Mount Blowhole - Great Sights (Bay Of Plenty) Tauranga, North Island, New Zealand
By nicrose97 on 01-Jan-13. Waypoint GC43KW1

As this cache has been out of action for too long, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.

Regards,
Growly Bear
Geocaching.com Volunteer Reviewer.

This was the next one in line.....Had more DNF -caches this weekend. SOOOOO many DNF's and still nobody has checked, replaced or archived.
It was a bit of a challenge to go down with the wind and then to find out that there are DNF"s from December last year....Shame

Could not find this one.

Very adventurous spot. Unfortunately DNF but believe it would be an awesome cache. TFTC

This is the most adventurous dkf I've had. I went way beyond my comfort levels searching every nook and cranny. Worked up quite a sweat during my hours search, really like geocache workouts they're really fun. TFTC I dkf

DNF, agree tad dangerous we had teenagers looking and it wasn't much fun

Looked for a while but couldn't find.

No sign of this one

When the CO goes out to check/ replace/ revise this, earn yourself a good deed earning some environmental brownie points by saving the tree at GZ.
There has been a chain and padlock placed in undying love around the trunk, which is now so tight it will soon kill the tree.
Attached photo

This was a highly disappointing DNF. This is a high muggle zone, obviously, but its the wrong kind of muggles. Everywhere we looked were beer or liquor bottles. Kids (okay... probably kids our age...) come out here and drink. Its a great spot to do it. I would come drink exactly where this cache was supposed to be, and in being there, probably stumble upon this cache. I must agree with a lot of the previous finders too, this is most unecessarily dangerous, ESPECIALLY when you give free reign to other finders to replace the cache. It can end up somewhere truly daunting, which may be where it is now if its still sticking around... putting it just 10m in the direction of the mount would make this more accessible and much less mugglable. YIKES!

Sophiepoo scrambled around doing the dangerous bit whilst I contemplated the difficulty rating of the terrain. No luck on this occasion, despite success previously.

There were lots of Muggles, but they came in batches, so we could steal looks in between. We followed the hint and description and found many likely looking safe holes, but no cache.

Thanks nicrose97. We will keep a watch on this one, in case we need an Optician.

Cheers

found while in port with the Voyager of the Seas. TFTC

Tftc

Found with renelm and Difool, logged as RAD to save log space, time and trees.

I am not much of a logwriter, so see renelms, and possibly Difools, log for details.

TFTC!

SO hard to find, but with the description it was easier.. today the GPS wanted us to be a bit more south east of the actual hiding spot though.. aedk managed to locate and sign this one while loads of muggles were busy shooting selfies a little bit back.

Found at 19:15 - #4343 - together with aedk and Difool - logged as RAD to save space and time

TFTC

This cache was not for me, at least not today, so I let he others sign the logbook.

Together with renelm and aedk.

Difool - 2013-10-30@19:15 NZDT

Decided on one last caching trip with teams skullracing, coruze and Troobloo before we went back to Australia after our awesome Mega trip! What a lovely little 'island' with some great sites! Thanks for bringing us here nicrose97

#4975 We had travelled down to Tauranga for the day from Auckland with our geomates Coruze, Kiara001 and TrooBloo with the intention of logging the 2 webcams - with that now done any other caches found were a bonus . There were quite a few kids out on the point who were jumping into the sea - seems to be a popular pastime with the local adolescents. We searched to high spots first as we considered the terrain rating a little low - when that came up with nought Skulldaddy took another tact and soon had the cache in hand. Whilst all this was going on, LadyKiara and The GeoPrincess were having a wonderful lie down on the grass enjoy the sunshine - you've gotta take the opportunity when it presents itself. Certainly a GZ to be careful with, we think the terrain is a tad under-rated, getting to GZ won't suit everyones abilities - it suited ours though & being such a top spot gets a fav point from us. Our thanks to nicrose97 for the cache and fun. Cheers from Australia [^]

While out and about in the area we decided to do a couple of caches
Was here back in 2003 when we climbed Mt.Manganui but that was before our caching days. We didn't have enough time to that this trip so we chose to walk out and do this cache with a couple of others.
We were extremely lucky we visited this one with who we were with as skullracing (Monkey Man) was clambering all over the rocks which isn't something Coruze can do. The views from this little island were spectacular! There was some kids nearby jumping into the sea....dare devils!
The cache was found in good condition, thanks for enticing us here....Cheers!

I really enjoyed the walk out to this cache from the beach.
I really enjoyed the scenic surrounds, saw that there was a cache on
the island not to far away, too far to swim to though.
The advantage point near GZ provided the perfect spot to take in the views.
Luckily one of the crew is more experienced in rock clambering and the cache was retrieved.
SL.....T4TC nicrose97
troobloo

Earns a favourite from me!

Considering the hide I believe the difficulty should be raised for this cache.

Hmm tricky for us old girls.

Tftgc easy find

Windy out here today but I enjoyed my clamber around the boulders.
Just my friendly opinion: I like these types of hides but if it was my cache, to stop any grizzling from potential finders, I would be inclined to give it a higher terrain rating (say 3.5) and add a warning near the top of the cache page. Something like "This cache involves scrambing down potentially slippery rocks. Not recommended for children or adults unsure of their footing or who have a fear of heights"
Many thanks

Nice walk out here with my boy, he stood guard on top of the big rock and I did the climbing. Then off to copenhagen for an icecream in the sun, tftc

Great spot. Love the harder to reach ones. TFTC

Great spot! Good find with a couple other new cachers!

In the area supporting Grandson who was playing hockey for Pukekohe Intermediate at the AIMS hockey competition. Great effort Pukekohe to come 4th out of 28 schools in the event. Walked to the summit and round the bottom of the mount.

Pretty sure I was not going to risk the fall. Maybe place in a more safe place to allow us older cachers a find. Fantastic views and well worth the short walk.

Nice, lots of muggles but got there in the end

Considering the number of children and 50+'s that do geocaching, this one is unnecessarily dangerous. Damp today so wouldn't get too close to the edge.

Found it but very hard to get to

After talking to others and reading these logs - I think that the cache is not in its orginal spot. When I found it the GZ was out by quite a bit but the hint was ok - I feel that it is in quite a dangerous spot far more than the rating and should be moved back to the original spot and coords be altered.

Too many muggles too much rubbish and too steep for us today

We weren't expecting this to be easy, and it wasn't... we would estimate the terrain rating as a 4, rather than the listed 2.5.
A difficult area to search - not helped by the many visitors to the area, even in the middle of winter. We had older children with us today, and did have safety concerns. There were a few relieved adults once the cache had been located. Took the 2 trackables.

love this spot, had to get in early before the fishermen arrived. i went east, wife followed instructions and went dwn West. then read Geckos clue and as i did, she found it.

took 2 tb, ewok and helium. 1 to go wellies monday, 1 to go aucks few days later.

Have tried this one twice now - no luck

Tried to grab this cache while in the area... Unfortunately there were some muggles enjoying each other company right where I expect I needed to look... And decided it probably best to bail out and leave them to it... LOL

Unfortunately we didn't manage to get this correctly loaded onto our Garmin before leaving home, so were initially basing our search on the co-ords instead of the description. It was a lovely day for it with sunshine, calm sea and low tide... after climbing around rocks for a while and pretending we were just exploring and photographing (for the benefit of several groups of muggles), we read the description... looked for a bit longer before deciding the terrain was just too risky for us.

All good dropped of a Tb

Not for the faint hearted or not well able people...

Climbed all over the rocks before finding this one, paid more attention to the clue than the co-ordinates, TFTC

Nice day for a quick cach that had been a hard to find before. In tb out tc.

What a beautiful day for a walk around the Mount, how lucky are we to live in such a beautiful place! Unsurprisingly, the bars were packed and there were lots of people around, but no one near GZ. Following the advice on the cache description, we climbed down and sure enough, promptly found lots of rubbish . By the time we got back to the start, we had filled up a bag (picture). On a more positive note, we took advantage of the very handy "seat" right by GZ and parked our bums for a wee while to enjoy the views and the glorious sunshine, having the place all to ourselves. Wouldn't want to do this one in wet weather, but will have to come back to see the famous blowhole in action sometime . Thanks for bringing us here and TFTC! Took coin and left 3 TBs.

Had another lot of geocachers looking so teamed up and after a bit of time we eventually found it.

Not easy! The coordinates are waaay out or my gps was failing... Anyway thanks to the recent logs we saw a comment about a tree and a padlock-thank goodness for this! Just as we were about to give up we found the tree...once you find the tree you know you are on the right track. When you reach the giant crevice between two big rocks you can see it!

We found this cache on our trip to Tauranga visiting Mt Maunganui.
As from the terrain rating, we expected the terrain to be easier but we made our way to the cache and climbed safely back to the view point. Could deserve a higher terrain rating especially when considering wetter weather conditions. Thanks for the adventurous hide.

Had a crack at this one last week and spent too much time looking where the coordinates took me. Should have studied the description more carefully, because by this time a couple had taken up residence on GZ and I had to leave. Today I scuttled down in the right direction, missed it on the first pass, but found on the second. Somewhere along the line I managed to cut myself and drew blood. Not sure what on, but as the CO says, there sure is a lot of tins and broken glass here. Off home now to disinfect the wound before gangrene sets in. TFTC Great view from up here.

This entry was edited by tparty on Friday, 12 April 2013 at 06:20:56 UTC.

Good Friday. Started with chocolate for breakfast... A lot of chocolate. The kids came over just before twelve. So we decided to have lunch in the park before driving over to the beach for a paddle in the waves. That suited me... Happy to pick up a couple of caches along the beach.

We've been out to this point before. There were heaps of people sitting on the rocks enjoying the sights and sun when we arrived. I went down one side for a scout, and quickly realised the cache wasn't in that direction. I side-stepped a couple of young blokes drinking beer, and made my way down the other direction.

This big boy was scared... everything looked like an inch away from a fall into oblivion. I took my jandals off and measured each step. Got past the ledge and found a curiosity... there is a shrub under an overhang with a padlock and chain around it... and the purpose? Had to continue searching. Finally found the cache in a nice little spot. Thanks for the replacement cache. Now for the journey back...

This is one cache to add to the list of those I'm not in a hurry to revisit. Glad to make the find and move on. TFTC.

Whilst out for morning run G and me spotted kennyclan looking a little scared near the edge of the big rock with a GPS round his neck- thanks to baabaa I knew he could only be upto one thing. Fearless G offered to brave the rock edge to find the geocache. I know baabaa is pleased I now have an NZ geocache- I hope she will get some NZ geocaches soon too!

Quite a morning,first ran into a couple from Australia from an area which we know quite well but they knew nothing about caching & were really interested as to what it was all about.Next there was a bunch of young guys jumping into the sea,might have been me 50 years ago.Then a young couple from the UK who were both cachers wanted to know where it was after seeing the GPS around my neck.I explained where it was but the little bit the last bit had me a wee bit concerned.The guy set sail & had it hand in a couple of minutes.There first cache in NZ & another to my list.All good,thankyou.

Geckoh was very kind and replaced this one for me.

Just asking whether this is going to be replaced soon (hoping to head over tomorrow)
Great spot by the blowhole!!

After a couple of dnf and my attempt it need to be checked

Will replace soon

Fantastic tho

Just wondering if this was going to fixed before the weekend as am making a trip over to the Mount and it would be nice to collect this one
Cheers

Had a good look around before I noticed all the DNF logs.

We had a look today as didn't have latest notes loaded. But it was lovely out there. Got lots more photos and talked to a lot of tourists off the cruise ship in port. Murray could become a tourist guide some day. We shall return, of course.

Didn't find this after having a good look around.....my GPS didn't have any of the DNF logs from previous searches.....I was a little disheartened when I looked at the logs on the old 'smart' phone....but not quite as disappointed as when I saw how much rubbish there is littered about at the end of such a beautiful spot....this could easily become a CITO

Got to ask if the cache is still there....lots of DNFs

This cache will be replaced with my new style of Geocache this weekend hopefully. For now, do not visit this cache as you will be wasting your time. But however feel free to check out the blowhole!

It seems that w may have been muggles. I will check/replace in the next coue of weeks.

Got so close but too totters to go down

Another big cruise ship in today so lots of people around. After much scrambling around on the rocks, still nothing to be found.
A great walk with lovely views nevertheless!

Our team grew here as three pleasant energetic muggles joined in the search; but eleven pairs of eyes searched in vain ---- however there are now three more potential geocachers in the world!!
Beautiful spot to visit nevertheless thank you!

Searched and searched all the nook and crannies around the coords but no luck. Not too many muggles around so we had a chance to really explore but sadly could not find the cache.

I searched in all the nooks but couldn't find it with so many muggles around.

Logged as a DNF today - lots of muggles about, tried to follow the hints, as co-ordinates were clearly way out, but we must have been looking in the wrong place, I will leave this one for another time.

We ventured out and probably could have made a hunt without looking out of place depsite all the muggles, as the place was absolutely crawling with them- literally, LOL! sitting, standing,scrambling all about the rocks. The surf was smallish & inconsistent when I first paddled out, but while out there, the promised big swell arrived, built very quickly and put on quite a show!
Got to see the surflifesavers RIB zip out for a couple rescues before I came back in. After an icecream, the cache lured us out to the blowhole lookout and it was awesome viewing the surf from out there. Then 6 surf-lifesavers arrived for some practice; they scampered around the blowhole, jumped off the rocks and made the swim back through the heavy surf. There was quite a crowd spectating & cheering...
so not really a DNF as we didn't pursue hunting, but TFTC anyway

This entry was edited by SaltyCacheNutZ on Sunday, 06 January 2013 at 22:41:43 UTC.

Got the notification for this cache on my way back from last nights FTF at the blowhole. Decided to leave this one till the morning as it looked like it could be abit of a scramble in the dark.
Had abit of a sleep in and headed out at 9.30am. Made my way along the track out to the blowhole at the end of leisure island. Not many people around right at the end so was able to search in peace. Coords for me seemed to be a little out, but had a good search around before spotting the cache. Ended up making it abit harder than i should have by going abit too far down the rockface. At first, i wasn't able to reach it so had to find a better way to retrieve it. Scrambled my way around the boulders and got the cache. Signed log at 10am with another FTF to add to the tally. Thanks for a great cache, great views from up here!!

This entry was edited by mike-miss on Wednesday, 02 January 2013 at 22:55:46 UTC.

Great spot but Coords bit out for me too - GPS wanted me to go 9m the wrong way - cache easily accessible without danger - Great place to bring people up here TFTC

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