Hobbit's Haven (Whakatane) Matata, North Island, New Zealand
By Geckoh on 13-Feb-12. Waypoint GC3CHA7

Disabling until replacement can be organised

Not Found by Blenheim Bear not much sign just an empty zip lock and a lot of toilet paper. Some sawn-off branches too.. another day maybe Blenheim Bear

️

Well Geckoh....I somehow made this into a 5/5 !
Must have been commando crawling round under the stunted dwarf trees for over an hour... but I wouldn't give up!
Finally found the deer bones and fur....so knew I was close.
Not at all what I expected.
But at least I got a smiley.
Phew....hard earned!

Like others I was expecting something very different and maybe hobbit themed. There's a deer carcass dumped at the GZ, which makes it unpleasant at the moment. The stunted trees are pretty.

An amazing wander thru these eerie unusual tree's which for sure suit any Hobbit. didn't take to long to GZ and strange but interesting container. loved the views out to the whale on such a beautiful summer evening. fav from me thx guys.

Lovely spot to visit and the trees are quite eerie, most unusual. Managed to find a sort of trail to GZ and the cache was located soon after. Often wonder how some of the rubbish gets into these out of the way places. Interesting camo, thanks

An interesting location, with some interesting objects to be found. Even with the cache in hand, it took some time to work out where the log was. A favourite from us. TFTC

TFTC. Found the container very weird tho esp as a lone female searching through the bushes. Made me quite uncomfortable until I realised what it was.

Nice little forrest here.. I near discarded the cache as trash.. woops

Found at 13:26 - #8582 - on a 5 week trip in New Zealand

TFTC

Kids loved the trek through the beautiful twisted magical looking trees. I understand the hobbit reference. Lots of dumped rubbish around. Found the cache and found our way back to the car very easily. Cheers

Another relatively easy find on a day out with hubby. It’s really a shame that people treat out of the way places as rubbish dumps. Cleaver hide though

Found after a fight with my GPS which started playing up big time. Good cammo. TFTC

Found it. But we wasn't sure, if it is the cache til we saw the logbook. The trees are impressive, but it's hard to find the right way through. We say TFTC and greetings from Germany.

Awesome thanks

We trusted the GPS which took us off road into the bush which once at GZ we discovered there was path we could have followed. Nearly overlooked this one but closer inspection meant we were able to sign this one off.

We totally loved this setting... and definitely could imagine Peter Jackson hiding around the corner! We followed the GPS which had us climbing over tree limbs... going through brush and at hunching down low to avoid hanging branches all the way to GZ where we quickly located the cache container which we thought was very clever! We came back along the more open track which although quicker wasn't nearly as cool. Thanks for bringing us out here and I now have some cool tree photos!

We bounced down the road in our motorhome to this one hoping that there would be a turning place which luckily there was. Like others we took the direct route which was very atmospheric and made a quick find. There is no lid on the container but it seemed dry. At home in GB there is a wood in Devon where the oak trees are gnarled and stunted like these great specimens. It is called Whistman’s Wood. We returned to our vehicle by a much easier though not as interesting route- thanks.

Today we took a drive to Matata to see a new beach and then we popped in to find this cache in a strangely cool place!

It didn't take long to follow some geotrails to GZ where we were disappointed to see the place has a lot of trash... however the quirky cache container was soon in hand and the log signed
Thanks for the cache Geckoh!

Cool little spot TFTC

Clever! Beautiful spot. Thank you.

What an awesome place! After visiting Hobbiton a few weeks ago and discovering that I am actually hobbit size, felt right at home under these cool looking trees.

Nice treck through the trees to find. Awesome hiding spot. Found the track on the way out.

Found with Mum as 'Jess & Caro'. She is now Carø and I now have my own geocaching profile so we are sorting my logs for caches we found together. TFTC!

Over for a couple of weeks to visit family and have a little bit of sight-seeing before and after. Heading to Hicks Bay today, this was on my list due to the high amount of favourite points. Well it was a nice little detour on our journey and a neat area, definitely a good spot for a hide! Thanks for the cache Geckoh.

Found on a geocaching day with Mr and Mrs ronwestnz. Great hide tftc

Found it
Nice little out the way hide
Tftc

Lots of muggles and although we had a good look no joy

Picked it up, put it back, wandered round some more, read some logs, picked it back up lol. TFTC

Went round in circles for a while before finding this. Lovely trees. TFTC

A couple of dead ends in the Old Forest and Old Man Willows seemed to be forcing me north when I wanted to go east but eventually I came through the Barrow Downs and found Weathertop. At first I thought the muggle Nazgul might have got Gandalf but eventually he was discovered safe and sound. TFTC.

The campers should be gone by now.

Will disable while people are camped there.

Was looking forward to giving this one a go however as previous log mentioned campers have taken roots here. As we approached they asked us if we were looking for the geocache so we gave it a wide berth

People had a camp exactly where we needed to search so gave it a miss.

Awesome miniature forest. Thought I'd see a lillipudlian. Here with HennyGeo on holidays from Vancouver Island, Canada in scenic New Zealand. TFTC

Here on vacation with SwagHo geocaching and sightseeing all over this beautiful country of New Zealand.TFTC.

A quick find whilst out on a morning run. TFTC.

A nice cache.
Thank you

Awesome place! Thanks for sharing...TFTC

We were on our way to Thornton for a Xmas run. Had to detour for this. Headed into the "forest" and kept on going. Finally got to gz and started hunting. Spotted a likely host. Great hide. Really cool spot. Thanks for the placement.

This is really a Hobbits Haven very unusual trees kinda spookie....awesome spot for a cache ....seemed to go forever through the growth then spotted it ...clever hide and neat place thanks for a great cache and bringing me here

Had a lot of fun trotting around in the awesome tree's. Definitely coming back with the camera! Wasn't sure we had it at first, but figured it out quickly. Wanted to leave a TB with a coastal mission, but will just visit instead. Thanks for the cool cache and location

Weird container lol took a while to find tftc

Visiting the area with fanfan-77 for the weekend I remember seeing this cache out at the beach that had so many FP's. So it's a must to see why... location/container/camo??.... a short walk from the end of the road we were soon at GZ. Mmmm odd and unique container, not what I was expecting and for a second I thought is it the geocache or not!! Fanfan-77 was up to the job of removing the log book which was really jammed in there. Replaced then went to explore the very empty beautiful beach. TFTC

On our way home from a quick getaway today. The favourite points on this one prompted sveppi to want to visit the area. Very cool bush and setting. It's windy today (who would have guessed!? ) but sunny and the morning light is casting interesting shadows in the undergrowth. Had to circle around a bit before we found the spot. Unsure about the cache. sveppi didn't think that what she saw would be a cache and it took a bit to figure out. Somebody had wedged a stick real hard in there and the logbook was totally stuck. Took several attempts with my teeth and all the strength of my jaw to retrieve it. Somebody (maybe the same person) in the mean time had placed a tiny piece of paper in there with their signature on it but it was soggy and not really readable.
Went for a look at the beach before returning to the car.

We're visiting from Florida, USA. That was great fun. Thanks for placing the cache.

As usual, we found the easy path after finding the cache, meaning that we had a hard time navigating through the trees and bushes, but felt a bit like a movie.
Thanks for the cache.
Greetings from Portugal.

#9961, Found it with DroidCachebox!

We visited this cache during our trip through out New Zealand!
With our rental car, we explored the north island for 12 days.
NZ is a beautiful country and we really enjoyed our time here.
We hope to return one day and explore a little bit more!

Day 5 - Gisborne to Rotorua

The day started in Gisborne, where we explored a little bit of the city and looked for some caches. After that we visited many places along the route to Rotorua, mainly along road trough the Waioeka gorge and in the coast.

Thanks for the cache.
Greetings from Portugal.

Awesome find. Beautiful spot

Ftf for 2016 tftc

After quite a trek eventually found it. Amazing bush. TFTC

Good little adventure. Got a bit scratched up along the way. All good here. TFTC

Hardest one so far. Yet the most obvious.

#435 - We won the Rugby world Cup 2015! yay go the All Blacks, what a game!. After watching the game, came over to Whakatane to drop off the Toddler with the grandies, managed to get in same caching on the drive home. Now this is a cool spot isn't it! i spotted a few different Geo trails, followed one through all the cool looking trees - so awesome. Managed to find the cache thanks. a fav from me loved the lil adventure.

That was a very unexpected journey

Pouring with rain on our way to Ohope for the day for a look around. Parked up and made the short walk through the dunes to GZ. Grass soaking wet so very quickly had soaking wet shoes and socks. Quickly found the cache and used a key to aid with the log retrieval. Interesting camo, TFTC!

Today is International Earthcache Day so a plann was hatched some time ago for White Island in conjunction with Alpenmilch80. However due to weather cancellations it has now worked out (this is our fourth attempt) so now today we are finally going . Needless to say that this was going to be a very long but memorable day (left home at 3.20am, got home at 7.45pm). Our planned meet up time was 6am at the Mount for the adventure to begin.
So in the company with Sleschke we headed over for what was going to be a most memorable day out with good friends in a great and unique spot.

As time was not always on our side this was our fifth cache along the way, Sleschke managed to put his hands on this one quick smart

thanks for the placement, thanks for the cache

Plans were made with C&D to visit white island but those plans were postponed a couple of times. Luckily we rescheduled to today which turned out to be earthcache day . Slieschke decided to join the fun and wow what an amazing sunny and stunning day we had. TFTC

TFTC, found it while passing through the area. All in good condition.

Very amazing area, TFTC

Thanks steed and peel for the new log.

Must agree with Philip.Perry, this really is a magical place. Thanks for bringing us here. Soon found something that I thought I might be able to use as a cache container, but finally realised what I was holding. Having heard about this caches maintenance issues, we came prepared with a plastic jar and contents, but didn't need to use it, just extracted the papier-mâché and replaced with a super sturdy waterproof log. Also left an owl that seemed to fit in this area. A fav from us.

as explained below

Another road trip! - unfortunately a sick call from KmanNZ meant it would only be KiwimikeBOP, my son Daniel and myself today. But it turned out to be a stunner with around 28 finds - A great day to be out and about.

This was our sixth stop and after discarding this as the hide we soon returned for closer inspection. Mike uncovered the log - or what was left of it - neither of us had any paper but this is in desperate need of maintenance

Now lets talk a little about this location - I didn't really think much of the container or it's placement - but this location... it's surreal! This place was, when I think about it... amazing! Imagine being a kid in here... a real Hobbits Haven For that - a favourite.

Cheers Geckoh

On another geocaching trip with Philip.Perry and his son Daniel, this time we hit Whakatane and Ohope. Was awesome to do a trip during the day and the weather really turned it on for us. Got to see some fantastic views and experience some really magical spots. Thank you to all the CO's of the caches we found today

Very amazing piece of bush here, was saying to Philip and his Son this is the kind of thing I love about geocaching coming across these places that you probably would of not found otherwise. Having a good look round the cache was one of the first things I picked up but put it back thinking was just random it was there. After looking around more went back to the cache and upon a closer look found a sodden log. We signed where we could put back and admired the place a little longer,

Thank you very much for bringing us here today

Log wet and getting mouldy

Found it

Tftc nice drive heading home and stopped here. Very much like the hobbit amazing

This was a great spot to enjoy on a perfect afternoon in the Bay. Being huge "hobbit" fans, of course we had to check this one out.
I spotted the cache hide but disregarded it to start with. After not finding anything else I eventually rechecked some previous places & came up trumps. Thanks Geckoh for a nicely hidden cache.

Found it. Great spot and novel container. We couldn't get the paper out to sign it though. Could play in there for hours!!!

What an amazing place!! Thank you for bringing me here. Replaced piece of paper and signed. TFTC.

Wandered in & out the trees & then down the beach picking up the fun cache on the way. Thanks

Love this area but sorry I didn't have a spare piece of paper to replace the other one.

Neat location. Very unique hiding container. But. . Is nothing more than I tiny scrap of paper with one name filling it up. Needs attention. TFTC

Found .

There wasnt really a log, just a piece of paper with another name on it, so I think I found it! Thanks.

Weirdest cache container ever. Appreciate the container. Great excuse for a little amble. Nice location. Enjoyed looking for this, thanks.

Whakatane trip, the mission was 48 geocaches in 24 hours. It was epic, we got 49. This was Number 21 find. Beautiful location, just like if we were in story 'The Hobbit'. Cache was unusual.

What a nice place. Thanks for showing it to us. Thats what I do Geocaching for. The logsheet is beeing eaten up by something. I still found space to sign though. Thanks for the cache and a Fav from Germany !

Great place, Peter Jackson should know about this!!! Found the log OK but it was VERY wet so couldn't sign it. Maybe need a plastic baggie for the log. Very interesting hide though, had to suspend belief and look really closely at the container before finding the way in. TFTC. TNLN tried to SL.

Woohoo what a way to find my 200th cache!! Awesome trees and yes hobbits could well live here!! Awesome day to be out and about. Thanks for bring us here!! Was a good adventure. Tftc

Out for a full days mission to clean up as many cache's as possible in and around Whakatane, that I still haven't found. Early start this morning and was at the first GZ about 30mins after sunrise, while called it a day 20mins after the sun had gone down. Great day out and just about completed what I set out to do, a couple of DNF's so will be back again one day.

Great walk to GZ, it definitely makes you feel like your in Middle Earth. Log book was damp, and the pen wasn't being overly useful as a pen, so tried my best to write my name. Great place for a cache.

Had to read the logs for this one, what a cool spot. Will have to bring the kids.

Also fairly funny find. Though it definitely needs some repair as it just looks like rubbish discarded. I don't know if that was the intention or not. The replacement log is very wet.

TFTF

Different sort of environment here!
Found empty "container" and added small log sheet with our logs on. Thanks

Found with quinella and hobbits we are NOT so bit of bending round required- geohound short enough though. Tftc

Will check up on it, sounds like the right container was found, the log should still be there hidden from the muggles.....

Yes...cocroch haven here. No log so hope it's the one?

Wheelie good cache, but no log to sign, so wasn't sure this was it, maybe it is by reading some of the other logs. If so TFTC

Arrggh! flunked this one completely, the only thing found was the remains of some previous 'romantic' encounter at GZ, hopefully not geocachers who should know better - than to leave rubbish about that is Wasn't quite up to doing the CITO myself sorry.

Great find after not being able to locate last time - had to come back. Fascinating trees - no cockroaches. TFTC.

Oh, very clever hide, thought I had found a Hobbit but it was only...... Ahh, don't hit me. TFTC

I actually did find a hobbit in here, and I have the picture to prove it. It was small, female and definitely had hairy feet (I wasn't allowed to say legs). We found a whole hobbit village in here, neatly laid out beside the sea. Found the cache ok, and then puzzled over its cracking. A few ideas were considered which included a crowbar in the car, but in the end that wasn't required and within 4 clicks we were in. TFTC

This entry was edited by tparty on Thursday, 02 January 2014 at 05:47:21 UTC.

This was our most enjoyable cache of the day. Those trees are amazing. Wished I was a hobbit as it took some ducking to get through some spots. Quickly found the GZ, but not the cache. On second thoughts approached the obvious contender and improvised to find it. Great one, thanks for bringing us here. TFTC

Touring with our daughters from Canada and having the most excellent of adventures. TFTC.

woehoe....what a nice surprise. It did feel a bit like a hobbit's area. Took the turn in the bushes and the GPS coords were spoton. I couldn't leave a tb behind, but certainly will give it a favourite point.
Great camo

Not sure if I found the right thing, a smallish circular object? I twisted and turned and couldnt figure out how to get inside to see if a log was there? Maybe I just found some rubbish? Will go back with more eyes next time, and hopefully find something to sign..