ADOPT ME! Billygoat Incline Haul (Coromandel) Thames, North Island, New Zealand
By KiwiLeon on 05-Feb-12. Waypoint GC3CBP2

Term break for M14, so the perfect time to go on an overnight tramp. We stayed in the Pinnacles hut that was nearly fully booked. Lucky with the weather during the walking but no view when climbing the Pinnacles in the morning. We have to come back!Returned over the Billy Goat track that took us about 4 hours.Thanks for hiding the caches! We had to walk back 100 meter because we already passed it.

We've found this place and its cache on our evening walk in for an overnighter at the Pinnacles.Thanks a lot!We cannot adopt the cache as we're due back to the other side of the planet within the next few days .

No reception to log whilst on the trail.

Lovely little hide. Took us a couple more than a few minutes

lovely day for our tramp around Billy goat basin. ready for a breather here. log nearly full so left a new sheet. tftc

Walking out from the Pinnacle Hut today so went down via the Billy Goat track. Nice quick find once we reach GZ. Tough track with great views. TFTC

Kia ora geocachers!

DOC has an alert on their website in this area saying that if you are going to the Pinnacles carpark, please **lock your car and don't leave your valuables**. Be careful if you are finding this cache, and if you see any weird/criminal behavior, **report it to the Police or DOC**. Also, we are looking for people to adopt this cache, if you're interested, please PM us.

Happy caching,
TeamCV.

Found once I counted from the right end. Actually recognised spoiler rock so didn’t have to search far. Tftc.

Billygoat Incline Haul (Coromandel) was transferred from KiwiLeon to user TeamCacheventures

Took me a while to find. Bit of a grunter up to the cache but was a nice walk. Continued on to Billygoat Campsite then returned.

challenged myself today as I need to get some uphill training in, but the humidity and wet weather was a struggle. Got my hopes up at the first set of tracks but to my disappointment I was still over 400m away. Once at GZ it was an instant grab and sign using the hint, although container does not match cache description. Carried on and stopped at the gorge before heading back.

Wowie....I have completed the walk to the summit and back as a day walk back in February but B4Dawn had not joined us and wanted to do the walk so I suggested we take this route so we could get the cache. We headed up this path and planned to sleep the night at the hut.

We knew from others that it would be a slog but to be honest I don't think its actually much harder than the other track I think the main difference is that it is longer and therefore more tiring overall.

B4Dawn found the cache nice and quickly. Signed the log and then pulled on our waterproofs as the spitting from the sky started so we went on our way again.

Thanks for the cache.

On a trip with keylev and B4Dawn.

Thanks for the cache.

One a trip to hike the Pinnacles with Keylev and Cragger. Been looking forward to this trip for months and it's finally here! What more can a person ask for, good friends, hiking and caching!

This is one I actually got to find Keylev has been eyeing this one for a while and we finally got it. Located as described in the hint.
TFTC

Most of the Team SEAC members were training for the Tongario Crossing. Due to work commitments Mr NZT, Mr HeMaLuDy, Darthcacher1 and Purply couldnt make the group Pinnacles walk on Saturday. Luckily this was a long weekend so we came back down ourselves on the holiday Monday and did this ourselves.

Always up for a challenge we decided to walk UP the Billy Goat Track to the Pinnacles. This was the reward cache on the way up.

Mr HeMaLuDy made the find and the log was signed.

TFTC and the welcome spot for short break!

Walking to the the top of the Pinnacles is part of the training for some members of Team SEAC who are planning on walking the Tongariro crossing later in the month. Some did this walk two days ago and 4 of us did it today. We walked up the Billy goat track on other peoples recommendation. Very interesting history here. This was a nice quick find using the hint. Found with Purply, Darthcacher1 and NZTravellers. TFTC

After reaching The Pinnacles decided to go back down via Billygoat Track. And what a track it is.
Enjoyed a stop here and interesting info about the steam haulers. TFTC

Heading back down the trail we decided to detour down this trail....Billy goats track trail....and it sure was just that....big rock steps, clay washed out trenches and ropes to get you down some parts....this was the real adventure.... fun trail....

The cache is all good.

TFTC.

Found on our way out from a night at the Pinnacles Hut. Couldn’t write in the log as we realised we didn’t have a pen or pencil. Really pleased we came back down the Billy Goat Track, more interesting than the Webb Creek track on the way up (but definitely would do the loop in that direction!).

Pretty quick find with the help of the hint, although we were looking for something a bit bigger so that made it tricky! Might pay to update the description to match the new container Nonetheless TFTC!

A little difficult today along here coming down in the constant rain. The track ended up as a small waterway so hard going at times and slippery. Tftc and the adventure

We looking forward to see all the beaufitul places of the country by geochaching in our 8 weeks holiday trip. That’s why we love this so much. Thanks for let us seeing this part. We love it!

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Cache: 352

Trackable IN/OUT: 0/0

We chose another way back from The Pinnacles and came to this interesting place. Thanks hint was it fast find and concurrently my last cache found in New Zealand.
TFTC!

Spent some time looking for this only to discover that the hint is spot on but it is a small bison, not a 400 ml container. TFTC

Today the next tour with Vesperugo. We walked the to the pinnacale hut and pass this nice lake. It is a wonderful Region and we liked it so much to walk, explore and search the box.
Thanks to the precise coordinates we could find quickly.
Many thanks to Coromandel for hiding the box and show us the nice place.
Löwenzahn-RLP with Vesperugo

Our first stop on our adventure tour of New Zealand led us here. We set out to explore the Pinnacles Walk. The day was a bit rainy, but the track is just absolutely great. My first challenge was getting to this interessting Cache. Through the many steps, the path was very strenuous for me. Thank you

Used hint, nice spot, thanks!

We thought we would not go the long round but we walked past hydro Camp and along Billy goat track to this one. Took us way too long. TFTC

This Cache we found during our Holiday in NZ.
TFTC and Greetings from Czech rep.

I have been meaning to do the Pinnacles Walk for ages and finally got around to doing it this weekend. I set off from Auckland on a Friday morning, drove to the Kaueranga Valley then walked up to the hut in the afternoon via the Webb Creek Track... thankfully the hut was a lot quieter on a Friday night! The next day I returned to the car via the Billy Goat Track. All in all it was a great hike to the summit and back and a lot tougher on the legs than I was expecting! Made a quick find of this cache on my way back down to the car. TFTC!

Nice bit of history. We picked up on the way down from the pinnacles hut. Nice and cool today

It's a long haul up here! Especially when you park at the visitor centre instead of the end of the road...! Very pleased to reach this point and find the cache, but the hint doesn't apply so ignore it! TFTC

After a night at the Pinnacles hut we had to come back down the Billy Goat track if there was a cache on it. Tough track, hard on the knees, but a good accomplishment. No problems at GZ, except there were some muscle-bound rock climbers admiring the view. Cheers

Found it on the way down from the Pinnacles. This trail is a nice alternative of the straight one for providing interesting information on the railway history and some good views down into the valley!

Found it on our way down from the Pinnacles Hut with Henningman.
Thanks a lot.

Found on our day trip to Coromandel peninsula to see the pinnacles TFTC

Found on our way down from the hut. Decided to brave the Billy goat. Was a hit nervous about the river crossing at the bottom, as there was rain forecast, and I had my 10yr old with me. But the rain held off, and we crossed the river without even getting wet feet! Great track. Loved it...but was glad we came down this way rather than up!!!

Wow, what a piece of history. Glad that i chose the billy goat trail downhill to find that place with its amazing view. Tftc

Coming back down from staying at the Pinnacles Hilton, it was raining hard when we woke up and still raining a bit when we set off, but about 30 minutes into it the walk the skies cleared although the strong winds remained for the rest of the walk. We finally arrived here after over 2h walk. GPS was bouncing around a bit but with the hint sveppi located the cache. It is a micro, not a small, and the previous finder put the log back in the wrong end so it was a tricky extraction, but we got ther ein the end!

After a great stay in the hilton at the top of the hill, we decided to take the longer route down. A bit of rain in the morning but the sun was soon out. Nice spot for a cache. Was looking for something a bit bigger but found with the hint. TFTC

Visited with a friend New Zealand for one month. We've rented a Campervan and went to the best places over the South and North -Island. The journey was without doubt the best holiday we ever had, we would be glad to visit the country again but being so far away it will need definitely a couple of years.
Today went on the last big hiking tour in Newzealand. We were really surprised to be confronted with so many difficult river crossings and paths full of wet mud. Maybe this is sometimes easier if didnt rain too much. Found that one on the way back as regard for the strain!
Greetings from Germany and TftC!

We grabbed this cache on the way down from our day hike to the Pinnacles. This nice hide convinced us not to retrace our steps and turn our walk into an almost loop walk, thanks for the encouragement! Great day of walking, Tftc

Nice little camo find. Getting my muggle mates into it! TFTC

Took the long way to this. Went pinnacles to hydro camp then billygoat down. About our limit and still an hour to go. Nice day and some mud but probably drier than most times. We sure are glad for the great hint. We could sit and search. NINO TFTC

Did the overnight to the hut and hiked up this (definitely the hard way to do it) on day 1. Very enjoyable track.

Bit of a hint but wee thing in hand after a big walk up
And over . Tftc

1336 Pick up on my way home from Pinnacles hut with my daughter. She has always wanted to visit Billy Goat falls and landing. As she is off to Italy next week thought this was the opportunity to do so. Cache all good.

While I was away for a few days (Geocaching of course) my wife received an invitation for me to join Cats&Dragons, HKCB and Kiwi69 on a tramp up and around the Pinnacles in Coromandel which she kindly accepted on my behalf. When I returned I was pleased to find I had been given a leave pass for another Geocaching adventure but a little worried about what the HOAC had in mind. Especially since there has been talk of taking on table top mountain and the world’s worst tramp. Thankfully that little trek will wait for another day. We left Hamilton about 4am and were back just after 6pm having walked about 23km. I really enjoyed the day despite struggling with a migraine for part of the day and having a swollen and bruised knee before we even started. The company, friendly banter, interesting locations and amazing views were a big part of that. Big thanks to the cache owners for placing and maintaining the caches we visited and for enticing us here to find them.

I had done this track before about 20 years ago and it was great to see places along the trail I recognised. GZ is a great spot with a view down to some falls and the obvious historical significance. It was a hot afternoon so I was glad to be going down the billy goat incline rather than up it. Thanks for bringing us here.

Yet again out on a hill mission with a bunch of Hamilton cachers that included myself, HKCB, iammrwalker & C&D, this time to explore the Pinnacles & 1-2 side-routes today. Our tramping missions tend to begin early but this was earlier than most (left Hamilton just after 4am). Always a bonus to see dawn & good to be walking before the main track got busy. Made a beeline for the top of the Pinnacles & caches there, before heading down Rangihau track. Then back to the junction and retraced our steps down, before detouring onto the Billygoat Track. Yet again, left the crowds behind: obviously not a well-used option to detour this way. Was very appropriately dressed for cold, wet weather, but not for hot sun on a rocky trail with little shade, so the little streams along the way were very welcome! An amazing location with such great history - thanks for the cache placement here!

An early start this morning with C&D, iammrwalker and Kiwis69 in tow. The plan was to hike to the Pinnacles, plus visit a few other nearby caches on some side tracks. So a knock on the door at 4am might the team had arrived and we bundled our gear into the car and off we went with the goal of beginning the walk while the sun starts to rise.

Sun beat us up before we set off on the days hike, but we still managed to start the walk by 6am. All up it was a fantastic day out, though the hike was a lot tougher than orginally thought. All up it turned out to be about a 9 hour day, with 22kms covered, with nearly 1800m vertical climbing, so we were all feeling it when we returned to the car. We also got lucky with the weather with only getting a small shower and by mid morning the sun was out in full force. The logs were signed as HICK and acronym of our caching names. A big thanks to everyone for the cache placments.

Took the alternative route back to the car and we wondered why the steady stream of tourists had disappeared. About half way through this track we worked out why, man it was tough going. The heat didn't make things any easier and we were thankful for the odd cold pool on the side of the track. We did see the odd walker on the track though. No goats on the track today, thanks for the hide.

Another strange mission for a bunch of Hamilton cachers including HKCB, iammrwalker & not least kiwis69.
Once again we found ourselves setting out nice and early (4am) to make the most of the day (as sleep is for the weak).
Started walking at a little after 6 so it was nice to walk along in the early morning light heading up the tourist highway for our first mission cache for the day.
Having completed The Pinnacles and a couple of other caches nearby we headed back down via the Billy Goat Track (no sign of said Billy Goat though) while I'm sure that the tourist track would have been simpler. As the day had heated up I was surprised to see how many people were heading up this way to The Pinnacles as don't think they quite knew what was in store for them. Must say we made the most of the small streams that we came across to dip our hats on to try to cool down somewhat.
Soon the cache was in hand and once again we were on our way back to the car
thanks for the placement, thanks for the cache

Out for a walk with the kids quick find on the way down the incline must come back when the weather is better

Found with Gam & co, not our planed trip but still a good time regardless of the weather.

Good to be back on this track after 30years . Remember it all well. Now to the falls for a swim

A quick count to 6, and I surprised my friends by pulling out yet another cache. Note that the cache is smaller than what is listed in description.

Found on the way back from a family overnighter at the pinnacles. We were a little slow coming down as GreenbLat jnr had rolled an ankle further up but nice to take our time looking at the view. After we found the cache we saw (and smelled) the namesake of this track - see photo. T4TC

My brother and dad stumbled upon this cache last year - so as we all climbed the billy goat this year it was an easy find as we walked past. Log was wet - added new paper. Tftc

The second day of "20 days exploring trip through North Island".
3636 km and 104 geocache

Thanks for this cache!:)

I'm not sure I would have liked being the brakeman on one of the cars going down the hill. Seems a bit dodgy to me. Excellent place for a cache between the history, the stunning views of the waterfalls and across the valley. Very cool. Highly recommended. The log sheet was mush, so I removed it (it is unsalvageable), dried the container and added a new slip of paper. Cheers for the cache.

Thanks for cache.

Found it. Log was quite wet following all the recent flooding. TFTC

Awesome walk today hope to score a FTF further up fingers crossed

easy find on way to bag a FTF-cheers jumboz

We overnighted in the Pinnacles hut and took the Billy goat trail down. Quite difficult due to the boggy patches and lots of mud.
Interesting to see that the landscape still bears the scars of the logging industry and what feats of engineering were needed to get the Kauri trees down!

The cache took only a quick search.
Thanks for making a great hike even better with a cache
Halvezool (777)

Quick find on the way down from the Pinnacles. TFTC

On the way back from the pinnacles. I love this track!

Thanks for Replacing Lemmer.

On great tour with Lemmer in New Zealnd we foundamazing spots. Thanks for all of it. Flatrate

This was gone. Replaced it. Hopefully ok, i guess the owner is not here very often. On the other side of the world we had an amazing experience while traveling New Zealand. Great impressions, lovely places and nice geocaches all over. Thanks for inventing and hiding. Lemmer

Passed by today and maintenenced the cache. Hopefully ok. Log comes later. Lemmer

will have to check it out.

We had a good look for this on the way back from the pinnacles. There were no signs - refer to the previous log.

Hello

My Brother and Dad walked the Billygoat over the holidays - and stopped about half way up and were talking - moved something for what ever reason and found your Geocache!! Yay them (if only it was that easy for the ones I go looking for!!) - unfortunatley they sent me a photo of it as it requires maintenance - is badly waterlogged and needs a new container and the only thing that could be made out on the log book is your name - the rest of it is a write-off.

Cheers

der Regen hat fast aufgehört und wir haben die Chance genutzt, den Cache zu besuchen, schöne Aussicht und sehr informativ
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"Chased" by an asian hiking group, I had to be quick. Tftc

took kids for a walk up to the top of water falls nice place and a easy find

The 4th cache on our loop walk/overnight stay at The Pinnacles. Always a great family overnighter and finding the caches this time added a bit of extra fun!
Lid is still broken and was half-full of water.

The last on our way back from pinnacle and the great walk. That's an interesting history.

Thank you very much

Quick find on our descend of the pinnacles. Thx for showing us the waterfall. What a great view. It was just a great weekend. TFTC

Good view on the waterfall and the interesting history. Took this way back from an overnight stay at pinnacles hut.
TFTC

Love this bit of country, the history too, did the loop from Tarawaere Dam, was pretty amazing walking in the old packhorse trail....the days when men were men and the boys were too!!! What a waterfall!!! TFTC

Found it on our tour back from the Pinnacles. Cool place with a fantastic view!

TFTC!

Great history here. Hadn't downloaded clue so had a short hunt before finding this.
We were passing after overnight at Pinnacles. Very nice weekend to be up here. Thanks

Interesting to see some remnants of the Kauri logging days, thanks for showing!

It was raing so no fishing due to the wind so time for a walk. The track was worse that when I was up here about 5 years ago I guess DOC is out of money. Needs a new container TFTC and work out

Greets from Germany!

TFTC LordFisch

lid is cracked at one corner.. and water in side the cache now - all though log sheet currently dry in its little plastic bag

found on the way back from a great weekend up the pinnacles - discovering the pleasure of returning via billy goat

Found on way back from Pinancles - great walk with NZ Biscuit and her friends - Cache all good and nice easy find - TFTC

On way back down after spending the night at the top with almost 80 people. Quick find, and showed the group we were with what caching was all about. Lid has a break in it, so could do with replacing

Beautiful views, nice track.
TFTC!

On our way up to do Sleeping Beauty canyon.
Nice sunny day & pretty warm going up the incline.
GC has a cracked lid but log is dry.
Dropped TB.

This entry was edited by pbslost on Friday, 23 March 2012 at 04:40:08 UTC.

Auf meiner Rundwanderung auf den Pinnacles schaute ich bei diesem Cache vorbei. Danke für das zeigen dieser super Location!

Gruss thurgauer (Switzerland)

How silly can you be....as we were,to do this track after been to the pinnacles on the same day.
We parked our campervan at the Boomcampingplace. So the first 2km we have to walk over the road. We went with our doggies up. All the way up to the pinacles and back.
We decided to go back over the Billygoat track....hmmm don't know if this was the best decision we made. What a track...it was starting to drizzle from time to time, so the yellow sand was a bit slippery, but most difficult was the big steps..you needed to make really big steps and that is what we felt over out whole body.
When we arrived finally the end of the track....after finding the lucky cache . We still needed to walk 2km back over the road to our campervan. It seems that the dogs never get tired, but we couldn't hardly stand anymore. Those last kms of our 30km in total went on the automatic pilote.
Will favourite this cache, cause of it's location on the challenging Billygoat trail

I was there witness the placement.

A real group effort here today. It's been years since i have been up here. And it certainly showed on the way up the billy goat. A early morning start armed with torches, packs etc. We set off on our way.It didn't take to long realise that billy goats aren't this stupid, they would have found a much easier way to the top. My great granddad was a bushman up here and he had told me a lot of stories and a tonne of old photo's to back them all up. All i could think of on the way up was those old buggers must have been amazingly fit and clever to do what they did to get the logs out. Today we would use helicopters and half way up i realy wanted one myself. But soldier on we did out of breath one rolled ankle and an amazing amount of sweat we got too gz too find an empty log. At that moment the hard work to get up here wasn't so hard after all. First To Find made it all better and glady we and insanekids 2 and insanekids 4 take the FTF well deserved we think. We placed our little chicken in the cache,signed the log and headed back down the little hill we just conqured. It took us 1 hour 30 minutes to get up there and 40 minutes to get back to the swing bridge to find another cache. Thanks for bring us up here great views, great history and now we have our own stories too tell TFTC

Started the walk by torch going across the swing bridge was fun. We started the long climb up the track soon there was enough light that we didnt need the torches any more. lots of little stops all the way up. But that was cool because we got to see the sun rising over the top of the hills. We made it to the caches and were so happy to see we had our first ftf yippy. We signed it had a history lesson from madeinsane a lollipop and started our walk down. The walk down was alot faster, easier and more fun. TFTC
TB out

Yippy our first FTF did this cache with madeinsane and insanekids 2 TFTC

Published

TB drop

There on placement. Not claiming as a FTF. Cheers