Te Araroa - P2P - Kawakawa (Wellington) Paekakariki, North Island, New Zealand
By Yeetrees on 24-Dec-12. Waypoint GC3M145

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Doing the Escarpment Track today with a friend. Made her stop along the way for a few caches. thanks to the owner for putting these throughout and giving me a breather

This is my fourth geocaching excursion to **beautiful New Zealand**!
Due to Covid [xx(] I had to wait for 3 long years to again return to my beloved Middle-Earth [B)].
This time it's a road trip enduring for 26 days, covering both North- and South-Island.
Today I had a very sportive and challenging caching-program, in order to fill in some spaces in the matrix .
The Te Araroa-trail P2P had cought my attention - and I chose the North Entrance to start the mission.
Followed the challenging trail until 'Devils Staircase No.#2' was reached - and then made it back to the North-Entrance .
Cool , exhausting [xx(], but brilliant views on the trail - worth the effort [^]!
This geo-treasure contributed to the finds of today. Cool [^]!
Gotsha !
A big thanks [:X] to the owner Yeetrees for placing and maintaining this cache [^] - and best regards from Germany !

After a few false starts found the right kawakawa and easily had the goods.

It's the last full day of our extraordinary trip across the ditch to NZ, so what better way to top it off with another 10+km hike up a steep hill. It seems to be all we've done over the past month... The weather in this case was a little too good, as the sun was hot and bearing down on us the whole way, really putting the sunscreen to work. We quickly learned that this is a early morning kind of walk, not one to start at 2pm.

After a couple of GPS mishaps and a lovely lunch at the Bakery in Paekakariki, we eventually made it to Pukerua Bay train station and parked the car. Only to find the trains weren't running today and that they had been replaced by buses. Ok - that's fine, now where does the bus leave from??? There were no signs directing us anywhere, and we eventually had to team up with a few other lost hikers to find the bus stop at what felt like a 400m walk away from the Station. Why the closest bus stop is that far away I'll never know...

So after all that shamozzle we made a start on the track. The caches I picked up along the route all depended on what the muggle situation was like, if I found it within 10 seconds of looking, or if it had a D/T rating I liked the look of. These days I tend to take a less is more approach to my caching so wasn't too disheartened to walk past a few.

This was the first one I found, nice and quick in a shady spot. Cache in good order.

Thanks for the hunt!
Greetings from Australia

A quick and easy find for us compared to the last couple!

Easy find and relieving that no climbing had to be done. Tftc

Nice find

cache count for the day #5

Lovely calm day out caching with Greml1n tftc

Out today picking up a few of these if missed up the northern end. Having hiked this trail a number of times, the track appears quite different going this way! Thanks heaps Yeetrees!

A lovely day, out to pick up the remaining Escarpment caches. Quick find once GPS caught up. All good, tftc!

It is truly starting to get dark but thankfully this was a quick find, all good here, cheers

Nice and easy find walking along the escarpment track with KTG. TFTC

Found with on a hot Sunday. TFTC. KTG

Nice

Currently we're staying with my brother (tbird53) whilst we're on holiday, and today we walked along this escarpment. I thoroughly enjoyed it and we picked up some of the caches on the way but not all of them. Maybe next time!! TFTC and the series

This is my first return to this track in over 15 months. This was my second DNF for the day back then. Today it was an easy find. Thanks Yeetrees for your maintenance of this cache.

Thanks to your hint I knew exactly what to look for. However I had to wait for a number of muggles to pass before making the find. So the log book has been signed and the cache is nicely back in its spot all ready for the next geo-hunter. Thanks heaps for taking the time to set up this cache. I really appreciate your efforts in doing so. TFTC

Quick find.

14YO found this one. Learning which tree is which a bit better now. TFTC

Found TFTC

Replaced all. Found it. Full log later...

Replaced cache and log book

Please rehide well so it doesn't get muggled


Maintenance check

All good here no issues as all logs are waterproof paper

Ready to go again

Will be looking at going for a run on the series in a week

Will need to go for a walk

Logging with permission - thanks.

Know the tree type ultimately didn’t help here.

2nd DNF of the day of 21 I am hoping to find - Spent some while checking out various kawakawa trees but no luck today. Thanks anyway.

Second consecutive DNF for this. Did we search the wrong trees?

Might be obvious and could be overlooking it.... The last couple have evaded us

Thanks for placing a cache what a cool spot!

Friday afternoon and relatively quiet in the track. I was interested in the notes about the kawakawa - thanks. Cache is in good order.

I was asked to join TwigNZ and ThatWeirdGuy on the Te Araroa Paekakariki to Pukerua Bay escarpment walkway today. It was a glorious day with minimal wind and we set off hopeful to find all 32 caches available on the trail.

After driving to Paekakariki then catching the train to Pukerua Bay we headed off on the trail at 9am. I was thankful to find all 32 caches (with help from the team) and finished the walk in 4 hrs 20 minutes. Logs were signed as Team STT (stardust718, TwigNZ, ThatWeirdGuy).

I made a quick find here. Container and contents all in good condition.

Thanks to the CO for this trail and encouraging me to get out and explore more local(ish) trails.

Great views. TFTC.

Eyed up this series before I left home. Enjoyed the walk

Yaaaay

Doing this walk with muggles so had to only grab a few. Tftc.

What a nice hike. I really enjoyed it.

TFTC

From Canada

SaxGuit

We parked the geo mobile at the parking lot by the fisherman basket and hoofed it up to the overpass where we started this walk. I hope one day To come back and do all of this series many thanks

A few weeks ago my boss in Wellington sent out a notice that our Unit was going to do the Paekakariki Escarpment Track as a Team Building exercise. As a keen geocacher I knew the track had a few caches on it but even I was surprised when I saw there were over 30. That made it a must do, but how could I justify the airfares from Blenheim. I know, there is some training that I need to do and the options were to send me to Wellington to do it or send the trainer to Blenheim. Guess what option I chose.

So yesterday morning I flew to Wellington to do the training. I turned up to discover the server was down so sat around chewing the fat with some of the Wellington team. Eventually the IT boffins got the server up and running and being the quick learner that I am, I managed to complete the training before knock off.

That gave me time to do the Rata Street loop track behind Naenae after work. Not ideal tramping around in the wet bush after the recent rain which continued sporadically while I was out there.

Today a group of about twenty five of us of varying ages and fitness meet at Pukerua Bay station and headed north. the trip got off to a bad start with a DNF at the first, and another four since then.

With five finds under my belt since my last DNF I was in a good mood. As I neared GZ I looked ahead for a likely hiding place. I soon saw one that back home would have screamed "There's a cache here', but it was indicating 18m away. What the h3ll, I looked anyway and there was the cache. I checked the Garmin after completing the paperwork and it still said 17m to GZ, so I checked c:geo on my smart phone and even it said 16.4m. That go me thinking about some of my previous DNFs, if this was that far out and they were the same, there was no way I was looking anywhere near where they would have been.

TFTC Yeetrees

Luckily I know what this one looks like, so soon had the cache in hand.

Thanks for the hide Yeetrees

Phew the caching gods are being kind. Found quickly

Quick find here. Some great views up to this one. Tftc.

Love those kawakawa leaves. Such a cool shape. Tftc

A quick and easy find on a nice walking day. I've been meaning to do this walkway for a while now. Thanks

Today we moved lodging from Lower Hutt to Plimmerton. We cached on the way and did a great walk from Paekakeriki to Pukerua Bay. Signed the cache logs as Ms+Mr KR.

Thanks to all CO's for placing and maintaining their caches. Cheers

Third time on this track but first time looking for caches here!
Had limited time so started at Paekak, walked to the top and came back down the same way. All caches along the way were easy enough finds with good co-ords and hints
TFTC!

Finally, a day where both jgirl1880 and I found ourselves rostered off on a day where the sun was shining and the wind was minimal. A perfect opportunity for us to tick the escarpment track off our "to walk" list. An amazing walk with views better than I had imagined. I can't wait to do this walk again!

Check cache and logbook all good here

A year and a half ago I did the escarpment walk with the family; there were too many people to cache, and the family is too impatient to stop every 161m. I came back today, in the middle of winter and starting early (in the dark at 6am) to avoid as many other walkers as possible. I did the walk out-and-back, doing the caching on the way out; it took 3 and a half hours to get to the rail bridge. The trip back was an hour and a half with no stops, but it did include a detour round the kohekohe loop.

Find 22 of the day - TFTC

Went for a walk from pukarua Bay to paekakariki. Stunning view along the way. Some caches were slightly wet, others more difficult to find. Great walk tftc

Took longer than it should have as not as per hint. TFTC

Nice easy find, good view of Kapiti island from here

TFTC

In Wgtn catching up on family and friends. Monday to myself so its a walk along the Escarpment - Pukerua Bay to Paekakariki. So lets go!
Got this one tagged. Cheers

Climbing a bit now - feeling the heat! TFTC

More easy pickings. TFTC. Road noise still ghastly.

Another challenge for the younger ones in our party trying to identify the right tree. Great fun, thanks

This was the our first time on this track today in the glorious sunshine and not so glorious humidity. Easy find, whilst dodging some fellow track users. TFTC

** This is a log from an account split. Logged as YetiNZ **

TFTC

On the way north to Palmerston North and Rotorua for Christmas. Walked onto the ferrry, then picked up a car at Upper Hutt from a fellow geocacher (a saving of $240 from not having to carry it on the ferry). Drove to Pukerua Bay and abandoned it there. Now walking to Paekakariki to pick up a train.
More shade. Nice. It's been a hot day with no where near enough water. Took a quick leak off the track up there - oh, yes, I am very dehydrated (It's really easy for blokes to measure their own hydration levels ). Not surprised. I wonder how much I sweated out. At one stage I was wiping my forehead to keep the sweat out of my eyes about every 15 seconds.
Anyway. Shade. Nice.
Hey - let me tell you the kawakawa game. First person to find a leaf without any holes wins. Size of leaf does not matter. It's harder than you might think!

Tftc.

Nice and easy

Wow, the P2P trail. What a day! After parking the car at Paekakariki and walking to the start of the trail we decided to take our time, we took a little too much time though. After starting the trail at roughly 11 am we had finally gotten off of the trail by 5 pm. We had some good luck finding caches but towards the end, I think TwigNZ and I gave up on the last few.
Nice quick easy find here.
T H A N K S F O R T H E C A C H E.

T H A N K S Y E E T R E E S

The Paekakariki Escarpment Track had been high on my 'to do' list for quite some time, ever since it opened. Back in July we tackled it for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it, although at the time we did it as part of a group of Inline Hockey kids (and parents) so we didn't attempt to do any Geocaching on that trip, but promised ourselves that we would come back and do it again as a Geo excursion.

So today was that day. Good stable weather meant that there were quite a few people on the track which made for some interesting times when trying to hunt without attracting attention from Muggles, or 'Pineapples' as was our code word for the day lol.

I have to admit, that whilst I figured the trip would take longer than the previous time, I wasn't expecting to take almost 6 hours to complete the trail. We started from the North with a hiss and a roar, hoping to have zero DNF's for the day, but we encountered a few genuine DNF's (as in we genuinely think they are missing) and towards the end we had more and more DNF's simply due to tiredness from the heat and a bit of a loss of enthusiasm, but our thanks go to Yeetrees for setting up all these Caches, even though some of the hints left us thinking “you're kidding right???” But this trail enabled us to fill in a few D/T chart 'dots' too, so thanks again.

I apologise in advance for the generic log, but there was no way I would have been able to write up each Cache as I went along, so am logging them now in bulk (sort of)

Quick and easy find. Signed the log as "T & T" for myself and my son (Thatweirdguy04).

Thanks for the Cache

Walking southwards, the day turned out beautiful and sunny. Thanks for the caches, it was a great introduction for two new cachers I was with, and certainly inspired us to keep racing along the trail to the next one.

This series was found and logged over two weekends The first round was over the labour weekend and the second round to weeks later. Some caches were easy finds, others were hidden well and I and JoshThePirate had to search for a while. Thanks for the caches along this nice walk way [^] Logbook singed with C.M. + JTP.

----------
**+-++-++-++-++-++-++-+ TNLNBFP +-++-++-++-++-++-++-+**
Cache.Mike

Cache.Mike and I (JoshThePirate) found them over two weekends - it was a lot of fun

** .... JoshThePirate**

This series of caches has been on my hit list for the last few days but because of nasty weather it was put off until today. The idea was to catch a train from Plimmerton, where my caravan is parked, to Paekakariri but the trains weren't running so caught a replacement bus. I had a bit of a walk from the train station, where the bus dropped me off to the start of the track.

So that is what a kawakawa looks like.

Cheers for the cache.

A quick log to sort out the found its from the DNFS, more later when I get better Internet.
A trip overseas was on the cards with a long haul pencil aircraft trip of 16 minutes had me away from the Mainland for a week and a half on a course in Upper Hutt. Luckily I had a set of wheels at my disposal with big thanks to caching friend wb so I wasn't to be stranded at my digs and able to get out and make some local finds. With a whole weekend at my disposal, I decided on a two-prong attack; Paekakariki to Pukerua Bay trail on Saturday, with a couple of earthcaches thrown in and a planned trip around the headland at Porirua on the Sunday. I managed a repsectable half-century of finds on the Saturday, but the weather never played fair on Sunday so pland were amended. A great walk was had on the Saturday with fantastic views all around and a pleasant stroll which, with caching, took over 4 hours and followed up with a quick 8 minute train trip baqck to get the car. Good time caching in the area, thansk to all the COs for their placements, and therefore my enjoyment.

Did you know that planning has started for a Mega Event in Wellington in 2018? Check out the details on the [WENZ Website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's page on [FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/) and don't forget to log your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page](https://www.geocaching.com/…/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellin…)

Thanks to the Cache Owner who has gone to the trouble of creating this cache, determining the coordinates and then averaging them to make sure they are accurate, placing the cache and registering it online for our enjoyment. Without Cache Owners doing their bit, there wouldn't be a fun hobby that we all love - so again a big THANK YOU. For our bit, all we need to do is find and log the cache that was carefully placed for our personal enjoyment. As we log it we should consider that the Cache Owner also needs to maintain it - when the log sheet fills up, they must replace it. When the container becomes full of water, they need to empty it. When the container is broken, they need to repair it. When it goes missing they need to find or replace it. Well..... the great news is we can do our bit too - make sure your log doesn't take an entire page - just a name and date. If full of water, empty and dry the cache as best as possible. Be careful when handling the cache and make sure you replace it where you found it. If it has a bag, seal it. Just remember - the Cache Owner showed respect to you by placing the cache - please respect them and fellow cachers that follow you by being careful with the cache. And if you have a spare log sheet and the cache you are at needs one, please leave it behind. Finally, if the cache does need maintenance, please let the Cache Owner know - you can log a Maintenance Log or you can drop a line to the Cache Owner. Above all - have fun and remember the Geocaching Code.

Tftc

No pen

We started on the track from Paekakariki on a sunny, warm, near windless day. Just magic for late May. Clear views of Kapiti Island, the coastal villages and across to the ranges in the South Island. TFTC

So far the GPS & hint really help to find the cache. TFTC

Another nice easy find along the track. TFTC

Relative easy find and now I am a bit wiser about the tree! Thanks CO for the series

Very easy hide tftc

I will say sorry for the copy and past logs now, we were to leave home at 7.30am so we could get in an early start, turns out we mucked around so much not leaving until close to 8 earning how to use the gps unit (note to self learn and load before a big day caching) stopping for a coffee and muffin and then looking at stuff around town, and trying for a cache up a tree with no luck, so we did it in 5 hours with many stops for the views and chatting to others, and when climbing we were more than happy to wait for people to come down, I personally think it would be easier going in on the north end so you are not doing so many up hill stairs, we loved the walk, as my hiking shoes were still drying for the weekend before I wore a pair of 35.00 sneakers I brought to cover me while my other ones were drying, they did well but feet were killing me by the end, both dad and I loved the walk and all the effort you have put into the caches. - not sure what a pepper tree looks like I thought the leaves smelt like pepper if rubbed.

3rd of the day


TFTC

This one was a quick find for us, maybe we are finally getting our eyes adjusted TFTC

Very easy find on my way down to Paekakariki. TFTC

We have a hide in Hamilton with kawakawa as the hint and many hunters learn what it looks like because of it, which is why we used it.
We were distracted along this part of the track by the events unfolding below on the coast. The police are retrieving a body, presumably the second of the inflatable riders who was lost up the coast a few days ago.

Managed to find this one to dull the pain of the previous DNF. However the coords were 14 metres out. Figured that given the terrain rating and the lack of an obvious path upwards that we should rely on caching sense and that did the job for us.

Will provide log with updated coords based on GPS averaging.

Original coords seem to be 14 metres out - these are based on GPS averaging so may be of use to future finders.

Overshot this one too but found quickly on the backtrack
TFTC.

What a great view tftc

Another straight forward find... for me. PomsAway need to start pulling their weight

Signing logs as "20/12 w&p" to save time. The track is so busy today!

TFTC Yeetrees #518, 20 December 2016

#3101. I was at the Mana Island photoshoot event this morning and meet up with Chris (Yeetrees) who said he was off to walk this track. He wanted to check up on the caches along here to see if any had been affected by the earthquakes and heavy rain in November. He asked if I wanted to join him. I wasn't sure as I had to have the car back home by 3pm. But Chris thought we would have the walk completed by lunchtime. Well that might have been a bit optimistic. I would allow 4-5 hours one way stopping to find all the caches and then catch the train back to your car. The weather was glorious and sunny today with light winds. This cache was redemption for the CO for his poor botany skills at the previous cache (coming from the south end). He was on the money this time. To make up for his recent foibles, the CO was very pleased to point out to me that I had walked right past the cache and missed its obvious hiding spot. Indeed the cache hiding spot did seem rather obvious once spotted. Soon had the dry logbook signed and replaced the cache into a snug wee hollow very close to where I found it but with less chance of it sliding down the slope. Thanks for hiding another cache along the walkway.

Tftc

The wind has done an amazing topiary job on the shrubs here! A straightforward find. TFTC!

It's really amazing how many muggles are on this track. I'm glad there's 2 of us, so that someone can keep an eye open for anyone approaching. Thankfully most of the caches were quick finds. Thanks Yeetrees
Left a pet rock - a dog.

Out for a walk with Ms M this morning.
Nice track. Great views and the odd spot of rain.
Plenty of other walkers about.
Good to see it getting plenty of use.
TFTC

Found with quinella on a family walk last Sunday

Tftc

Quickly spotted the cover . Thanks

??

Good hide.

Enjoying a good hike south to north here today.
And a few caches that I'd not collected on the visit to the incomplete track.
This one in the first likely spot.
TFTC

Quick find - TFTC!