Mile High Club (Central Otago) Butchers Gully, South Island, New Zealand
By Sonya, Deane and Alex on 17-Mar-13. Waypoint GC47WPA

An exciting 4x4 drive with our son. So cold & windy, but worth facing the elements to grab this cache. No problems finding this one. Thanks for placing this one in a beautiful remote area.

Cool spot. Good way to wrap up a day exploring the area

Lovely day up here today. Tftc

Awesome views

Windy cold day. Quick find

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thank you! Bit of snow and fog,but great spot

Stunning up here even though the road is a bit challenging

Hi there Sonya and Deane - an opportunity to hunt for a cache on Old Man Range came up today with a semi rush trip before the rain set in. We found the top of the range and Wayne (BIL) decided to ride down. Heather (my sister) rode her MTB further down then swapped with me. It was a fun morning finishing with lunch in Clyde. I found your cache at 1134am after a short search - and the container and log were both found to be in good condition unless noted in the Fieldnotes below. TN, LN, SL. Thanks to Sonya and Deane for this cache - the 1st of 1 finds for the day.

FieldNotes: The cache and log were both found in good condition.

On a tour of the area with Kiscardi. Great day with good views. i would not be keen to be up here in bad weather. Tftc

Thanks for the cache Sonya and Deane. Have had this cache on my bucket list since spotting, enjoyed a roadie up here today with Hal2929 and quickly found. Enjoyed the drive up Symes road. In good condition and a comfortable drive in 4WD Mazda CX5.

Drove up Waikaia Bush Road and across the top to here. Quickly found as the rain was falling. Decided not to go to the obelisk or get the Nicholson Hut cache as the weather has turned.
Thanks for the cache, Sonya and Deane
#2870

Started our 4WD day trip in Duthers Saddle, finishing in Fruitlands.

Decided to do some cache hunting on the tail end of trip.

Needs a new pen but otherwise a cool little cache with amazing views!

TFTC!
Charlotte & Jordy

Bringing my partner up here for the first time. Missed this one last time I was up here

Heading home after spending Christmas in Cromwell and Gadget169 said right let's go get this one! We had an unsuccessful attempt about 6 months ago when GZ was covered deep in snow. Certainly not the case this time and after being able to drive right to GZ this time the find was soon made. There is no way we would have retrieved the cache last time!!! Glad to finally have a smiley here and a definite favorite from me TFTC

He even outsmarted the young ones and found the cache

A bit of a cold grey day, looked a bit like snow wasn't far away. Made a quick trip up to see the obelisk. Couldn't resist grabbing a few caches. TFTC Sorry for late log.

Yay, I made it! Amazing place to be, and I am most grateful for the sunscreen my daughter makes as otherwise I would have turned into charcoal! Not many places to hide from the scorching sun, and a bit of distance to cover on foot. Best place to be on a nice day!!! TFTC!!!

In Alexandra for the Easter holiday long weekend. Heading for a looksee around Butchers Dam & Mitchell's Cottage.....having visited Mitchell's cottage and found the Multicache there I saw there were a couple more caches "just up the road".....family were dubious but up for the challenge.....Great drive up with awesome views. Woohoo - above the clouds. No time to explore much up here as other things planned for the day & we needed to head back down. Pleased to have driven up - awesome.

Found

Amazing. Tftc

It's been around 25 years since we were last up here, in a Toyota Corona, and the drive up was tricky then. We needed to stop half way up to cool the radiator. With a 4WD now, hubby wanted to see if the road was as he remembered it. He was amazed that we actually got the old car all the way to the top, or maybe the road is slightly rougher now. Anyway, we drove on to the Obelisk, then came back and found the caches on the way down. This was the first of 3 and now our highest cache.

An adventure to the top and then onto a hut. Walked from the bottom. Snow become an issue. Was fun to walk in and different terrain. Snow was an issue at GZ as I dug for a cache. Was a little worried after some digging. Moved a little and seen a stone out of sorts and seen a cache. Tftc

Great cache and great view. 4WD to get there. Thanks

Have wanted to get this for a while now as the last time I planned to get this it was during winter and the snow up here gets very deep about a meter of 2. This is now my highest. Cache I have found dead so far. But now will have to find higher. I found a geocoin in this cache that was supposed to be in the cache down the hill a bit but somehow was here. Oh well it has been for for about a year so I will take it for a ride for a while. TFTC

Up here riding along the top & realized this might be a good spot for a cache - & here it is! Thanks.

Found with friends

Great views

Awesome views

Mammoth effort to get this one but so worth it!

11.45: On the way from Alexandra to the Old Man Rock and more. Worth to mention: the highest point in New Zealand that we have reached by 4WD so far (1615m and still more to come). And more beautiful view all around. Some metres off the track I had to realize that 9°C turn out to be really cold walking barefoot[xx(]. And now even the search took a while around the rocky outcrop: cold, wind...I want to be back in a warm place[|)]...What's going on here? We came for NZ-summer!

Weather: overcast, very gusty wind (nasty), 9°C (went down to 4°C at the top), still a lot of snow on the mountains around;
Wheelchair: possible in general - wide, mostly even track, but pushing up here[?]->[xx(];
State: all good.

IN & OUT: nothing.

Thank you for bringing us here, another favourite point goes out for this one!
Oliver+Gabi

Have never been up to the top of the Old Man in a vehicle before, and realised we had never been here in summer before either... what an amazing view! Parked the car, had a late morning tea and started biking to Kopuwai Snow Shelter.

Managed to get up the hill in a 2WD Toyota Corolla but the road is pretty rough in places and it probably isnt too smart to come up in a low ground clearance vehicle. Got away with it ..... this time.
Great views but a feezing cold wind so couldn't linger outside the vehicle.
MAny thanks

Far too cold to do the mile high thing properly.
Road is in great condition at present, being dry and without snow all the way to the top. That could easily change when the next front comes through. This is a very serious place for weather conditions.
No trouble driving up in our 4 x 4 Hiace van. three of us then rode south with a great tail wind and came off the hill at Coal Creek. A great ride though it has a few serious ruts with potential for big injury on some of the down hill.
It is amazingly dry. We have been up here before on Christmas day when there were huge bog holes and big snow patches.

No overheating problems getting to here with a manual Subaru Forester, and no brake problems on the way down either. We were probably a little slower on the way up than the CO. It was calm and sunny here, rather more pleasant than when we have made this trip on previous occasions. After finding the cache we walked further along to the experimental tussock plot where there is an informative and interesting notice board.
+ a marble, - nothing.

"A 4WD vehicle is a must" Is access for motorbikes now banned?

I am so glad that we were the first to join the mile high club. Our 2nd FTF. Our 1st one was last Thursday.

We have always wanted to join a mile high club. We've done it,although were member number two to Manyana.What an awesome place.

This entry was edited by Reality Cheque on Thursday, 21 March 2013 at 23:19:38 UTC.

This entry was edited by Reality Cheque on Thursday, 21 March 2013 at 23:25:35 UTC.

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