Island Rock (Auckland) Saint Heliers, North Island, New Zealand
By M@ on 16-Apr-02. Waypoint GC4E31

Definitely the largest find of the day. Found with PhilBirdBoys. TFTC.

Nice easy spot thanks to the great size container! Hint not massively helpful, just follow GPS. SL TFTC

This was our last find after a day exploring the island and a solo excursion for Mr Coblet as Mrs Coblet waited at the beginning of the Wilson trail.It was a pleasant walk to GZ, although a bit more treacherous than expected as the rocks that make up the trail are very sharp. Once at GZ it was a reasonably quick find after moving a bit off the trail. What a nice sized cache and one that has been here for a while so a great one to find.While Mr Coblet was finding the cache Mrs Coblet was resting on a seat which just happened to be beside another cache we had found on a previous excursion to the island when a couple of people turned up and started acting a bit suspicious. But Mrs Coblet recognised the behaviour immediately and asked it they were looking for a cache, which immediately made their faces light up when they realised they were in the company of another geocacher.After foraging around a bit they found the cache just as Mr Coblet returned and we all had a brief chat before we headed off to catch the ferry home.Thanks for the cache tofska and nice to meet you buzzlightyears

Realised we were still navigating to the previous so had to walk back 300m for this...only to realise that we'd found this back in 2021 and forgot to log it. Doh. The bucket lid is cracked and the bucket full of water. The log was in a bad shape

Day 13: Rangitoto and back againTodays business was to get one more high T cache in Rangitoto that I needed to complete my D/T grid and any other caches that happen to be along the way. Todays sunny weather meant that Rangitoto was quite warm, but the avid cacher persists despite the challenges that the terrain and weather presents. It was quite the tiring day but I always enjoy my Rangitoto excursions. Thanks everyone for the insane challenges on the island, though I couldnt get to quite a number of them owing to time.(End of the cut and paste bit)This was a fairly amusing find, its a bit incredible to see a cache just appear after scaling the bank of lava rocks there. The cache was spotted from quite a distance but I will note that the lid is broken and the cache has become a little flooded. The logbooks are also a tad damp and barely useable. Thanks for this humongous and old cache on the island! TFTC!

What a great cache! Bucket needs a new lid but contents fairly dry. And a trackable!TFTC!#??2?? of the day

Found it quickly on my way to the summit.
Left some high heels here…
TFTC

Yeah, I've found that the lid makes no difference. As long as the drainage holes are clear and the bag is solid, the contents will remain dry.
Cheers, M@

This geocacher reported that the container is damaged.

Today was the last day we were here on the Island with team HeMaLuDy, and as this was my first time here I thought I need to get to the top.....so I set out around 7:30am for the summit, which saved me being out in the heat of the day, and dealing with many muggles that would arrive with the ferry sailings.....good choices, as I had the trail all to myself.....

Let's see how far I get....

The sun has disintegrated the lid for this allowing rain entry.

TFTC.

Tftc! Amazing lava fields. Cool container but lid is broken. Needs a new lid headed back downwards now

Found as part of the Team Rangi group. Took us longer than it should have to find this one. Sometimes too many cooks lead each other in the wrong direction!

Set out today with a group of cachers on a midwinter trip to Rangitoto. Lava fields were navigated, caches were found, logs were signed, and a great day was had here, thanks to all involved!

I was excited for this one since it's a very old cache, been going for 19 years now! The log was wet but signable (Edit: That's what I made a note of, but apparently not, sorry about that). We did have to check several of the hint items before we found the good sized container. TFTC!

Headed over to Rangitoto with a group of cachers with the aim of finding many of the new caches on the island, particularly the ones along the lava fields. It was a slow journey over to Rangi through the thick fog, but once we arrived the fog started to clear and the weather warmed up nicely. It was an enjoyable day, with no injuries and many finds. Log signed as Team Rangi.

The cache was finally found, further afield than we initially looked. The cache was smashed and the log was too wet to sign.

I think I left the track too early here and spent a fruitless time checking options before others on Team Rangi made the find and all was good.

The much awaited (couple of weeks) trip to Rangitoto Island is here and we start off with a pre-departure event over on Downtown for sure at an ice-cream parlour to get festivities underway. I headed across to Downtown from Devonport and it is a really foggy day today, as well as the trip to the island also being real foggy and took a little while. 6 hours on this newbie island was enough to snag over 30 caches, spend some time in real good company with 'Team Rangi' (logs signed as), and head across the unstable and sharp lava fields. A good day and the sun burnt the fog off eventually, as well as my nose and forehead! Thanks to all COs for their placements and efforts here.

Spent a half day on Rangitoto finding a few caches and seeing the sights. Thanks to the CO's for the variety of caches, and nice to see some large caches in great spots. Yay for a decent sized cache! Unfortunately, the lid is shot and while the bucket is still in good nick a new lid would keep the rain off the contents. TFTC

We were lucky enough to be able to book one of the DoC baches on the island for a couple of nights so we worked on finding the caches around the bach and on the way to the summit (as much as the reluctant caching teens would allow. Mr HeMaLuDy did the honours finding this one.

I write "WRITE NOTE" because it's a time when we can't go on a long adventure, so I travel in the memories of my visits. That's why I'm only stretching the Travel Bug from the adventures in New Zealand. Writing "Found it" is no longer correct, but it wasn't today.

I am sending a beautiful greeting from the Czech Republic.

TFTC! #5

Took a bit of a detour to grab this cache. I'm pretty sure I have visited this cache on a previous visit but obviously forgot to log it. Given how old it is I was keen to make sure I found it again today so I could log it. The bucket lid has all but fallen apart but I did my best to make sure the container was water tight for the next finder. TFTC.

Another quick find as we were heading back down towards the ferry, CC did the honours here, cheers

“Let’s go over to Rangitoto and play in lava field.” Someone said. “It’ll be fun!”

Well, yes it was loads of fun, but man oh man those lava stones are an experience!

Out with the group to Rangitoto today, for me it will all new for caches, so I had lots to collect, other less so, surprisingly didn’t have a single DNF on the island!

Good day, good company! Thanks to all the COs who placed caches here, especially the ones in all the sharp jagged scoria stones!

Specifics on this cache :

Always wonderful to get such an old cache!

Unfortunately the container is in a sad stand, the lid is no longer holding, but the log was surprisingly dry.

Thanks for maintaining this cache all these years! I hope it continues for more!

Nice detour on way to summit TFTC

I enjoy finding large caches. I enjoy finding old caches. So it was good to get a two for one deal here.

As previously reported, the lid is pretty much wrecked but the contents of the container are in pretty good condition.

On the way down to catch the ferry home. Large container

After having a look around the baches near the wharf I left the rest to grab a few caches up around the summit track. This one was on the list to grab due to its size and age so I took the side track across the lava flows to grab it. No problems with the find and cache was remarkably dry considering the lid has now mostly perished - could do with a new 10L paint bucket cap if anyone has one to take across. All good here and nice to see one of this age going strong. TFTC.

Wow... That was a quick find and log...

Thank you for the cache

My 1348. Smiley on the map

For our morning walk we decided to get the caches up near the summit and then return for lunch before the forecasted rain. We just made it back before the forecasted rain but we did not make it back for lunch. Getting back at around 4pm. Did the summit ones then decided we would just get a few around the edge of the island. What an Epic walk. Have been to Rangitoto a number of times but this is the first since I start caching. Thanks for all the hides.

Its massive, so many logs to choose from. Have signed one of them.

Tftc. Out on first trip to the island

Greetings from Austria tftc fotolog

Over for two weeks and while the wife is at work for the first week I get to go play. A few people had recommended that I visit the island and I am glad I listened. I had a fantastic hike. I am also glad I brought my hiking boots (they got a nice clean when I declared them on the way in!) as I had hiked on lava previously in Hawaii, so I knew they would make life easier.

Man it was hot at GZ, glad I found it quite quickly. I was amazed with the amount of large containers I found today. TFTC.

I was standing on the hill and heard muggles. I was in plain sight but they did not look up as they went past.

Lid broken but dry inside. Sadly run out of tb's to drop.

We used the first Fullers ferry this morning to get to the island. A long hot sunny day hiking and geocaching, we ended up on the 4pm ferry back. For this old cache we left the summit track for a while and thus detour was rewarded with a nice find.
TFTC!

So many large containers on this island, I'm happy I found this one!
The lid is broken indeed
TFTC

A big day on Rangitoto for us!

We had tickets for the (cancelled ) Metallica concert but the airfares were paid for and accommodation booked, so we decided to still come up for a look around (& some caching). I'm the mad cacher, Not Manly Jack (my wife) somewhat more reluctant though she tolerates me. It! I mean she tolerates it! 

Unfortunately we were travelling light, with only carry on bags, so my caching gear was still in Christchurch. All I had was a pen (+ a spare) and a pair of plastic tweezers. No spare logs, bags, or containers, so I couldn't help with maintenance on any caches that may have needed it, I'm afraid.

Apologies, too, for the cut & paste portion of my logs (for those COs who have multiple caches I've found), I'll add a personalised bit below.

This one was a DNF for me. I won't say it's not there though, as we were tight for time (before the last ferry off the island) so I was searching at a run. Having said that, I did feel like I saw several hint items.
Thanks anyway. I'll have to come back now!

Wandered a bit, but got there in the end. We came over on the ferry
Greetings from Wales
TFTC

Giant cache for me. Thanks for the cache.

I had hoped to kayak to the island however there were no tours going that fitted my schedule in Auckland so I got the ferry. Maybe next time I'm in Auckland. Lid has seen better days but log is still nice and dry. TFTC M@

#8773

Nothing there

#3,491: Oldie Smiley!
I came out to Rangitoto with my wife, GeoYoungling #3, and father-in-law today. Weather was changeable, but stayed nice for most of the day. We took the motorised tour from the dock area, and had some time to grab a couple of caches. Turned out that my GY#3 and I decided to walk down anyway, along a track I'd not taken before (this one), and so we had a nice long walk of it!
After a short search, I was able to make the find. Lid has seen better days, but hopefully this oldie-but-goodie will last!
SL/TFTC!!

**Find #2610**

**NZ #78**

On holidays from Australia and caching as we go. Enjoying a second day on the Island to grab a few more. A very old cache in a beautiful place. Nice to see a large cache. The lid may need some fixing.

Thanks **tofska**

TFTC.

Nice big cache to start the day. Its also one of the oldest caches we have grabbed.

Dancing Queen 25252, Yogiteam2 and myself are on a 4-weeks-geocaching-tour in New Zealand. Many thanks for the cache and best regards from three German geocachers.

Heute stand eine Tour nach Rangitoto Islands auf unserem Programm. Ein paar Caches auf der Insel haben wir natürlich auch eingesammelt. Der Weg zu diesem Cache war bei strahlender Sonne ganz schön beschwerlich. Trotzdem, die Wanderung und die Aussicht haben wir genossen. TFTC.

A good off-trail spot for this cache, just a little walk across the rough stuff. Back home we call these containers five-gallon pails, and they a popular choice for a large cache. Tried to leave the cover rock supported by ones on the sides to keep the weight off the fragile lid. TFTC

Meanwhile this is my third geocaching-trip to Middle-Earth . And I love it! [:X]
Still there are routes and places in this beautiful country, that are on the 'discover-me' list and want to be visited and explored. - e.g. Rangitoto Island [:X]
Day #12:
A trip to the Island was already planned to be part of the last NZ-visit 2 years ago
But unfortunately, due to awful weather-conditions [xx(], the prepaid ferry-trip had to be cancelled .
So this year the island called for a visit again [^] - and the weather was awesome! .
Out there mainly for the NZ-geocaching license challenges[:o)]. But with a 16+km walk I managed to find quite some more interesting geo-treasures, just like this one [^]:
Such a big container in the middle of the wilderness! [^] That’s cool!
Unfortunately, as reported before, the lid is broken [B)]. Have Carefully restored everything and hope this is OK.
Thanks to the owner [:X] for placing and maintaining this cache and best regards from Germany!

Heute gabs einen mehr oder weniger spontanen Ausflug zum Rangitoto. Also die Fähre geschnappt (knapp noch die frühere geschafft) und los gings auf die Insel. Erst mal musste ich mich aus der ganzen Menge rauslösen, um überhaupt mal gemütlich laufen zu können und nach den Caches suchen zu können. Zu Cachen gabs ja vieles auf dieser Insel.
Am Nachmittag bin ich dann auch noch auf eine nette Gruppe Cacher, Neucacher und Muggels gestossen

Der Deckel des Caches ist leider hinüber und verschliesst den Behälter nicht mehr dicht.

Dieser Geocacher hat gemeldet, dass der Behälter beschädigt ist.

On our 45th day in New Zealand we stayed in Auckland. We took the ferry out to Rangitoto and had a look at this great volcano so close to the city. We had also time to look for some caches.
This one here made us search quite a bit despite it's size! But GPS sent us back and forth and we looked here and there. On a second check of this location we eventually found this large box. It's well hidden but from the right angle one can see it. Tried to hide it the same way so that the broken lid does not cause too much damage.
TFTC and greetings from Switzerland

For today a tour to Rangitoto Island was planned. The weather was pretty good. Had a great tour with many nice caches. Some of them I could easily find, some took a while and some stood hide. Many thanks for planting and taking care of all this caches
redfeger

An unserem vorletzten Tag in Neuseeland wanderten wir auf Rangitoto Island auf den Gipfel. Rauf und runter nahmen wir verschiedene Routen, hoch den Main Track, hinab gings über den Wilson's Park Track. Beim Austieg waren einige vonMuggeln belagert. Auf dem Wilson waren wir alleine.
Bei diesem dauerte es etwas, bis wir in in den Händen hatten. War doch gegen zehn Meter abseits. TFTC

Last of the day, a little worse for were with a broken lid, but is should hold out for a while more

Ein schneller Fund unter Verwendung des Hints. T4TC from Germany

Nice big, old cache, if a bit worse for wear. Rock hopped over and soon saw the large cache.
Thanks Matt.

Find 3 of 19 on an epic 24km walk on Rangitoto Island. Wet weather was forecast but we went anyway and got lucky for the first three hours with just low cloud, then soaked for the next couple. Most finds were quick. The island is an amazing place - quite unique in our experience. Thanks to all the COs for placing and maintaining caches here.

The lid here is not clippable anymore and a rather large slab of rock has been left on top of the cache.

Took a while cause the GPS was jumping with all this "metal" rocks but finally found this mega box! Great place fo a cache!

Love + Thx Kate

This has been the last cache of my short visit to this beautiful island. I had a wonderful day there and the large cache made it even better!

TFTC
leoll

Found

Done

Out for a day of caching on Rangitoto, me and rusty. We hopped on the first boat and arrived here at 8am to the island and took the very last one back at 4pm, so all in all, we walked a solid 8 hours and 16km in beautiful weather! We’re not mucking around either, rusty wants to get as many caches as we can today for a goal of hers.

Came back here for rusty to claim this oldie.

Its been a busy day, finding caches with gorby

This was one of the must finds for me, as I had been in contact with the CO about doing some maintenance during this visit. We had hoped to come last weekend, but the weather was horrible with torrential rain. So we delayed until today, catching the 7.30 am boat from the city. Its winter, but you would not know it, its a beautiful sunny day.

So the plan is to do some duck tape repairs to the lid, so I have been carrying allllll this extra weigh

We took a short detour to this beautiful spot, and soon spied the hide.

Log signed, repairs made, and after a short lunch stop, we were on our way.

TB collected to move onto other adventures.

Thanks for the hide M@, cache all good to go.

Sunday trip to Rangitoto Island with companion of Jano216. Beautiful day on the island , blessed with good weather. We had pleasure to find several caches on the Island of Rangitoto this one was one of them. All caches found fairly quickly thanks to accurate coordinations and helpful hints. 16.2 km hike not too bad! Thanks for all placements on this interesting place ----- About this find -----> Nice size! We left two TBs here. All good at GZ. TFTC

Got up early this morning to meet Tramyard for our big trip at Rangitoto Island. The weather was perfect - in contrast to the previous days - so we could enjoyed awesome landscapes, beautiful views and, of course, a couple of nice and fairly hidden Geocaches.
Nice big box. Left some trackables here and picked some up.
Thanks for hiding this one!

I prefer an Island Hop to a Lava Leap. Tftc

We found this just as the description asks NOT to do..... it had a big heavy rock on it. BUT because the lid is destroyed and perished, that big heavy rock has probably helped keep most of the rain out. We left the rock on it but it may suffer this winter if it doesn't get a new container... all still ok so far though. Thanks for this very old cache... may it last another decade or two

Found in our holidays to New Zealand.
Greetings from Germany and

TFTC,

JuStMeMi

With the Planetary challenge currently on and the need to get a good number of caches to achieve all the souvenirs, a plan was made a while ago with DaffyNZ, to make an assault on Rangitoto Island today. Planning two weeks out, we hoped the weather would be good and thankfully today, is was just about perfect, except for the squally front that arrived just on ferry boarding time at 5:00pm.

Rangitoto was a place I had never been before, so I was keen to experience the unique geology and this caching game gave me a good reason to make the trip from up north. With DNZ’s partner along as well, we left before 5:00am to make sure of catching the 7:30 early ferry and once we set foot on the island, it was all go to find as many caches as possible during the day.

All up during the 9 hours before catching the last ferry back to Auckland, we clocked up over 33,000 steps for a distance of 22km, including almost 2km across jagged lava flows. We actively looked for 40 caches and managed to find 39 of them, with just one DNF, and this probably due to the rapidly approaching ferry departure time.

Thx to all the COs for placing and maintaining these caches and giving us an extra reason to make the journey to this neat place.

Heading back down the Wilson track before looping back up to the summit. A slight detour off track and this good sized container was soon located. TFTC

(3054) Out with the cache hound and 0B80B8 for a days adventure, caching on Rangitoto Island. We clocked up over 20 km walking the tracks and collecting the caches. Thanks for placing the caches on such a beautiful and unusual landscape. Slight detour of the track to collect this one.

On our way back down to the ferry after a successful day geocaching.took the slight detour off the track and wasnt long before we had our eye on this one.made our way over and signed the log.its a little wet but ok apart from that.

4. März 2018 14:41
We looked around and started searching. the tin was easy to find and we signed the logbook. Thank you for showing this view.

14:42 Uhr

With the right shoes no problem.

Humumgous cache that was luckily a quick find as it was, in fact, heavily covered with rocks! TFTC x

Reasonably quick find. TFTC.

On Rangitoto today filming a Cache Walk for our YouTube channel GeoRick. Will take a couple more visits to complete the filming. Met Feet_First while looking for the cache. With their help we found this big cache well hidden. The top is broken and could do with replacing. Nice hide. Thanks M@.

Nice set of caches along this track!

Easy find and quick log.

Many thanks for hiding this cache!

TFTC. Today’s activity was a visit to Rangitoto Island. I managed to fit in a few caches while I explored the unique environment and saw some amazing birds.
Nice to pick up an older cache.
Thanks M@ for placing the cache.

found eith wicm, tftc

Took a while to find this. I hadn't read the description in advance, so I didn't know it was such a large container (or old). When I did read it, it had me scratching my head - how could a 10L bucket be so hard to find? Then I spotted it - ah ha! As noted by others, the lid isn't watertight but the container is nice and dry (thanks to the hole in the bottom I guess). TFTC.

A pleasure to come and get this 15 year old geocache just after big blue switch day - very much an old school cache. Quite possibly the original container - the lid is doing it tough these days but the logbook inside is fine, fun to see the CO visit in 2009 to do maintenance. I've had landlords like that All good here and we signed the log. 2002 is the year that geowife came to live in New Zealand so a special year for us. Nice one, thanks for the cache - a fave from us for an old cache still going. Well done and thanks as usual.

2nd to last for the day and think its our oldest or second oldest GC to date and VERYY LARGE TFTC
Very happy we got this though top of cache is getting a little worse for where. Rim coming apart.

Now I can tick that one off the bucket list

This was the cache we wanted to find the most on our trip to Rangitoto, since it was so big and so old! We found the cache relatively easily after following the GPS off the track. Awesome to find our first larger cache.
Dropped off a Travel Bug, Dune Buggy, who is trying to make it to the West Coast of the USA. Hopefully some geocaching tourists will find it and deliver it closer to its destination!

For today I thought of taking a trip to Rangitoto Island. The weather wasn't as nice as I hoped it would be. But this made it easier to look for a few caches as there are a lot hidden on the whole island. The island is beautiful and definitely worth a visit when you are staying in Auckland for a few days.
So this really is a large box. But it took me a while to find it as there are plenty of places to hide it. The lid is a bit broken so that water is getting inside the box. I tried to pack the logbook as waterproof as possible but I don't think that this is enough. Thank you for the cache and happy hunting!

It's BIG! An easy find once you get off the track. TFTC

Huge cache container hidden amongst the rocks a little way off the track.

Awesome old school cache

I was looking forward to this one cause of its size. But couldn't drop anything cause lid is damaged. Little bit of a search for but made the find. Tftc

Fefe.adrien and I waited for days the sun to go to Rangitoto with the ferry. We spent all this beautiful day on the island. We did all the loop track (along the beach, across lava fields, the summit, lava caves etc. ).
So, we found as many caches as possible during this time. Unfortunately it is not possible to write a different log for each cache but most of them were easy to find with good coordinates and helpful hints.
Once again, thanks to this awesome game we could explore and discover further...

We signed on logbooks with our team name : Lekiprokos

Tftc

After waiting a few days for the rain to stop, Ninalila and I finally got a good opportunity to go to Rangitoto Island during a sunny day.
As we have almost all the day, we decide to start by the track along the sea before going to the summit, then to the lava cave and finally going back to the boat.
It was an amazing day where we could see really interestin volcanic features such as volcanic bombs, lava flows, the crater...
And the cherry on the cacke, we saw a few saddlebacks. We didn't expect to see this bird so we were more than happy to see them Really cute bird

To avoid wasting a lot of time, we decided to not search caches with a DNF before us.
All the boxes were easy to find and well maintened.
Not always easy to walk on the basalt rocks, but we managed to reach each boxes

We signed the logbook with our team name : lekiprokos

Thank you for the caches and the discoveries

5th of 27 finds on a Rangitoto loop today. I didn't check the size of this one as I approached the area. I was getting ready to be digging around in the rocks, when I looked up and saw something unusual. Funny how obvious it looks, but it's probably invisible from the track. Lid is cracked and there was some water in the container, but the logbook is doing fine. Thanks for the cache!

Came here on a day walk in perfect weather to explore some of the tracks around the island, Found quickly - despite the badly broken lid the inside of the cache is surprisingly un-wet. Signed log, TFTC

I had to search a few things that fitted the clue before I spotted the cache. Cache is still dry despite the broken lid. Luckily the rock holding it down is big.TFTC

It's a few more than 4 meters off the track, but still a good find. The lid has broken though so may need some attention soon. Tftc though.

Loving the lack of muggles and the fact that I don't have to fake tie shoe laces or pretend to take photos. I can rummage and contort as much as I want.

Great little find. Thanks. Needs a new container though. Lid damaged. Took a trackable.

Today I spend the whole day on Rangitoto Island for hiking and Geocaching. And it was a very good decision! Such a lovely and interesting island with quite a unusual landscape. And with lovely geocaches! Zhis very old one was - of cource - the main target today. I really love such old caches because they are usually placed at very nice locations. The same here: The Wilson's park treck is very nice, but not used very often by muggles. Perfect!

Thanks a lot for the cache.
dG

In: A favorite point for the old one

What a nice hike to the top of the island and amazing views over the whole region. This was one of the caches we found on Rangitoto Island and probably the best/biggest one! TFTC!

Found this on our tramping anniversary weekend. I nice detour. Stunning island.

GPS doing a bit of a dance and several clue items, but did not take too long, nice big container well hidden, ladt one for the day, it was o shite is that the time? we had better put our skates on to catch the ferry.

Oops, nearly forgot to log this one. My gps had me in a different place but urbangypsy was on to it thank goodness. We'd just signed the logs when we looked at the time, blimmin' heck, it's going to be a cracking fast walk back to the wharf if we want to catch the ferry!