Ngaporo campsite (Wanganui) Pipiriki, North Island, New Zealand
By dvdhyt on 12-Jan-13. Waypoint GC448C9

Found the log and its good hiding spots, but no sign of a cache.

I've spent the past 3 days canoeing down the Whanganui River from Whakahoro to Pipiriki with a friend and her family, and was desperate to find at least one geocache on the way so I could talk about the adventure and share some photos and have a smiley on the map in this pretty remote part of the country. Well... unfortunately that wasn't to be. Neither of the campsites we stayed at (Mangawaiiti and opposite Tieke Kainga) had a cache, we decided to save time by skipping the Bridge to Nowhere walk, and this one was the only one I really had a chance to find, but I couldn't. We only stopped here for about five minutes and I would have loved to have searched longer but the others wanted to get going and I had to leave it.Still, this was an awesome adventure and I enjoyed it a lot! And I did still find a cache on the drive home, so it wasn't so bad after all

Day 3 ( i think) of the Whanganui River section of the Te Araroa the long path, a fun paddle todat from Tieke Kainga marae to The convent at Jerusalum. Of course, every camp site along the way is a curiosity worth checking out, but also a good chance to get out of the canoes for a bit to rest sore butt cheeks. It was great to be able to nab a cache find while I was at it in order to mark the visit with a smiley on the geo mapMy thanks to the cache owner for hiding one here for us intrepid visitors to find. Cheers.-- This log is trackable ! ---- Feel free to discover ---- Please mention, in which cache you've seen this code: ---- 3TABQX --d

Found the substitute container below the top loo. Lovely place. Stopped in here for lunch before finishing at Pipiriki

Tftc

It looks like there had been a slip near gz, and a long search did not yield a cache. Thus I emptied a pill bottle and left it as per hint for the next people coming down the river, and advised the CO once we were in signal again. The cache location should be obvious to a cacher when heading to the top toilet and looking into the bush. It started raining in teh evening and then in rained all night, but the river level hardly changed by the morning. TFTC!!

Dang. Second T5 cache I've looked for on the Te Araroa trail this month that I haven't been able to find. A friend and I looked under all items I could see described in the hint, and also replacement hint. Couldn't see anything.

.

Found during hiking 3000 km long Te Araroa trail. Long path from Cape Reinga to Bluff. This section was amazing 8 days on the river. Thank you for a nice cache on the trail

Unable to find the cach
Found the site well enough clues were good but cach did not seen to be there.

Big thanks to Cats&Dragons for replacing the temporary geocache with a proper geocache for the geocaching community!


Due the remote nature of these caches I'm supplying spoilers-


SPOILER.........Cats&Dragons kindly noted the coordinates are still good and the cache is under an end of a log.

I found this geocache in the company of a bunch of Hamilton and Auckland Geocachers. We were together thanks to Cats&Dragons who had organised another one of his infamous Geocaching ‘missions’. The goal was to pick up a bunch of T5 caches along the Wanganui river via speedboat. HKCB, Kyb3r and I met at his place after work on Friday night and headed out into the night taking the kind of detours only an overachieving Geocacher can appreciate on our way to Tamaranui where we met up with the rest of the group early the next morning. Once the fog had cleared, we were blessed with a brisk clear winter’s day. I have been lucky enough to have been down the river BC (Before Caching) but that was a far more sedate affair compared to this fantastic trip. A huge thanks to the Speedboat company who were so accommodating for us and to Cats&Dragons for the great idea and fantastic organization.

C&D prearranged with the CO to replace this one. We managed to find a suitable spot close to the original coordinates and were soon back off down the river.

This has been a trip that has been planned for a few weeks with the prime objective to Jet Boat down the Wanganui River from Taumarunui to Pipiriki on the Saturday after a night long drive through the north Taranaki county side collecting caches. On only 1 hours [:o)] sleep we were ready to tackle the River journey.

A call went out weeks ago and within 24 hours we had our crew together consisting of HKCB, iammrwalker, kyb3r, kiwis69 11HPG11, mike-miss, aplenmilch80 & RWIMF signed the log as "Team Jet" being escorted by Taumarunui Canoe & Jet Boat Hire. What started off as a foggy morning turned out into a beautiful day with sunshine (but not too bright) and no wind or rain. A great winters day to be had by all.

Setting out from the base we were given a safety lecture about provisions on the boat (we had more PLB's [^] than the driver) but once this was done we set off. Along the way we were given a most excellent history of the river, both the happenings and the people that once, and in some cases, still occupied the farms along the banks of the Wanganui.

Final stop on our epic journey and a little bit of cache maintenance on behalf of the CO (with permission). Nice little camp along the lower reaches. It was a fantastic day, helped by the good weather, good company and a sense of adventure.

Thanks for getting us down here to make the most of it
Thanks for the placement, Thanks for the cache.

C&D hatched a plan to Jet Boat down the Wanganui River from Taumarunui to Pipiriki to collect some caches. Said yes before I really knew what I was signing up for & then belatedly realised it was pure mid-winter madness. But it was brilliant fun & an amazing trip, despite the cold, in great company. Fantastic scenery and wonderful place to visit. So glad I got to join in

I naively thought we'd be on the river for 2-3 hours; turned out to be a full-day trip, including our side-walk up to the Bridge, made all the better by our jet boat guide who was keen to share his knowledge & make sure we had a great time, despite the cold. Which we did! Thanks for the placement and the incentive for a great adventure! TFTC

Got the call up from Cats&Dragons a couple of months prior, wanting to know if we were keen for a mission down the Wanganui river to grab a bunch of T5 caches. Without hesitation the answer was YES, not even knowing when or how...

Well, Cats&Dragons has a reputation for well planned epic missions and this was no exception. Turned out that the plan was the middle of winter via jet boat with a great bunch of geocachers.

We headed down to Taumarunui the day before, taking a leisurely 7 hour drive from Auckland picking up 20+ geocaches on the way. A good nights sleep meant we were well prepared for todays upcoming mission.

An early start and a quick stop of coffee and snacks before heading to the start of todays adventures. We all came well prepared with warm clothing and emergency gear.

Our fifth and final stop on todays adventures. Cats&Dragons had pre organised a replacement of this cache with the CO. We signed the new log as "Team Jet" for todays adventures. TFTC!!

Kiwis69, 11hpg11 and I arrived the night before at the national park to be well rested for today’s phenomenal jetboat adventure organised by C&D. Rested we made our way this morning to the cafe to get treated with a hot coffee and to meet up with the crew of "Team JetBoat". Collectively we made our way to the starting point to sign our lives away. I was glad that I was wearing 3 layers of pants, 5 layers of tops, a balaclava mask and ski glasses when this midwinter madness started . We were seated in the jetboat and driven down to the water. We started surrounded by some fog which turned soon into a cold sunny winter day.

Last stop on our amazing ride along the river. We had some quick rain showers at the end which resulted in one of the most stunning rainbow I saw. TFTC
Big thank you goes out to Cats&Dragons for organizing such a special but crazyly amazing midwinter day out.
Another big thank you goes to Ronnie our Driver and the amazing Taumarunui Canoe & Jet Boat Hire Company who provided a safe playground on the water for us.
Thanks to all CO’s for the geocache placement and for a fun "Team Jet Boat".

An exciting adventure a long time in the planning. THanks to Cats&Dragons for doing the leg work and booking a boat. We soon had the boat filled with willing and eager geocachers. Our Team today consisted of C&D, Alpenmilch80, Kiwis69, Kyb3r, Iammrwalker, HKCB, RWIMF, Mike-Miss and myself and we signed logs as Team Jet. Our Jet boat guide was a great guy and gave us lots of interesting historical information about the area.

Our last river stop and still we were seeing goats everywhere. Some more lively than others. A quick hunt before replacing so it is there for the next finders. A neat spot, thanks for bringing us here.

This trip down the Whanganui River has been something I've wanted to do ever since I saw the caches along here years ago. Today was finally the day, along with 9 others to tackle this mighty river, however we did pick a sightly easier mode of transport that has a lot more ponies than a paddle.

After a bit of an all nighter to take the long way to the start point, the lack of sleep wasn't dampening our spirits as we geared up for the day, with multiple layers, hats and gloves. A small delay in our initial start time was needed to for the morning fog to lift before we hit the river. The first half of the day entailed learning a little about the river, and stopping at a few campsites along the way, before having lunch at John Coull hut, then heading a bit further down the river to stretch the legs at the bridge to nowhere, before making the last run to Pipiriki via a couple more caches of course.

This trip was amazing and we couldn't of asked for nicer weather for mid winter. A big thanks to the Ronnie and co. for looking after us on this trip, I would highly recommend them to anyone else wishing to jet boat down this river. We signed the logs as "Team Jetboat", thanks for the placements so we could do this trip.

Last campsite of the trip, and C&D had contacted the CO to get permission to replace this one.

When Cats & Dragons suggested Jet boating down the Wanganui river, it took me about 30 seconds thought to be able to say "sure!", next question being "when?" "middle of winter was the reply - we can get a discount" came the reply. Obviously a few swear words went through my head at this time, before I started working through logistics, although all I said was "ok, I'm in!". And in I was. What a cool group of people we had with us as we did this adventure! I'd been working over in the Naki the previous few days, so meet the group in a local café in Taumarunui before we all headed for the Jet Boating company.

heading down the river is so peaceful. And its sooo much fun when the driver spins out
He's also telling us the history of the river as we head down which is proving very interesting. Like the replica river boat that was made, but has only been on the river a few times, and not in the last few years... what I wonder is where is it now?

I also don't understand how your baby toes can go numb, but the rest are ok?

Here has been a landslide who put the way to the toilets away. In the rest of the forest was only one place which matches the description and there was no cache.
I guess this one should be checked, if still there or under meters of mud.

Can't find this one

Found it on our 3 day Whanganui Journay on the last day.
TFTC

Tftc. On a three day kyaking trip with tregearP and sjt_nz we almost missed getting into this camp site after a rather freaky rapid just prior whew I'm still upright was my first thought my next was why is sjt_nz stopping? Duh cache site is here.

Found with Jojo&Dobby and TregearP on our last day on the river. Exciting stuff getting into the landing spot - and as seemed to be the case so often, if we'd just gone a bit further there would have been calm water just round the corner rather than the frantic paddling against the rapid backwash to get into the landing spot.

Been a couple of big slips around the GZ and clearly a lot of water has been trhough at some stage - Last June? Found a temporary cache as per the hint. TNLNSL, TFTC.

Last day of the 3 day kayak and the trip has been great. It was quite a challenge to get into this landing site and a mix of overnighters coming in and going out and transiters stopping to bail out the canoes after the last rapids. Major evidence of the heavy slips still around so had a thorough look for the original cache to no avail. I had a replacement cache with me so left that there with logbook until CO can get a chance to check it out. Thanks for placing the caches on the river, thoroughly enjoyed the journey and a bit of caching.

I dont think the cache is here anymore due to a major washout at the coordinates.

Stopped on way past to pick up the cach while canoeing down the river, TFTC

Thanks for the hint, we'd have been a little lost without it. And also would have held up the non-geocachers while they ate lunch. TFTC.

608 Last campsite on our Whanganui Paddle. Cache all good.

The last day of the canoe trip. And we started it with finding a cache.

Thanks from Gravelking
Found it together with juriga on our NZ journey.
Nice place.

TFTC. Found together with Gravelking on our great Whanganui river canoe trip.

We found this cache during our Wanganui canoe journey. It was a beautiful tour with nice people and perfect weather, only the water level was quite low, so we had to paddle all the time. The first rapid of this day was easy to pass and made a lot of fun. After this we made a short stop to find this cache and to take some picture. Thanks a lot for hidding a cache in this cacheless area of New Zealand.

[url]hoppundweg.piekar.de[/url]

Stopped at the campsite for morning tea today after staying at Tieke Kainga hut last night... Had an awesome time there with other guests from all over the world... Found the cache quickly thanks to the hint and signed the log... TFTC

Found it after walking up a bank that was covered in blackberry which at the top I saw there was a path to it.
TFTC

Short brake here before arriving to Pipiriki. Those last rapids where quite fun after have been practising for 5 days. We didnt fall in water one single time. Nice weather one day little windy. Starting to hate those sand flies. Nice trip thanks for making these caches. Didn't need to search for my gps in the barrels for this one.

Found it on our journey at the Whanganui River it was a great experience to be out in the jungle for three days just we the kanu some caches and a lot of Rapid's thanks for placing the cache

Found it on the last campsite on out 5day trip. Easy to find

Found on enroute of the 3 day whanganui river trip. Great weather and great experience

Found with MAKESHlFT, on the 5 day trip from Cherry grove to Pipiriki. After a night of rain the river had risen 3.5m on us and with the wind facing back upstream, had kicked up waves on the rapids right before we had to pull into the campsite, which made the landing hard and fast!, once we navigated the blackberry on the side of the hill, quickley had the cache in hand, then back on the water to power onto Pipiriki for pick up, TFTC

A very quick stop off at this campsite, as we had decided to cram our last 2 days paddling into one, due to the rapidly rising river. We weren't going to stop, but we decided to put in some hard yakker and get a wee way ahead of our group so that we could justify a quick visit. Luckily, we quickly had the cache in hand. TFTC

Found it with Kaikawaka, whilst paddling from Taumaranui to Pipiriki. Thanks for the Geo-distraction ;0)

Found on the last day of our five day trip down the river from Taumarunui to Pipiriki. We initially tried looking for it with just the GPS, but soon abandoned this and pulled out the hint. After that it was found reasonably quickly. Thanks for the cache.

Our first New Zealand cache on the north island. And just before the GPS batteries died... Perfect timing.
We really enjoyed our trip on Wanganui with the canoe - but we believe with higher water levels it is probably less work in paddeling

TFTC
Rumo20

Canoeing past on a work trip, had to cache before lunch
My first NZ Terrain level 5 cache and a cracker of a boat ride to get to it
TFTC

After we mastered the rapids we made a break to get this one... Perfect hints!
TFTC

Have been planning our trip down the Whanganui for months and as part of any holiday planning process, a look at local caches was done. When new caches appeared at each of the camp sites we were staying I couldnt believe my luck. As the time of the trip approached and they remained untouched. Would I get some FTF's. A couple of days before leaving home I checked again and was disappointed to see they had been found. Oh well its still a smiley for each anyway. 5 days on the river in sea kayaks with the Nelson Canoe Club was an awesome experience and finding the caches was an extra bonus. Thanks for taking the time to place them here

A video of our day on the river finding these great new caches can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Ew_99PpU8

A plan was put together to use a jet boat departing from Pipiriki and heading towards Taumarunui in an attempt to find the several caches planted in the campsites along the way.The party consisted of myself (Ros of Rosmar) FMZ, Lostcourse, mitsimadman, Greenblat and CreedyNZ.
This was the first find for us which was reasonable quick with 6 pairs of eyes looking for this one. TFTC.
Joint FTF.

Found together with FMZ, Rosmar, CreedyNZ, Lostcourse, Mitsimadman on our meandering cruise up the Whanganui River

Have visited this spot about 14 years agoand remeber it well. Was canoeing down in the aftermath of a relatively large flood and canned out just where the river hits the wall opposite. Went under water for much longer that I thought I would! All good today though, the river was very low.

Resident campers wondering what on earth 6 guys jumping out of a jetboat heading toward the long-drop were up to T4TC

I noted these new caches a few weeks back and suggested to FMZ that we go find them. I mean, talk about the perfect excuse to head down to Whanganui National Park. In conjunction with Mitsimadman we talked through the various options to reach each cache over a single weekend visit. Ultimately, because of the serene location we decided to follow Darryl Kerrigan "So much serenity" and charter a jet boat. Rosmar, Greenblat and CreedyNZ were soon added to the team.

After a short trip up the river from Pipiriki we soon arrived at the Ngaporo camp ground. After a quick look at the hint (instructions) we soon found the cache. Don't worry, no purists were harmed in the finding of this cache. FTF with FMZ, Rosmar, CreedyNZ, Greenblat and Mitsimadman. FTF number 73 for myself. Cheers for the cache placement!

A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention by Lostcourse that there were some unfound caches in campsites along the Whanganui River. Having been fascinated by the river and the national park ever since I did a study on it at school the year it was created, I was very keen to see if we could visit these caches. I've always wanted to kayak down the river, but couldn't find or justify the time to do it (probably 5 days to do it properly, all the way from Taumarunui), so we started to discuss other options.

We discussed using mitsimadman's boat for some of the caches, and other means of getting to others. It was a possibility, but not a good one as his boat was not ideally suited to such a river, and it still would have taken us 2+ days to complete. So then I started looking into guided motorised access, and came across a few enterprises that could potentially help us out - one of which was extremely helpful, and ultimately became our means of transport - a big-block Chev powered jetboat equipped with a 10mm steel plate hull to take on those pesky shallow rapids. Without the time available to take on these caches by canoe/kayak, a jetboat is definitely the (adrenalin filled) way to go here.

We put the invite out to some other typically adventurous souls and ended up with a keen group consisting of myself, Lostcourse, mitsimadman, rosmar, Greenblat and CreedyNZ.

The plan was to get in the boat at Pipiriki or Taumarunui and head one way along the river to pick up all of the cache finds, but this was changed to a Pipiriki-Poukaria and return, because of there not having been any rain for quite some time and the river being very low. Later we also found out that the Kururau Krusher race was on around Taumarunui anyway, so there would have a been a whole bunch of people on the river getting in our way!

We all met up in Pipiriki, some opting to stay in Ohakune on Friday night, and others making it all the way to Pipriki on Friday - rosmar and I arrived at about half past midnight, having cached our way down from Auckland after work.

We took off in the boat from Pipiriki shortly before 9am, and the Ngaporo campsite was the first of our targets. We followed the instructions and made short work of the cache find, trying not to disturb the campers in residence - there was one tent there at the time. A very nice spot and cache, and a great adventure to get there, so +1 fave for that.

Joint FTF with Lostcourse, mitsimadman, Greenblat, CreedyNZ and rosmar. FTF #1348 TFTC!!!

Continued on http://coord.info/GC448B3 ...

This was an epic joint FTF up early with a combination of excitment and coldness lol, clothes on, food scofed, gear packed up and off to the jet boat!!, It was a great way to travel on a magical river, i will defently go back but do it by kayak next time, TFTC

Found with, Lostcourse, FMZ, Greenblat, Creedynz, Rosmar.

After a long trip in heavy traffic, followed by an overnight stop in Ohakune it was great to start the Whanganui River adventure with FMZ, Rosmar, GreenBlat, Lostcourse, Mitsimadman.

First stop was to collect the FTF at Ngaporo.

Great camping spot

Published