc. Was a bit wary about doing this cache as the property actually looks like private property rather than owned by the council. Lovely reserve though. 25/8/14

A chance of a few bonus caches on this first of four consectutive dot days. With an hour or so to kill before a phone call to Europe with the necessary 12-13 hour time difference it was into the Geo mobile for a trip to G Z.
Confused upon arriving how to enter the reserve I went up to the ladies house and she kindly let me turn round in her drive way to return to the gate by the road. Should read cache notes first! Entered the recently updated co ordinates and they entailed a quick stroll through the gatre and a find just inside the Reserve
All O K at G Z, maybe the C O will want to use the posted co ordinates to edit the location
T F T C and dodging the rain showers......for now!

This was an interesting cache. We failed to get to the cache when we last attempted it as we had our granddaughters with us. Today we thought we would have another try, on our own, but lo and behold, just a few metres through the gate from the front paddock, there was a cache sitting in full view at the base of a tree. The log said Greystoke so we assume it was the cache we sought, which has mysteriously moved. We covered it with leaves and a piece of wood, and recorded the coordinates: S40 00.649 E175 25.752. The owners may want to investigate? TFTC

We thought this would be a last quick find on our way home from Whanganui, but we were wrong! We walked across the empty paddock and into very thick bush. The track goes near the house of another farmer (his driveway has the cattle stop) and he was NOT happy we were in what he seems to regard as HIS bush, and yes we had picked some tamarillos as they were growing right in the reserve (there are masses of them.) I retreated with my kids as he had a dog going bananas which was scaring them. So half of our group kept going and found the cache, while I got stuck by the road,with my kids, being ranted at by an angry farmer telling me how rude I was not asking permission to go on the reserve. And yes, it is a public reserve owned by the council as stated in the description. I showed him the geocaching listing to try to calm him down, but still got an earful. Thought it was a real shame I wouldn't want to go back as the reserve is fantastic but very overgrown and could do with help maintaining it.

Track overgrown but easy to follow tag markers apart from one area where the markers seemed to vanish. Nice easy walk in the bush.Lovely and dry underfoot. GPS a bit dodgy under the leaf cover but got to the general area and then with a bit of searching the cache was found. Children did a swop and we finished the walk. Really lovely little hidden gem of a reserve

Nice find on a bit of a geocaching trip to the north.

Great weather and some good caches - this was some fun through the bush.

Soon found at site SL TFTC

Running out of time. Gps all over the place. Also i too lost the track. But what awesome bush. Lovely walk. TFTC

Recut track, should be easier at the start and across the weed growth in the "clearing"

Wow, what an adventure this one was.
Firstly, it was raining and an umbrella makes no friends in the bush.
Secondly, could not find the start of the track to save myself to decided bush-bash my way to the GZ
and lastly, GPS coverage was so unreliable in amongst the trees. I'd walk what felt like 50m and the GPS would only register that I had gone 10m.
Anyway, I finally got to the GZ and located the cache. I also found the clearly marked track and followed that to the exit. 25min in and 5 min out!!!! TFTC

Nice wee reserve - the bushwalk is a bit overgrown, especially the "clearing" but no trouble locating the cache once we got to GZ.

We attempted to reach this cache today, but were not successful. The track was fine until we reached the overgrown open area (?clearing) beside the house. We continued across here until we reached an electric fence, when we decided maybe we shouldn’t be here, so turned back and tried to find a way around through the bush. If we had been on our own, we would probably have reached the cache, but we had our 5 and 6 year old granddaughters with us, and the younger one was struggling a bit, so we decided to call it a day. Certainly not 1.5 terrain.

Track was pretty rough. We kept losing it. GPS wasn't a lot of use either as it kept losing coverage.
Eventually found a gap where we could pick up the GPS coverage again, which got us to within 30mts. We spent ages looking until eventually the GPS decided on a tree it liked & took us to the cache.
Left a pet rock - a swan. TFTC

Really enjoyed the bushwalk loop. Tftc coords pretty accurate

Yeah a FTF after nearly a month, incredible. Hard to find the start of the track on the left after entering through the little gate. If you try going left you will strike a large cleared area and near impossible to pick up where the track restarts. I went right and eventually found the cache after spreading the search a little. but the co-ords were not far off. TFTC

Published