Royal Spoonbill revisited. Birding K Wanganui Gonville, North Island, New Zealand
By mjmnz on 06-May-14. Waypoint GC54AFK

For reasons other than geocaching, I found myself visiting the Windermere Berry Farm just outside Wanganui today. But of course there is always time to find a cache or two after real life stuff, so I decided to make a bit of a day of it and look for a few such as this one.The weather was hotting up nicely by now, and it was a very pleasant day to be out in. I had no problem getting to GZ and making a quick find here. The tin is missing a lid, and the contents are quite grubby, but I was able to sign the log and replace as found. But it wasn't until later in the day that I realised that I'd signed every log with the date as Feb 7th! My mistake.Thanks for setting this one up.

TFTC, great little hide. Nice little drive and walk around the area. #211

We are in NZ from Australia. This is our replacement holiday instead of Seattle 2020, not quite the same but that’s all AirNz can muster up for our credit. But we are happy it’s a holiday and we get to see all our NZ pals. As well as this there is geocaching to be done.
When planning this trip I asked my friend in Upper Hutt where we could stay on the way back to Auckland she suggested Whanganui which we thought sounded interesting as we haven’t been here before. Little could she have guessed that it was the home to many many wonderful caches. What a bonus for us.
I drew up a list of caches with lots of FP and it did not disappoint.
Quick find and sign needs some TLC. TFTC

SA’s Leap Year Mega Event GCA1DNA - keep the date free - 29th February 2024 - Adelaide South Australia . Can’t wait!!

Quick find. Container is rusty and could do with some love. Thanks mjmnz

Good hide tftc

3.1.2023 Found it but it need to be replaced because it was all rusty but otherwise they hiding place for it

Let’s go

Found with TuiStorm, we read the description and the hint to get it quite easily

Easy find with the hint

Be careful easy to be spotted by a muggle

Plenty of birds out on the mud flats this morning, but no spoonbills. Easy find. Carefully replaced as found. Cache is all good. TFTC

Nice quick find here, but having bike trouble so will have to unfortunately have to head back, TFTC

I was a bit lucky to find this. I had stale coordinates in my phone which indicated it was on the other side of the road. That now explains the discrepancy I saw between my phone and my GPS. Although I was using the GPS initially, that had me on the other side of the stop bank and the cache ended up being kind of in between the two. The container has seen better says being all rusty and squashed but the log was in OK shape nevertheless. TFTC.

A birthday outting with Miss 13 on the weekend lead us to this cache. Took way longer to find than it should've, but it was great to get back in the swing of being out on a hunt. It's a bit mucky but at the mo, but other than that, we are happy to add another smilie in our map. Tftc

ANZAC weekend in Taranaki/Whanganui . Focused on Adventure Labs and also whatever will be handy. This hide was one of them.

Read cache description before pick up TFTC

Cache still in position

This geocacher reported that the container is damaged.

once i read the hint the right way i had this one in hand very quick, it could do with some tlc though, tftc

Despite a lengthy search, we were unable to find this cache, apparently a repeat of our effort in 2014, although the cache location may have changed since then.

Low on the stopbank. Yes, but which side? Not the side I imagined anyway. However, after relocating the cache was in hand. The container appears to have had a tough life but the contents are in great shape, even after last nights rain. TFTC mjmnz

I had completely the wrong idea about how this cache would be hidden. Luckily The Wandering Dragons was on the ball and tracked the cache down without any difficulty.

Cache # 4,923 - brucewwnz walked right by this one, but I spotted it immediately. All good here. TNLNSL. TFTC!

That was fun.....

after several caches said that the coordinates were up to 12 metres out I rechecked using my Garmin GPS and they are correct. When I used my i phone they were out so suspect there is someting that interfears with the coordinated. Will make the clue more specific.

On a day visit to Whanganui and enjoying a bike ride along the riverside path. Good coordinates! Leaned my bike right where my GPS said, and there it was. Thanks mjmnz.

Coordinates changed from:
S 39° 56.854 E 175° 0.260

Coordinates changed to:
S 39° 56.859 E 175° 0.254

Distance from original: 41.3 feet or 12.6 meters.

rechecked as some ended up across the road

Day 1 (With Squirrel Nutcase) of our Whanganui road trip.
Knew this was going to be a long day today. First cache found about 8am and last one found just before midnight.
Mission today Event, A cache starting with the letter U, Several Multi's, Earth Cache, Virtual and anything else we could find.
Achieved all the above.
Thanks to Cache Owners for their placement efforts and sorry about the cut and paste but this was a huge weekend for us. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)... On a road trip weekend - We haven’t been on anything like this since Covid Episode One in March. A special Community Event in Whanganui got our attention. So we’re off to the ‘River City’ for a bit of fun...

Day One of our adventure - We intended on caching out some big trails, with the Community Event being the key focus... This one took a long time to figure out. We relied on the given coordinates, and searched carefully along the fence line. After almost running out of patience. we noticed something across the road... Thanks mjmnz and TFTC.

This was way harder than it should be, the co-ords are a good way off and we spent too much time in the greenery, wasted time. But we found it by widening our search, tftc

Once again I find myself in Wanganui for the weekend (up from Welly). Another perfect day for finding some caches, and this was one. All safe and dry here, TFTC.

Took a couple of minutes as we didn’t go far enough down. All in good order though. TFTC!

Mid afternoon, just before leaving town after my short visit - grabbed a few caches from opposite where I was this morning. Absolutely deserted here. Quick find. TFTC.

One of 16 caches located today on a bike ride from our motel in town out to Castlecliff, mostly on a shared pathway. The coords on my iPhone led me to the other side of the road. When we found the cache after a few moments searching, the coords on my phone indicated it was 10m away, and the coords on Mrs tbird’s iPhone were indicating 11m away. Were both phones telling porkies? Who knows? #3259. TFTC.

Some of us makes it much harder than it needs to be!!! Nice walk along the stop bank. TFTC

Found with brother in law was good

Spent the weekend in the Whanganui area. A nice and easy find. Off to walk along the river now. TFTC

Stopped to grab this one. Got a bit confused as the GPS was pointing to the gate, but eventually got my bearings and soon had the cache in hand. All good here. TFTC

Found in between rain showers this afternoon. Cache all safe and sound. TFTC

Hunted for ages along the fence and hedge. But NO its NOT THERE. TS reads the cache info again to finally get this one. Replaced log to keep this one rolling along.
Cheers

Day 2- Sunday, 15 December. Palmerston to Wanganui today.
With the Etherlord Kids in tow we head north towards Wanganui and the awesome Rattls BBQ. Then TS and I head towards Wanganui then team up with Infoferret for an afternoon of caching.

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are spending Christmas exploring Taranaki via geocaching. Its been an amazing 3 week adventure. Rattls BBQ was a great event, meeting many other cachers. But also managed to fit in a few more events, especially New Years Day celebrating the start of 2020. Lots of caches - over 500. Lots of cache maintenance. Lots and lots of kilometers. And lots of amazing places visited along our journey. Mt Taranaki remained elusive for much of our travels and the caches on it at the top. Loved Pukekura Park Night Lights Show and the the Wooden Mechanical toy exhibition at NP Info centre.

Taybeedragon and I spent most of the time hunting for this on the wrong side of the road. See? That's what happens when I don't read the cache description! Put in a new log.

Day two of Taybeedragon's and my big 3 week circumnavicaching trip around Mt Taranaki.
Left Palmerston North and headed to Rattll's Christmas Barbecue event. Managed to travel as far as Whanganui - it's going to be a slow trip!!


***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](https://coord.info/GC87777) - you won't want to miss it!

Found easily...TFTC

Find number 6384. In Wanganui with a German friend who is doing part of the Te Araroa trail. After dropping her off at where she had previously go to I spent the day caching. I had my bicycle so spent the day on the cycle trails each side of the river.
No spoonbills seen but a cache was spotted. Thank you for the placement.

all good

Spent a pleasant day caching in Whanganui. The forecast rain held off until late in the day which was good. A nice easy PnG here. Cheers and TFTC

Had been planned during the week to come here this weekend from Taranaki to 1, break the new car in and see if it’s a good fit for our family and to test it out caching and 2,to tackle 20 caches on our list that I’ve been wanting to get for a while. The weather forecast started to look worse and worse as the week went on but as it was only saying 50 percent chance of rain I thought we’d still risk it and hey we can handle a couple of showers of rain or wait them out in the car but no as soon as we arrived it started raining and it had set in for good I think after an hour. We ended up pretty wet 3 caches in so made the decision to abort mission and head home....of course by Kai Iwi it had cleared up again
Coords are way out here. They have you on the other side of the road. We found it eventually though, should of brought a new log with me as this one is full as a bull. TFTC

Couldn’t see anything over the river today as it is very hazy with rain. A quick find once we were at right GZ. TFTC

Enjoying the caches in Wanganui. Thanks for the effort

The GPS suggested the wrong side of the road but the hint was good. A bonus were saw a group of spoonbills further up the river.

Went out in the rain to find this one. Log is full but we found a spot to sign. TFTC

This geocacher reported that the logbook is full.

Day 4/9 of our New Years trip up to the North Island. This was find #25/43 for the day and #194/526 of our trip.
While staying in Palmerston North we took a daytrip to Whanganui to see what we could see. It was a great day but so hot! After we took a swimming break at Splash Centre to cool down we got back to business. Thankfully this was a nice quick find after a few DNFs. The logbook is full. We left our new signature item, a Rainbow Beadtail. Later we would revisit the spot searching for my GPS lanyard with our spare carkey on it. Sadly we couldnt find it Thanks for the effort involved in placing and creating this cache for all of us to enjoy.

As I arrived at GZ, I wasn't sure which level to look on, but looking at the description put me in the right area and the cache was quickly spotted. TFTC.

Out on a blustery spring afternoon. Fortunately the forecast rain is staying away. TFTC

It took forever to find a cache to night! I decided to go quite far tonight, but as it got darker and my luck had been out I headed back to the centre. I decided to give this one a go on the way by. It didn't come out straight away, however, with a little more investigation, I found something slightly out of place. There is was! TFTC

Couldn't find it, which is even more annoying when sombody has already found it today.

This one had us looking all around till something obvious on the other side had us looking there. And wahala a cache. TFTC

Thanks for placing these caches. I planned to spend my morning picking up caches on the river trail. got some missed some. I will have another go.

Quick find. Good hint. TFTC

Got there, gps a little all over lol

Was in Wanganui for work and after seeing a couple of clients I decided that I had a few spare minutes to go and get a cache or two. After finding GC5WP8H - River Cycle: Green (Wanganui), I decided to check my GPSr and noticed that there were a few caches that were not too far away and looked like that they may be worth looking at as I still had a little bit of time available before I needed to make my way back to Wellington.

After finding the previous cache, I decided that it was time to start making my way back to Wellington, but I decided that since I was in the area and was going to be passing by this cache I might as well stop by and check it out. The walk back to the car didnt take too long and once back at the car I was able to drive to near GZ and once there I managed to find a safe parking spot not too far away from GZ.

Walking towards GZ, I spotted the hint object but it was still a little way off and I decided that this might be one off many, and yes I was correct. Decided to continue and trust my GPSr and was soon at another spot, after a short easy search I soon had the cache in hand, signed and then replaced the cache back as found.

Thanks mjmnz for placing this cache here and for bringing me to this spot, TFTC TNLNSL (13091). Now it is definitely time to go home as it was starting to get a bit late, but I will be back to get some more caches in the area.

All in place

A nice quick find, Cheers.

Today is the day we head to New Plymouth, after some time biking the trail from the sea to the city. Another great weather day..

Thanks to all of the COs for placing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

Didn't spot any spoonbills, but the cache was found and signed as part of Team IE. TFTC!

The hint helped while the coordinates didn’t. Signed Team IE. TFTC

Last cache of the day before heading back to Wgtn on our return from biking the Timber Tail up North. Found easily thanks to the hint.

Stopped here this afternoon on a bike ride down this splendid cycleway from the city to Castlecliff and back. The coordinates for this one were not good so I had to use the hint - found at the second hint object checked. Signed log, TFTC

On a mission finding caches along walkway. Took a while as on wrong side of the road. Read the hint and we were back on track. TFTC

Easy found thank you

Quick and easy but not well hidden.

Down south after the Mega to find some new areas to cache,

Wanganui Day 2
After lunch we wanted to head towards the ocean, although it isn't a pleasant sight.
We found a variety of caches in many different hides. This was liking a tiki tour of the area.
Thanks for placing this cache mjmnz

Nice day so the girls and I decided to do the cache down Gilbert street Great First find for the day nice and easy.

Out for a walk with the whole EtherLord Clan, including Nana and Grandad.
Quick find once I realised the required level, Retrieved by EtherMaster.
I think I signed the log as "2-9-16" instead of "2-10-16"...

Had a day off work, so went for a walk to town looking for a few Caches on the way 3.5 hours later I had 9 finds and 3 fails Thanks all.

Coordinates were all over the place with this one but found it in the end. Tftc

Found on the OTHER side of the road. Weird co ords? Tftc.

Quick stop. Right where the clue said it would be. TFTC

THTC

Nice easy find here on a day of geocaching in wanganui

Nice easy find - first find for our Wanganui adventure!!

Our first find for our Wanganui day trip from the naki. Thanks

Mrs G accompanied haydn.seek to Wanganui today. Even though she had previously found the caches in this area haydn.seek kindly drove Mrs G to these too.
With the helpful hints you couldn't go wrong with this cache. It was good to learn about the Royal Spoonbills too. We've quite a few of the Birding caches now, but still have a couple to visit. Thank you for this cache and for the series mjmnz.

Quick stop n sign

Out for a southbound mission with fellow cachers, Thatsneat and TMNT, trying for a 50 caches in one day down in Whanganui. This one is our number thirty nine on the Riverside Ramble Walkway, cache all good and very nicely hidden. Mission accomplished, this one is a wrap.TFTC! Blenheim Bear
This log posted with CacheSense for Android!Mission accomplished, this one is a wrap.TFTC!

Found with my neat partner and a wookie speaking bear

Found today with my ninja and bear, great clue!

Nice hide TFTC found on a night mish

First of the day, aiming for 10 today!

In Whanganui for an Easter weekend caching raid. The rain is gone and the hunt us on. Nice quick find. TFTC.

My first find this morning after a bad start to the day with several non finds. TFTC

Didn't see any spoonbills from the cache site but we saw some from a little further upriver. TFTC .

Find number 15 on a day trip to wanganui from taranaki collecting as many caches as I can

This cache was one of the many caches we found on our 6 day campervan journey from Tauranga to Lower Hutt via Waihi, Cambridge, New Plymouth and along the west coast to Wanganui and back to the Hutt. A mighty and enjoyable journey which took us to many great and iconic parts of the north island and of course some great geocaches. Many thanks to the many CO's for the great cache placements and for bringing us to so many new places. Sorry about the generic log but 200 plus to log. TFTC

Park n grab, TFTC

Cruising the area, picking up caches as I go. Nice spot

TFTC

Tftc

Our GPS had us on the other side of road??? Was about to give up when we tried other side for a quick find. Tftc

I have been a bit slack during the month of September (only finding one cache before today) so I needed to get out to increase my numbers. It was palnned for a car full of cachers to head over to Wanganui, but as the day neared, numbers dwindled so it ended up just being myself and Tommygun9. It was a warm spring day with plenty of muggles out and about. I ended up finding 30 odd caches with three frustrating DNF's
Cache all in order here as Tommygun9 made a quick find.
Thanks for the cache and the smiley.

Today was a day to sign off a few caches in Whanganui. Next was a big walk along the river bank towards the mouth.

Soon signed this one off.

Cheers for the cache.