NCIS: Marlborough Chapter (Nelson/Marlborough) Blenheim, South Island, New Zealand
By Kiwi_Explorer on 06-Jul-12. Waypoint GC3PYHR

Time to archive this one.

It was great to have Jude-E and Nosynel stay while on their big geotour. We are not big fans of walking on the Wither Hills in the dark as there are a lot of tomos but it would have been rude not to join our friends and try to add a smiley face in our hometown.
We had good torches and thanks to the recent logs we could all help widen the search when the markers ran out. It was a beautiful moonlit evening so we hardly need the torches once out of the trees.
Thanks for the cache but a wee bit of filling in the gaps might encourage a few more to try.

On day 3 of a geocaching mission through the Molesworth and back to Chch via the Lewis with Nosynel. Having done all the Awatere valley, Redwood Pass plus a few at Tuamarina and Rarangi that we wanted to do, it was time to head to our hosts, Arandee. What about a night cache we said, The Dee part said yes while Aran decided to blob out in the spa. A previous finder left excellent notes so we were able to make the find. With three people and torches spread out looking, the missing tacks didn't prove to be too much of an issue. It was a lovely warm night to be out. A few runners up there in the dark as well. Thanks for this cache.. Great fun.

The big Molesworth circuit is in progress. Today is day three of Jude _E and my geotour. Thanks to her kind son we have use of a Toyota Hilux, extremely helpful indeed. We stayed a night at Blenheim with some of Jude's friends and are staying another night. Therefore our focus has been Blenheim based.
We wanted to finish the Awatere Road geocaches via Redwood Pass first.
Next on our list was a puzzle, virtual and wherigo. Anything else was a bonus.
Double bonus we found a night cache today. I love night caches. Thanks so much to the previous finder for leaving such good notes. It was good to know that the start wasn't marked for the first 50 meters.
Sadly there is no large event in New Zealand in 2019 but there are a few Mega events planned in Australia. I plan on going to the OzGeomuster in July. To find out more visit this site: https://www.ozgeomuster.com.au

If you can't make Aussie. New Zealand will have another large event in 2020 in Auckland. I will keep you posted in my logs.
Thanks for hiding this geocache.

Found, but not without a lot of extra walking. There are some missing reflectors that make the puzzle harder than it should be. The first 6 or so are missing, heading away from suburbia helps, once off the paddock there are good reflectors in the trees for a while, although look off to the sides because a corner is unmarked. The trail stops at a change of vegetation. From here it is a good 50m jump between points, search out to the right on the other side. There is then a reasonable trail until the end. Marked by two reflectors on the same item.

I moved the final downhill by 2m due to it lying exposed and the wood that had been hiding it had decomposed it had been so long since the last finder. The cache had been muggled by frazer, who had left a note in the log, photo attached.

I don't know why this cache hasn't had more interest. Night caches are great and this is a fantastic and safe location for it. There is a sign that states the park closes 1 hour after sunset so try to get there shortly after.

All ok on this one.

Checked on cache this morning. No sign of any fire or damage in this area. Cache container was where it should be and most of the tacks seemed to be in place.

The valley was burnt out in a fire yesterday. Farm Park is open again, but some key elements of this cache will be missing. Suggest waiting until the CO has time to review it. I will check the area out once the ground has cooled down.

I saw the photos of the fire this morning and thought a couple of shots looked to be close to this cache area. Cache disabled until it can be checked/replaced.

#1364 Our first night cache. We had trouble with the first reflector - may need a little love.

Checked the nearby tracks and eventually found reflectors - then we were away.

Thanks for providing our first night cache - now off to do another with wb-Jnr.

This one earns a fav point.

#675 found with wb1116 the first reflecter was preaty hard but found it was rally fun tftc

I've been planning to place a night cache so thought I'd better find one first. I had found the first few markers for this previously after a run in the hills, but already had my cache for the day so wasn't worried about getting this one. With the beautiful weather today and a nice still night it was perfect for an attempt. A lot of fun, trail is in good condition and easy to follow. Cache soon located and signed up. TFTNC

What a hoot! We decided to tackle this one on what is looking to be one of the coldest nights of the year thus far with some semi-Muggle friends which meant we had 2 preschoolers and 2 toddlers in tow. After taking a few minutes to locate the first marker we were off. Markers are well placed and we made quick progress (well as quick as the little legs would travel ... it wasn't the markers that slowed us up). We reached a point where no further tacks could be spotted but it didn't look like GZ as described. So the adults split up and started scanning further afield - there were a number of fallen trees. Then Master 4 the Muggle calls "What's this I found here?". Well blow me down, HE found the cache. We didn't expect that! Next came the challenge of the return trip ... Mr Muggle, a hunter, decided that straight down was the best course. Scaling fences, dodging gorse, wading through long grass, playing pass-the-baby = We'll call it 'team building'. Thank you for a great adventure. CO might want to check this at some stage as GZ didn't quite match the description with fallen trees etc however, still do-able. An awesome cache, a good laugh. Thank you again for the effort put in to setting this up. + 1 from us.

we had a nice walk in the early evening. all reflectors are good.
nice and easy nc.
thanks

#1104

So the end of Daylight Saving has shortened the daylight hours for caching... what is one to do? I know... a night cache:) NZDi and I cleaned out the new caches on the Reservoir Ridge earlier today which meant for me, apart from this cache, I had finally cleared the Wither Hills Cache Park (apart from a couple of pesky greenies on the MTB tracks which will require some specialist equipment to get).

I mentioned this cache to NZDi and to my surprise she said 'Let's get it tonight', so halfway through the six o'clock news it got dark enough to make a run on this cache. Torches in-hand we headed out to the far end of town and it was definitely dark enough to proceed. Despite being shown the start point by other cachers on a daylight raid in the WHCP, I brought up the cache on c:geo and followed the compass indication. Ten metres from GZ we turned on our torches and lit up the first marker. After that it was a case of following each point of light until... we came upon one that got bigger and bigger. It turned out we had mistaken a track marker for a 'bread crumb' and had to back-track a bit.

Before back-tracking though, I pointed out to NZDi that the 'Rifle Range Track' cache was close by, so she picked that up as a bonus. We then headed back to the last 'bread crumb' we had found and cast around for the next. After several false casts, we were about to give up when my torch lit up the tell-tale and we were off again. From here on the 'bread crumbs' were easy to follow right to the final prize. The logbook was quickly out, log signed and returned as found.

As others have mentioned, there were only two orange markers indicating the final for this cache, however on closer inspection a third marker was discovered and rotated slighted so that it presented to the likely source of light, so future cachers should see three from now on.

Another complaint I read in the logs was how to find an exit route once the cache has been located. My advice is to head up the hill, you will shortly come out onto some open grass which if you veer slightly right after exiting the trees will take you to a well formed path that leads downhill to towards the car park you started from.

I'll admit this night-caching takes me out of my comfort zone a bit but it still gets a FP from me.

TFTC Kiwi Explorer and TFMFNC

Found with Kiwimykl.

Refer to his log for details.

A FP from me as well.

TFTC Kiwi Explorer

TFTC. In Blenheim for the Omaka airshow. What a super spectical.
I also had plans to find my 4000th cache - I wanted something with a little effort involved, so decided a bit of a night wander was called for. flobberwoorm! kindly agreed to came with me so we set off for our adventure.
No real problem with the initial tacks as the route was pretty obvious. We had a pleasant stroll from one point of light to the other.
A favourite point from me.
Thanks Kiwi_Explorer for creating the trail and placing the cache.

Set out with purdiepurdie to find her 4000th cache, reflective tacks were easy enough to spot, had a really enjoyable time on this one, thanks kiwi_explorer

[green] I am only here for a few more days, and this cache has been on my hit list for some time, so I thought I should be decisive and actually do something about it. So out on the bike, with the GPS set to automotive mode. The GPS took me the long way, from the air force barracks right into town, along Redwood St. Was going to take me back the same way, but I ignored it and took a shorter route. Looks like there are some errors in Open Street map, which is the map on my GPS - some roads are not properly joined. I'll get that fixed.
Re the cache - I could not find the two markers that mark the start, but eventually found the next one and worked out which way to go. The first few reflectors are falling apart which may have been the problem at the start too. After that it was easy, a very enjoyable walk with my caving light - way brighter than my bike light, and that is a VERY bright bike light! Found the cache, dropped in some uncut crystals - some diamonds, rubies, a couple of sapphires. Alas, I had a path tag on me but forgot to drop that in. Oh - dropped in a favourite too!

A bit hard to follow on the way in. Pretty much impossible to follow out. If you crash straight down you come out in the grassy area near the start. Thank God for GPS. TFTC

Nothing like a night time hike in the bush! Quite hard to get out!!

We had been for a walk in the Wither Hills this morning and had found some fire tacks but we soon lost the trail in the daylight. Took a WP at the last tack just in case, and returned tonight to have a go in the dark. We had read the logs and noticed that the CO had recently added some more fire tacks, so knew this was the optimum time to visit.
As we are not really night time cachers, we started in twilight. The start of the trail was easy to spot and soon we were following the trail. Before too long we had found ourselves at the WP we had taken this morning so cast around with our feeble torches looking for the next fire tack. As it was still not dark, we couldn't spot anything, so used the grid method for searching. After what seemed like hours ( but was probably only 10 to 15 mins) I spotted a gleam from a tree I didn't think the CO would have used for the trail (rule # 1 of geocaching: make no assumptions ) and we were back on track.
Lost the trail a few more times, but on those occasions it didn't take too long to find the next tack. And soon we found the final markers and were signing the log, and it still wasn't properly dark . This was a bonus as it was quite tricky getting back to the car - we probably should have retraced our steps but instead tried to tack the direct route.
Thanks for the hard work setting up this trail and for maintaining it too.

#9002. Night caches tend to degrade over time, so when we saw this one had recently been checked we thought we should give it a go (even though sunset was around 9PM). It really was a bit light when we started. We didn't have too much trouble reaching the fire tacks we had spotted that morning, but then lost the trail in the same spot we lost it that morning. Eventually Troodles spotted a fire tack and we were underway again. We struggled a bit going up the ridge as the sky behind the ridge was still quite bright which made the fire tacks hard to pickup. With a bit of grid searching and the sky slowly darkening we made steady progress, and before too long I spotted a triangle of fire tacks and the prize we were seeking. TFTC.

Amazing cache!
Loved it I wish I had rfave points!!
OMg my first night cache , and it was awesome, found with capperz.
We both loved this cache well me especially (: Love this cache awesoe highly recommended to do!!
TFTAC (:

It's holiday time and I'm off to the South Island for a few days holiday with the great nightowl19. On the way down to the ferry we decided some caches were in order. There have been some handily placed on the route we're taking so a small diversion is in order to move my total slowly but surely to the magical 3000 figure. Have also pencilled in an Earth cache, puzzle and multi for later so diversity is the key
Back on the South Island and it's sooooooooo hot inside. Need to cool down, and grab a few evening caches whilst light fades. Looking to do the N C I S night cache and need the light to drop a bit so a couple of newly placed in the last 2 weeks I've been North caches are just the thing
Light had gone enough to make this viable to set off with a small pen torch which had new batteries added this morning (luckily!)
No problems really, lost the spots a couple of times, then found them easily enough again
My first night cache in a couple of years and nightowkl19's first ever
Lovely and cool out here tonight and large moon for company too
T F T C and Happy New Year, worth an F P from both of us

Another great night cache! Coming from Australia night caches are neither readily available nor safe to do. I did have the added benefit of having the cache owner with me, however I didn't need his help. Cache was found fairly easily with markers lighting up the whole way. Thanks for taking me out night caching on my last night in NZ Kiwi Explorer!

No fireworks to watch this time but the new fire tacks lit the way. I got to the spot where we'd lost the trail last time and was able to move on immediately. As I predicted the trail went in the one direction we didn't try. Thabks for fixing it so that i could complete the cache.

#2500

Checked on this one today and added a few extra fire tacks. Should be easier to follow now.

Night caching not our thing. Arrived at parking co-ords with sun about to set behind the hills.
Headed off to start, GPS died....flat before the start.
But, setting sun had the first reflectors shining. Hit the trees, powered up our powerfull light and started flashing it around. Passing walker gave me an odd look.
Soon, I coould see next 6 reflectors all at once. then.....blank. Argh.....
So, went "wandering in the woods today"....and in a while...."surprise". Two more reflectors.
As I got close, I realized they were a pair, and soon the cache box was winking at me.
Turned torch off, signed log, and straight lined it to the car. Got back as the street lights turned on, signalling the b&w curfew.
Thanks Kiwi_Explorer for the fun....may try this method else where !

Took a muggle friend out to teach her about caching. We probably didnt choose the best night to go but that was the only evening I was in Blenheim. The walk in the park in the dark winter solstice event was on and as we walked up the track we were told by a few people we were going the wrong way. We got so far but lost the trail, ran into a family who like us were also do the cache and had lost it at the same point. We searched in all directions but where unable to pick up the trail again. There are a few trees that have come down and I think taken down a marker. We had a great time anyway and couldnt have picked a better spot than up above the tree line to watch the winter solstice fireworks being let off from the carpark. I'm looking forward to another trip to Blenheim to hopefully complete the cache. Its definately worth a favourite even if the smile wasnt received

This is a reasonable easy night cache with one big gap between reflectors uphill. Also the final is no longer a triangle for there are only two Orange reflectors left at the destination. Thx for the fun.

Quite excited to finally be in Blenheim at a time that would be possible to do this cache. Found the trail just on dusk after a big loop walk. Moved quickly along till I lost the trail - had to move out in various directions from the last tack several times till I picked it up again - this happened at three points along the way which all added to the adventure and sense of accomplishment. First of these done without the company and support of the LISS team and now only the Pupu one to complete the series. Another magic caching memory. TFTC #5680

Went to find cache last night and didn't quite make it to the end (or so we thought).
Determined to not give up we went back to the last reflector we found in the dark, looked under the tree and it was right there.

There were a couple of trees down and the final marker only had two reflectors instead of three.

Thanks for the great night cache.

A good night cache to finish off the day. Took a while to find the trail at a couple of points, but got there in the end. Saw two possums and heard a couple more. TFTC !

Found during fozzmiester's South Island adventure. Great fun was had with clever hides and stunning locations encountered along the way. Many thanks to the owners of all the caches found and the enjoyment which you provided.

Even though it was raining quite steadilly I felt that a nice night time stroll would make a good end to a long day's traveling and caching. No problems with following the trail and the final was easily located. Thanks for a the fun night cache.

This was a must do on my list to do when I was over here. Found with sidewaze and libitee

A great way to round off a good caching day! Followed the fire tack track with Sidewaze and Bullertrout, and found our way around without too much difficulty. TFTC

A fairly full day caching down the Wairau, a great Blenheim event, then wait til dark, meet up with Bullertrout and time for a fire-tack trail. Really good. Really enjoyed it. One time we found ourselves heading towards a reflector that was obviously not the type we were looking for. A couple of times we needed to spend some time looking for the next marker, but all in all a great challenge. Thanks!! Then it was out with the GPS and follow the trail back to the car.

Took our host out for a night cache and an enjoyable walk in the hills. Perfect night for it. We had no trouble following the trail to find the prize. Thanks for the cache and the series. One to go.

A bit of caching in the dark to end my last full day in the SI for this trip. Started just on dusk but still managed to see all the tacks, but it was pretty dark by the time I finished at 10pm. Just the one litttle hicup when I went after a sign in the distance. A perfect evening for it, a most enjoyable way to finish off a memorable day. TFTC and the effort put in to setting up this cache.

Well that was cool. Had to wait a while until it was dark, which meant we must have just missed another cacher. Took my brother and father for an amble. Only one false turn when we spotted a track marker in the distance.

I don't often find myself in the Blenheim area in the dark but today the stars lined up (not in an end-of-the-world way) and the opportunity arose to come over for an evening event. Decided to stay the night here and go for this night cache as well. Found my way to the start OK and had no problem following the clearly marked night trail to its logical conclusion. Mind you at one point I thought the CO had been training dozens of mobile decoys, as sheep eyes look eerily like firetacks... Short cut on the way out and it was back to the car without any incidents. TFTC, Biggles.

Mrs BaldEd and I went for a very enjoyable night stroll in the Wither Hills to check out the Marlborough version of the NCIS caches. When we were just over half way through the mission we were caught up by a fast moving trio of Venturer Scouts. Nice to meet you guys. Thanks for exiting the scene before we came upon the cache. Thanks also to the Nelson team for placing this cache here. I look forward to some of the Nelson NCIS caches later this week. Cheers.

Fun one. did it quicker than the description suggested but we did run it.

After doing some dedicated night caches in Dunedin we made this a target for doing whilst in Blenheim ( in preparation for doing the others over our way !!! ) was well light up form the starting point and the sideways part was still good to follow ( unlike others we had done we noticed there was no back track markers so were pleased we always have our tracking on on our gps !!) found GZ easy enough and signed the log then stumbled our way down hill to rejoin the track where we guessed it would be - a fun short night cache thanks for setting it up and the cache

We managed to do a couple of dedicated night caches down south so we thought wed better get stuck in and do some more local ones. Arrived at trail head and the trail was easily followed and straigh forward . When there was a v=cahnge of direction it was easily picked up and before we knew it we had found our prize and smiley face . Thank goodness we have our gps trail marker on and we could reunite with our walk in with no delemour Would suggest others activate this facility when doing anything at night or in places that can get white out conditions. Can be helpful returning to vechile or trail in adverse conditions or of course place a waypoint at your vechile before you depart
Thanks for the NCIS and it wont be long hopefully before we hit some others in our home area :-0 TFTC

Night time caching is my favourite type.
This one didn't disappoint. A reasonably long track with plenty of tacks to light the way.
We had a little trouble as I hadn't changed the torch batteries before we left, but we had one good one to find the way and enough not so good to see where we were going.
The tracks in this area are much more developed than when I was living in Blenheim as a child.
TFTC

TFTC

This was an awesome night cache - TFTC

TFTC

I'd been saving this cache for a special occasion and this was it, our 500th cache. So as not to make it too easy we took one torch between two people (definitely adds a degree of difficulty). Great how those little reflectors work so well. Found the cache after a nice walk. Getting out was a little trickier but found the track after a bit more of a stroll. Thanks for a great cache and the opportunity to see (or not see) this great area in a different light

We were keen to complete the full set of NCIS's (to date anyway), although this had to be a 'just us' effort as arranging a SISL trip to Blenheim looked too hard. As we also wanted to do 4 multis in a day for a Challenge, the trip was centered around wandering Wither Hills - first by day and then by night. As a favourite of SoBad's would say 'Such fun, such fun.' Certainly dark enough at 8 pm on a lovely clear night. As others have commented, lots of tacks to light our way and so no problem to find the cache, even in unfamiliar territory. Getting back is also part of the fun - we opted for a different route that did have us backtracking once, but proved successful. Hey, we are logging this so we must have succeeded. Thanks.

This entry was edited by SoBad on Saturday, 22 September 2012 at 18:44:49 UTC.

Staying in Blenheim overnight and it was a lovely fine calm and mild night with a full moon. Perfect for a cache like this and I really enjoyed it. I had a wicked 850 lumen LED torch with me but I didn't need to use much over a third of that power to get more than enough illumination. At no time did I have less than a couple of the firetacks visible and sometimes I could see seven or eight of them disappearing off into the distance. I think that of all the night caches I have done this one had the most firetacks to follow but it was easy going and I had the cache in hand only about 15 minutes after leaving the car. A great stroll, signed log, TFTC and it gets a favourite point.

Great fun/experience . Thanks a heap for doing some moonlighting missionary work in the "beyond the black stump" zone. . Superstarry, moony, mild night - ideal for this activity. A fave. TNLN. TFTC.

arrived in Blenheim and found this cache with with our daughter and her husband we had a lot of fun finding this one
we just love this NCIS caches. [^]
when is the next one coming out !!!!!!!!
thank you for the cache and giving us a great Saturday night.

On my way through town, I just couldn't resist checking the Marlborough campus of the NCIS out. Great trail that should give the locals a good taste of these types of caches before they come to Nelson to do a few more. Had a few minor challenges along the way but it all fell into place. Don't leave this too long otherwise it will take too long to get dark. #CS#
Thank you for placing this cache.
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Humm, Fri 13th it is. Checked log at home, yipee no FTF, so got Mrs Bear kitted up and set forth. Forgot how dark the woods get. Quite scary if you are on your own as we seperated for a while. Anyway looks like someone has had a go at some of the markers, some trees had more on the ground that on the treee, very sad for a 3 day old cache! Never mind there was just enough, and the terrain did get rough.

But horrors not FTF. Congrats to the BeltFamily for getting there "just" before, could not have been far behind. Would like to set some of these up myself. But here is an idea, use one colour for inwards then another one for getting out again. Like a mountain getting to the target (summit) is only 1/2 of the trip, you have to get home again!! TFTC Blenheim Bear

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