The Giant Pukeko (Waitomo/Waikato) Otorohanga, North Island, New Zealand
By Jambocacher on 15-Jan-14. Waypoint GC4WAV3

Day 44 of our Enzed adventures with Robmc and today was all about the caves with the 3 of us touring the main cave and the boat ride. Afterwards we had time for a tour around the area including this interesting little town.Love a blue chook.Thanks for contributing to an amazing holiday.

Day forty four of our epic New Zealand Adventure with The Morris.A day around the caves at Waitomo and the small towns nearby.The Glow worm cave in the morning, and the Otorohanga Kiwi House in the afternoon.(We had to see one before we departed these shores!)Sure is a big bird!Mr Morris spotted this while I was looking elsewhere.Thanks, Robmc.

Found & stickered! Cheers

First New Zealand find! Lovely location.

Husband found it!

Today we visited Otorohanga and found this tradition good during a walk .Thanks for showing the place.MPLC and greetings from us from Germany.

A nice little roadside catch! Thanks!

Clever hide Didnt see any pukekos today here (but saw later), besides ghe giant one - only some ducks and a goose swimming around. Thanks!

Lovely little spot with some friendly ducks nearby! We personally think Takahe are better

We used the stick to get it out. great hiding spot. We found two duck eggs on the way.

Sissy found it

Quick find

Nice quick find thank you

Easy park and find thanks despite muggles. Rock in the middle is a comfy seat

Quick find, had to avoid the little ducks. TFTC

Found this. Not able to get it out of its tight spot but could see it. Thank you for the hint.

A nice and easy stop on the way to Wanganui. Past this many many times Anna always wanted to stop. Thanks for the excuse. Tftc

Nicee

At the ducks eye level

Nearly lost my tool accessing this Needed a tool for my tool lolNice little find , #5 on my return road trip from Kirikiriroa to Tokomaru Mihi ki a koe mo te keteroki

Cool little find. Ducks came up for a talk too

a neat little find on a foggy morning.

Sick

TTFC

Only realised what the hint meant as we were leaving and making use of the tools lying by the bin to get the cache out. Nice one, thanks

I found it out with Wisewarrior and Littlehawk. Didnt find it where I expected to find it. TFTC

Very nice location for a little break. Without GC we would have missed the Giant Pukeko

Trouve ! / Found it ! De passage par ici pour une autre cache, j'en profite pour trouver celle ci. La recherche sera rapide.5371me cache trouve.Merci Jambocacher pour la cache Passing through here for another cache, I took the opportunity to find this one. The search will be quick.5371th cache found.Thank you Jambocacher for the cache

Cool little cache. Didnt quite get the hint, but one of the team found it

Cool find

Nice park and grab with the whariki whanau on our way home from bjj comp in Taranaki this weekend. Made the trip so much cooler to tick off some finds on the way home.

#14,988. Park and grab in Otorohanga. Good spot to view the giant pukeko. Fortunately, the GZ was all quiet at the time of our visit. Found after a short search. Retrieved with a natural tool nearby. The cache was in good condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.*Thanks for the geocache placement, and for bringing us to this site, and **.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.**.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.*---### LET US HAVE A BLOCK PARTY!!! ###On **May 3rd, 2025**, we will be celebrating 25 years of geocaching in **Rotorua, New Zealand** with a special **Block Party** event. Join us to celebrate 25 years of this amazing game, and that the very first geocache hidden outside of the United States, 25 years ago, was hidden here in New Zealand.You do not want to miss this event, so check out the ["25 Years of Geocaching NZ! (GCAKR25)" event page]( https://coord.info/GCAKR25) and [event website](http://25years.geocache.nz) for more details, join the [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/924894455969387) group, and sign up to the [email list](http://25years.geocache.nz?p=4) to get updates...If you intend to come, please make sure you get your ["Will Attend" log]( https://www.geocaching.com/live/geocache/GCAKR25/log) onto the page as soon as you can in order to assist with planning the first ever Block Party in New Zealand.**Happy caching and we will see you in 2025!**---

Easy find. The geese are guarding it well

Beautiful spot to enjoy nature

Great hiding hole, TFTC

Stopped here for a picnic lunch while driving through to Auckland. Didn't know this reserve was here. Thanks for bringing me here.

4-week family trip through NZ - Find #51!Before starting our drive to Rotorua today, we had a quick look t the Giant Pukeko. A few smaller live ones were also here . The cache was a quick find thanks to the good hint. To retrieve it, I borrowed a "tool" from Mother Nature .TFTC!

Nach einiger berlegung und einem Hilfsmittel doch gefundenDankeTFTC

Divert off the cycle trail for quick find

We startetd the day with the Taranaki Fall Trail in Tongariro National Park incl the reaminng LOTR caches in this area. In the afternoon we arrived in Otorohanga where we still the next night.Nice hide but we found the right spot quite soon. After signing the logbook we put the cache back.Thanks for hiding and maintaining the cache.Happy hunting!TFTCschnuckel1[#24195]

Making our way from Hamilton to New Plymouth today - grabbed a few caches on the way. While Viv searched one - Tim searched another and Tim found it TFTCTim and Viv - ddm

Cool spot, easy find. TFTC!

Travelling around NZ with the geo family, logging finds sporadically as we go. Parked under some shade besides this GZ on this hot day. Found cache with a little search, with some help from description. No hook on cache. Tftg!

Trying to get the geocaches before we head home tomorrow. Quick find here. TFTC

TFTC - found 4/1/24 but logging today. GreT hide and found while on a walk with granddaughter. Have never seen a Pkeko this big

TFTC - great cache find on a walk with Gmarsh360

Found it with the Bartholomeusz

You will need to use nearby resources to retrieve this one

DNF

I returned to this spot today with a disabled client. I have found this cache before so know where it was hidden. Checked the other possible location as well just in case but not their either. May have been muggled.

No find for us today. We found the obvious spot of where it could be, but looks like it is missing.

Enjoyed the giant bird and the variety of birds on the pond. TFTC

What a lovely spot to stop for a cache. The sun is even shining today. Love the pukeko!! TFTC

Stopped off heading south. Tricky hide in high muggle zone. Excellent clues TFTC

Had to find a suitable retrieval tool but soon had it sorted . Thanks

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Bit of trickery but found it in the end great find but a little damp took us a few minutes well done team

Today we are driving from Whanganui to Auckland so super early start. Had a list of 10 caches to find on the way to break up the journey.
It was a pretty miserable day weather wise but the scenery was fab. Was a shame we didn’t get to see the mountains.
Council are doing earthworks in the car park here so initially we could not access. Tried again after lunch and we could park on the road and enter. A short search revealed the hide. TFTC

Found it! Stopped off to do this one on the way back to Hamilton from our visit to Waitomo Caves.
Sneaky little spot. My sister was convinced that I was looking in the wrong spot, until the cache appeared! Hehe.
Thanks!

Passing through on our way back from Waitomo Caves to Hamilton, we stopped to pick up a couple of local caches. MrsCowell was quite sure she knew were it was, while I looked elsewhere.

She turned out to be right, of course. Signed the log, returned as found. TFTC!

Nice easy find here this morning while it was nice and quiet, TFTC

TFTC. Clue makes most sense when you’re here.

Belle découverte !

MPLC

TFTC. Quick find at the end of a great day.

Pretty easy find

We stopped here last year for lunch and found a previous version of this cache. Today, we went to the kiwi house and made a slight detour on the way back to find it. TFTC

spent 6 great weeks in New Zealand with my The start was a bit bumpy (Cyclone Gabrielle) but then it got better and better. We travelled to both islands and discovered a lot. We photographed and filmed many beautiful things, but most of it stayed in our hearts.
Almost everywhere we stopped, a cache was already waiting for us. Most of the caches are well maintained and easy to find.

With mostly very nice weather, we saw a lot of this impressive island. In many places, caches were waiting for us, which were sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to find. This cache was also included and was successfully signed

We puzzled a lot in advance and the tours were well prepared
So this box was also well found.

now I have another on my personal cache card.

many thanks to [^] **Jambocacher** [^] for the effort and the cache and greetings from Germany

TFTF

**Geistercacher**
#34297

Great place to stop for a coffee and pick up a cache. On our way from Piopio to the Mount. Cool hide. TFTC

A nice quick find. A short stick nearby helped with extraction. Log book could use some TLC but found a place to sign. A nice little spot in our last day as we head home. Thanks for the placement.

Great set up.

TFTC

That was a awesome geocache little warning you might have to poke it with a stick there I'd no hook

We found the cashe but were not able to write in a log because its if all filled up. Great find though

We found it. Yay.

Headed over this way to ensure we saw a Kiwi in the nearby nature refuge before returning to Australia. This was not a kiwi.

Nice quick find. Beautiful day in the Waikato

TFTC. Beautiful pukeko

I recall trying to find this cache last time I was in Otorohanga but was unable to search due to the presence of muggles. I had no such problems today and was able to quickly complete my mission.

Cool picture opportunity especially with muggles lurking #7 today on our trip to waitomo

Easy find

Clever place to hide it . Thanks

Nice and easy. Had to get it quickly tho

Good find. Bit of a stinky place but beautiful. Hint was helpful

First time in a long time coming through this beautiful town. Loved the location and the hint was helpful! Tftf

Drizzly bike ride - great place to bring me to - tftc

Second time looking here and we found it (after reading the hint) cute little cache, we added an extra find for the next person. Log book smells and needs replacing soon. Cool spot

On my way home from a wonderful weekend in Otorohanga and Hamilton , thanks for this one what a wonderful sopt!

A fun find in a beautiful place. Lots of people about so sat and had a rest on the rocks. Log book damp but still writeable. Thanks for the cache.

Good

Found with goldielover today just passing through your lovely town.
A great location pity the viewing platform has gone.
TFTC

Found with stairman1. Lots of muggles sitting in front of gz. A little bit of stealth located it. Log book was wet. I dried it out. TFTC

On our way to Waitomo to see the bioluminescent fungus gnats and have an abesiling adventure. Our guide for the glowworm tour was from this town. Thanks for bringing us here. Greetings from the United States! TFTC!

First for today. Heading home. Thank you. Good cache. Wouldn't have come here otherwise

Found it

Over visiting family over from the UK, Lovely place, quick find with Louf71 then it started raining.TFTC (Sorry for the very very late Log, between limited Data, some issues with our travel, some personal issues and a build up meaning the ADHD couldn't cope tackling these but finally getting logged Please forgive)

Cool place to hide the cache. All good with cache.

Great find Tftc

This is the second go at this clever little hide. Makes it so much more difficult with it being in such a public spot and trying to look inconspicuous.
It is a gorgeous afternoon in Otorohanga and my constant companion Maisie, my Mini Schnauzer enjoyed the romp with some local dogs.

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