Avonhead Forks (Canterbury) Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand
By troutburger on 06-Jan-14. Waypoint GC4WH01

I am regretfully archiving this cache since there's been no response from nor action by the cache owner within the time frame requested in the last reviewer note.

Too high for me to get it

Pretty disappointed. A few thoughts:

- Asking someone to scale the tree in question is simply irresponsible. The branches overhang concrete also. '25ft' high is almost 8m high. This is actually very high without any sort of equipment (considering a standard roof on a house is 4-5m high...)

- The fact this hasn't been found since September 2019 should indicate maintenance/ an assessment of the GC is required. A reviewer has also posted a log to address this. Why has nothing been done, or the reviewer disabled the GC until the above has been carried out?

- The tree has been trimmed recently. I climbed 3-4m up (which was as far as I could comfortably go) & there was clear evidence of branches being cut. The GC could well be missing also...

- See the photo for comparison. My partner is 1.92m tall. He's standing at the base of the tree. Does the owner plus the reviewers really think it's sensible to ask people (even kids!) to scale 8m high over concrete? I'm really disappointed this GC was accepted to be honest. Waste of my time.

Even though we sent one of the kids up he could’ve find it and it wasn’t the best climbing tree.

We sent the two youngens up the tree but we all got a bit nervous and called time on the hunt. Getting them back down had a few hair-raising moments!

Didnt find had a climb to

Sorry little short legs plus other health issues will prevent me doing this one.

Still Cleaning up from the caching trip in October, Sorry for all the late logs
The (major road trip was about to begin) that was for the Oamaru Geofest trip in the company of HKCB and iammrwalker for a bit of a road trip across to the west coast, through Haast and in a roundabout way to Oamaru.

My trip stats were as follows: 617 caches (214 Puzzles), 3300kms, 500 litres of Petrol, 21 hours sleep, 100+hours caching time. THe weather was wonderful and apart from about a 6hour period on the sunday we had fine weather all the way and feel that we made a bit of a hole in the region.

Firstly thanks to all the CO's that put in the effort to to set up these caches and to all the CO's whose caches we did not find this trip, well we are already planning our next trip.
We worked hard at getting specific caches (especially the Geo Art around christchurch and hence our concentration on this area for the preliminary 24 hours. So after a couple of running repairs to the rental vehicle (fuses not working) we were off knowing that all ports could be charged and that sleep was for the weak.

Sorry about the copy and paste logs but that is what tends to happen with a number run of this size. What a day this was going to be and a chance to have a good look around the area. It was amazing to wake up after having afull nights sleep and not have that sand in the eyes feeling and sore back from sleeping in the back of a car. Starting the day off working our way along the coast, followed by a spot of inland caching before making it back to Oamaru for a bite to eat followed by a bit more caching.

this was the last of a few caches that we grabbed on the final morning of the tour. A real big thank you to all the CO's for the extrodinary effort that they have gone to to keep these caches maintained for the likes of us passing through.
For this one went sent in HKCB as hes our goto guy for these caches

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Did you know that planning has started for a Mega Event in Wellington in 2018? Check out the details on the [WENZ Website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's page on [FaceBook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/) and don't forget to log your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page](https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellington?guid=23f451a2-08ac-4374-883f-ed6814687147/)

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Came down this way from the North for the Oamaru Geofest, and decided to add a few more days to the weekend trip and turn it into a bit of a Mega mission, starting 5pm on Wednesday 18th and finishing 3pm Monday 23rd! Teaming up with Cats&Dragons for the first 24 hours then with Iammrwalker joining the team for the remainder.
Just a few of the stats for the trip were:
- 700 caches found, including 270+ puzzles (thanks to the Christchurch Geoart)
- 3300 km's driven, using over 500L of fuel $$$
- Just over 20 hours of sleep (about 4 per day on average), and about 100 hours of caching time.
Certainly a Mega Trip!

Day 6: Time to head home but of course we are going the long way to visit the church at Mt. Peel and the Canturbury CANZ cache before heading off to catch the plane.

Grabbing a final few caches before heading to the airport and spotted this terrain rating and thought why not. It can't be that hard. Had a quick look at the cache page to see what the D/T rating for and realising this was a tree climb it was going to be right up my alley. However the last 6 days of caching and little sleep was starting to take it toll so I knew I was going to have to be careful for this climb. Getting started was definately not as graceful as it usually is, but no up I began the search. This was a very difficult hide and in a even harder place to sign it. It took some time and a careful methodical search to locate. With all the easier places searched without luck I knew I had to start heading to the spots I was hoping it wouldn't be. After searching for about 15mins I was just about to give up as I was near the limit and then I spotted the great hide a little bit above me. Managed to get into a position to use my hands to retrieve and sign the cache, a bit scary this high up. I was so hoping not to drop the cache as I wasn't to keen on climbing up again. Luckily I managed to get the log signed and back into place. A really challenge of a cache and well worth a fav point.

Sorry about the cut and past logs, but that seems to happen with cache runs of this size!

I found this Geocache on a Geocaching mega mission along with Cats&Dragons and HKCB. With only just over three and half thousand Geocache finds I was very much the over achiever in training. We were in the South Island to support the Oamaru Geofest event, hunt down some Jasmar and D/T harder to find Geocaches, lonely caches (those not found in more than 6 months), virtuals and try and meet some milestone numbers. We signed the logs HIC, an abbreviation of our respective Geocaching names, (H)KCB, (I)ammrwalker and (C)ats&dragons. A huge thanks to all the CO’s who placed and maintain the Geocaches we found.

I arrived in Christchurch late Thursday evening having left straight from work and was picked up by my intrepid companions in our four wheel drive rental to find they had already grabbed about 270 finds in the previous twenty four hours. I wonder if the rental company would have still let us have it had they known we would travel 3300km in it before returning it four days later? Our trip took us to Greymouth via Arthurs pass, Ngahere, down the west coast to Haast across to Hawea, Cromwell, Twizel, Aoraki Mt Cook, Tekapo, onto the east coast up to Oamaru and back up to Christchurch via Akaroa and countless diversions and small towns along the way. We slept in the car for the first two nights, grabbing some shut eye between cache finds, taking turns to drive. We rented a small place in Oamaru for the other two nights and appreciated a bed to sleep in and a hot shower. It was an amazing trip, in which I discovered the South Island has some of the most incredible scenery in the world.

We were on our way to the airport when we spotted this interesting DT combo and made a detour. Its a tough climb and more than a little scary but we got there in end.

15:04
Ah, I'm back!
And this time, I got it! No wonder I couldn't spot this one the last time - it's well disguised. This time, I just chose my forks and climbed up until the cache was very close and then I had no doubt that that must be it - there was simply no other place a cache could hide!
The logbook was a total mess though, unrecoverable. There was no point even trying to dry it, it was just a complete rotting mushball. Some insects had laid eggs in it and the ziplock bag was torn and ripped.
I put in a replacement paper. I had nothing on me that would protect it from water so it will definitely get wet but then again, there is no bag now, so it will also be able to dry by itself.

Enjoyed climbing the tree, it really has a lot of forks! Almost like a maze where the right choice of splits would lead the geocacher to the find!

TFTC!
#5330

17/09/2017 8:15:00 AM
8458
With the event in town today, mum and I planned a quick mission to get a few caches early morning before it! So we packed the ladder in the car boot amongst other things, and headed off to find some caches that would probably be better to be found when there is not many people around!
So I left the baby at home with hubby, and snuck out with them all still in bed!

I'd been here once before, and had had an unsuccessful search in the dark... but today was a different story! Mum and I were prepared - though unfortunately the ladder didn't help as much as we had hoped! But having had a few hints, had a much better idea of where to search.

We then had one more PAF while in the area, and finally spotted & found the cache! Woo hoo!!!! Attempted to etch our names, but not much luck with that.

So nice to knock this off!

TFTC!!

As there was an early morning event in town, we decided with sonia26642 to head out even earlier and knock a few off the list. We kitted ourselves out with a ladder and some coffee to be suitably equipped for both high D and high T hides Not an easy find by any means here. We had to PAF which narrowed down the options slightly, but it still took a while to spot. The logbook could use a replacement. I have to say that I felt that the T rating may have been a little low here - I was actually getting worried about Sonia up there!Luckily she did make it safely down also. TFTC!!

Nothing here

Climbed up about 5m, but it's getting dark. Also, climbing 7 1/2m with no ropes isn't to be encouraged

Thanks to my awesome son I have this one but log is complete mush sadly. Photo proof only.

DNF
Wanted to continue my glorious quest of knocking down all the tree climbing caches in ChCh (well, not literally - knocking down [:o)]) but this one wouldn't give in. Have to give it another go.

Found it, logbooks stuffed though

After picking up the car from the car Dr I decided some therapy was needed and why try thus cache again. No people about again so I goofed up the tree. Managed the right fork and found the cache. But alais it was wet but managed to scribe mcb on it. Thank you for bringing me to this place and placing this cache troutburger from Mr Cuddly Brick , cache 1338 on this mighty day the 22 June 2016 Mr Cuddly Bricks You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCspYYJI5ZIvUE9ncq1_rpYw

Climbed but no see

Climbed and climbed

tftc

TFTC. Good tree climb cache, well placed, worth its T points. No muggles to witness. Unfortunately log sheet is sodden. Signed as best I could BJ25.

New log sheet. Try waterproof??

Got it, but didn't sign (a bit too windy to be writing up there)

Well, I came by and had a looksee. Hmmm. I'll have to come back with some reinforcements. Nice idea!!

Found a while ago but forgot to log it. Great cache.

Tftc

First 2m was easy! Standing in the main fork, my fear of heights came back and I decided to leave this for another day. Couldn't see it anyway. Must be a good hide.

Spent the afternoon geocaching in the Avonhead area. Found 11 caches out of 11. This One was not on the list - no ladder, too much arthritis. just stopped to have a look out of interest! Nice little reserve and an interesting climb I'm sure! We will return when feeling better and equipped with the appropriate gear. Rodney and Iris.

Quick find.

Second visit with ladder! Stopped climbing at cloud level! Planes buzzing close by. No sign of this sucker!

On a caching mission with nztikes with one tike up the tree still a dnf for us

I came I saw I looked I smiled I left.

Found the tree but no cache

We looked and moved on.

By far my favorite cache to date, very clever hidden cache, log book full and soggy.

Excellent hide!! Great camo and some tricky terrain! We'd come and had a look at this one the other night but it was almost dark and very windy so we had to return but very glad we did!!

Took us two visits to get this cache. We first attempted quite late in a caching evening and decided it was not wise! We had only just managed to spot something out of the ordinary when we left - so made it a quick cache when we returned!

You'll need some help to start out on this one if your not tall enough, nice view from the top... ha ha

High find but very cool cache! Cftc

second attempt! Boys climbed a bit higher and found it!

Enlisted the assistance of the much taller colhoun cashers. The two boys climbed up while we hung out at the bottom. Glad to have this smiley tftc

That was hard. I climbed up. Looked around. Believed I had noticed what I was needing to look for. Had been given some directions at a meet up. I had got my mate and family to come along as they live around the corner. Once I was up the tree my mate joined in. He went a little higher and spotted the cache. Damn! He is a lot taller and made the easier reach but with the wind blowing both us knew this was tricky. He passed it down and I wrote our names and and passed back up for him to replace. So high. Hard to climb but also fun to get off the list.

Will have to go back another day and try climbing again

Stood at the bottom and looked up. May see something that stands out but a little chilly and needing to go to the loo stopped any attempted today. Plus the little old lady next door ended up watching us watching the tree. Time to move on.

#7381. I mounted a scouting expedition to GZ soon after the cache was published. I wasn't dressed for climbing so peered up from the ground, but couldn't see anything. Troodles and I were passing today, so we stopped to have a proper go, hoping that the cache might be easier to spot now that the tree was losing its leaves. I climbed up to base camp without too much trouble, but spotting the cache still proved difficult. I tried various angles, and climbed up a little further in a couple of spots. After a while I spotted something interesting, but after staring at it a while I decided not to climb up to it (the climb looked rather tricky). After some more staring upwards I spotted something interesting, and this object was more easily reached so up I went and soon had cache in hand. Replacing the cache proved tricky; I had to inch up a little further in the end. Thanks for a fun challenge.

We were passing by so thought we'd may as well have a look. StreetWalker did the aerial reconnaissance, while I stayed earthbound and looked from below. And looked and looked but was unable to spot anything.
After a bit of time, StreetWalker spotted something that needed closer inspection. Next moment he had the cache in hand. Great hide, would have loved to have watched when the cache was being placed!
Replacement took a few attempts, though. TFTC.

good climb well hidden

I was at macpacfamilys place dropping off a suitcase and mentioned that I still needed a cache for the day. MacpacMum mentioned this one and that she was keen to give it a go. I engaged contact with macpacson who is young and lanky and we off we went. Paf'd a friend to make sure that we were on the right track and proceeded to find the cache. When signing the log it was dropped and drifted to the ground where macpacmum and I took turns trying to throw it back up. Eventually got there after much hysterical laughing. Tftc

Sharkiefan recruited MacPacSon of the long legs to help us get this one. MacPacMum was willing to do the climb but wouldn't have made the first 2m so easily! MacPacSon was stopped to be given a pen that clipped onto the belt at that first stage. About half way up spent a bit of time hunting for the cache and which fork to take. Sharkiefan PAF to find out which route to take and the cache was spotted by MacPacMum on the ground and MacPacSon pointed in the right direction. Log signed and MacPacSon threw pen down.... only to lose grip on the log that gently floated to the ground. The next 10 minutes were spent trying to throw the weighted log back up the tree. It would have been quicker for him to come down and get it.... but it was entertaining! We are surprised we didn't disturb the neighbours with our laughter!

thanks to FWB we were successful finding this crafty hide!

we love the cache

terrain 3.5. hard to know what to put it at when you compare it to 3 hours walk up a hill for a terrain 4. hint may be handy for height. I did actually measure it.!!

Yes quite a tricky cache but a lot of fun especially as noone got hurt. lots of laughs and photo,s had, The silly things we do for a cache. TFTC. Cheers Bo

My first find with my own username! Bo actually got the cache, but I wasn't far below and I got closer than Dad (Rincewind3). We had lots of laughs getting this one.
TFTC

Wow, I was out on an impromtu cache adventure with TG and we both wanted to check this one out. We found the tree and I was boosted up to the lowest forks and went from there. Up this one, hmm, higher? Nothing. Next one, hmm, higher? Over that one, rather precarious. Hmm, I've been up all the branches, how high do we go? I had searched for about 10mins and this something caught my eye. I wonder? Sure enough I was onto something. I'm not that short but it was a reach for me. I had to get up even higher and then signing the log was fun. Container in teeth and log out, just as well I grabbed a pen on the way up. This is way higher terrain rating than a 2.5!!! It's nearly eight metres off the ground!!! It may take CO 30seconds to get up the tree, but he knows where to go and what to look for. Wow, still it was fun, would be nice to rewarded with a better terrain rating for the effort. I don't think this one will be muggled like the old one down the reserve. Nice camo, hard to spot from way down below. Felt a few of my muscles after jumping down off the tree.
Thanks for the cache.
#1968

May increase terrain. I can get up there in about 30 secounds. Need a height terrain

Sitting at home having a beer with Bo (Bo&bronnie) and Not Manly Jack (formerly known as Mrs Rincewind3) and talking caching when I mentioned this new cache. Suggested I'd need a hand with it and before I knew it Not Manly Jack had suggested we go now. Righto then.
Arrived at the GZ and Rincewind jr was off up to look for it. For the record she's now after her own username: 5ToedSloth (this wasn't the only time her climbing abilities were used tonight). Soon after Bo headed up. They had no joy initially so next thing I was up there too. With limited places to stand Not Manly Jack stayed below to document out efforts. We soon established that I'm a big girls blouse with heights and I "dropped out". At one point the others wondered if the coords were out and Bo checked a similar spot. I assured him it wouldn't be 47m out so we were back to square one. This time Bo went up alone, a bit further. He spotted the hide but it was still a stretch to get it. Of course I had the pen. He dropped the cache down, names were logged and Not Manly Jack tried to throw it back. Being so light it was going to take forever so I tossed up a tie-down strap, Bo held one end and lowered the other. Cache tied on securely it was raised back in place and we left laughing. As an aside we were spotted by an elderly muggle walking his dog. He just asked if we were "branching out" and carried on.
TFTC and the laugh.

Out and about in the early evening with TW. Just enough time for a couple caches (on this a 'non caching' evening which we'd both ducked out on); this was nearby(ish) so stopped off. Monkey Ninja he is (and a bit more confident than me) TW was up the tree like a bullet. Exhausting all options at what we thought was a reasonable (T2.5) height we scratched our heads. A bit more looking and TW spied the sneaky hide. Took a bit of a strain to get the extra height and a stretch for the cache but TW juuust made it (although he pulled a muscle or two). A great hide.
Quite a tricky climb - and not attainble for all. Not sure that it's a T2.5 (which would quite literally be a step up)..... I'd make it a D2.5/T4 if not a T4.5.
Cheers ears...a great hide.

Arrived in the twilight and started hunting. Barefoot probably wasnt the way to go when tree climbing but the deed was done so i had to get on with it. After hunting for a while Bugzptr arrived and joined me up the tree. Soon after troutburger came to watch us swing around. Eventually the cache was in hand after 40 mins of searching.
TFTC

Published

Arrived to find chessmad busy hunting and his support crew offering advice and torchlight from groundlevel. I also climbed the tree and joined the search. This proved elusive, and we took so much time that the CO wandered over to supervise. Eventually the cache was located and the log signed.
A few caching stories were swapped and then we left. TFTC.