Mt Manaia Track #5: Penthouse Faker (Whg Heads) Taurikura, North Island, New Zealand
By Riser5 on 31-May-14. Waypoint GC560EB

Time for a refresh

Tftc log wet as per previous finder

Paper a bit damp, but otherwise, good one. Tftc!

Up north with Vistra for a few days visiting family and doing some caching. Today's tramp took us up Manaia. A bit windy at the very top, but thankfully, the wind kept the showers at bay. Took a little bit of searching but was successful in the end. Tftc

Staying up nearby for a few days walking and geocaching. We had a great walk - couldnt find this cache on the way up, but on the way down I checked the other side of a rock that I had been looking at, and it was nicely tucked away there! TFTC

Had a bit of a look around. First spotted what looked like a fake hide with a chockstone in a different spot, then read the hint and it didn't quite match. Then looked in the hint item, and still no joy. Finally some fresh eyes spotted it in at a better matching but much less obvious angle. TFTC.

In between the many classgroups of muggles passing by and despite bad gps signal, found this one quitte quick!

Dky za ke

A late afternoon walk up Mt Manaia with rattll. Puffing after the extended stair climb (with more to come), I was very pleased for a reason to stop. Rattll, though, found the cache quite quickly. Ah, well... Log dry, signed, and returned as found. Tftc!

Having dnf'd this cache a year or so ago, I'm back today with matagouri to have another go.As is so often the case, it was a fairly quick find this timeThanks for putting this here

Wow lots of steps - so far!! Looked around a little - then found as per hint!! TFTC!

Quick find amongst all the trampers! No pen.

Nice quick find, TFTC! Didn't sign the logbook as my pen broke yesterday while caching

Did the mt manaia track this morning. Harder than expected, still good! Perfect morning hike! Cheers from belgium

Great day for a hike - not too hot.So many steps! but so worth the effort for jaw dropping scenery.Tftc

Took a second to find dodging the busy track but found easily

Found it took a while

First find on the track, and what a lovely track it is.
Great views today.

Log was wet so left some paper in plastic bag. My first find on the mount. TFTC

I love this Track! Tftc! Logbook is wet

Found the cache while making the most of the beautiful day. TFTC

Good hide. Thanks for the cache.

#680 We did the track with Sneeuwitjie and Blikoor on on a beautiful, but very hot day! Quick find! TFTC

Located with Ricardinho
Please refer to his log
TFTC

Day 4 of our Northland road trip, and the main focus today is Mt Manaia. A cache on the way in, and some others later in the day in town.
Find 4 for the day. We couldn’t have a decent look on the way up as a family was resting here. As it turned out, this is where one of them decided enough is enough and settled in for a rest before heading back.
I thought I could spot something with a little camo on it, but we moved on to the top and claimed it, where I thought it was, on the way back down.
TFTC Riser5

Not having much luck on this track

Found - Mrs McMike2012 & I now live full-time in our caravan & travel the country visiting places we want to visit … we are now parked up in the Doc Uretiti Campsite … decided to drive through to explore a few areas out by the Whangarei Heads … thought it would be rude not to check out a few caches while here … never climbed Mt Manaia before, so this was going to be fun … this one turned out to be an easy find … pleased to add another 'smiley face' to the tally … TFTC ... TN:LN:SL ... #2,957 for us.

With gorby, searched for this one on the way up, but it stayed elusive

So this time knew I had to find it on the way back down, as was not sure when we would be back here again? so I followed the arrow, which took me way past the cache. Whilst I was stopped reading previous logs etc (and the comment about an image turned out to be zero help) my phone showed I was 19m away! how did that happen? so back up the stairs I walked. Got to the big rock that was on my right. Thought to myself it must be close and yes it was (the next rock!).

Found it! and yes I have left a waterproof log in the container, ready for the next finder.

A fun find, like how it had been attached, so tucked the cache back under that rock

A few weeks ago I asked rustynz where she wanted to have her 8000th milestone cache to land on. I knew it was coming up soon. She suggested among other caches Mnt Manaia in Whangarei. My ears pricked up… yes! That’s where we should go. Mnt Manaia was supposed to be the place my 4000th cache was meant to be back in 2016. But on the day, the track was under maintenance and so we had to plan somewhere else.

So once that plan was on the go, the ball really started rolling, supernanny suggested a weekend away there too, so I asked Nicholas (Riser5 master of the CITO) if he wanted to organise a CITO for us and we’d come up from Auckland to Whangarei and join him. Once he had a definite date, I booked myself in for 2 nights.

We had a quick search for this one on our way up me and rusty, couldn't find it quickly, so left it to when we came back down. As I take it very easy going down stairs, rusty rushed ahead and had the cache in hand upon my arrival! Awesome, love it when that happens.

Couldn't find it on the way up. Tried again on the way down and found it exposed without a log. Still attached to the wire and hid it in its likely spot. TFTC

The camo container has been removed from its possie and left in plain sight. No log inside. Container placed back where it should be

Tied to a wire

yay easy one

Couldn't find this one

Another one on this track that hasn’t been found.

GPS all over the place, not found today, felt a bit conspicuous. Thanks anyway

Couldn't find it on way up but found it on way back down easily

Couldn’t find this one but I don’t think the coordinates were spot on…?

Couldn't find this one... dodgy gos signal had me over 1000 km away at one point and there were so many large boulders I didnt know where to look. Tired 4 year old with limited patience also meant we didnt spend that much time trying!

The weather was grey and overcast with rain threatening, so we made an early start to explore this area. The track was a little muddy and slippery after the rain the previous evening. We stopped to wait for a muggle family to go down the stairs before making a quick find here. TFTC

A nice easy cache as I'm making my way up to the top, cheers

On our way from Mangawhai Heads to Paihia. We were supposed to be going to Tutukaka but the weather is about to turn pear shaped so we decided to hunker down for three days in Paihia to ride the storm out.
Making a pilgrimage up Mt Manaia to fill a missing month in our Jasmer.
God hide. TFTC

Gps says we are 3.8km away... There are too many boulders... We didn't try very hard on that one.

Found on the way down took longer than it needed too. A lovely day for a walk up this hill today. Thanks for placing and maintaining the cache. Definitely breaks up the walk.

Found this one on the way back down the hill. Not sure how we missed it on the way up. Bouncing signal didn’t help but still shouldn’t of missed it.
TFTC. One every 200 m or so made for an excellent break on a lovely warm afternoon.
Main reason for a walk was to grab the oldie up here but also enjoyed the exercise and the views were awesome

Yah, found on way down, thanks for photo

We decided on a walk up Mania to get the caches. Have not been up this way for awhile. Before they put in the boardwalk. Great to see the Kauri, and a great bit of exercise.
This one took us awhile I think my partner jinxed it by saying they had all been easy finds. TFTC

Couldn’t find this one sadly. Used other comments and hint to get as much info on location as possible but there was nothing in sight around the boulder.

Searched both on the way up and on descent to no avail. Found what we thought was the big boulder but still no luck

A quick-ish find here, then onwards and upwards. Signed log, TFTC.

Couldn’t find this one. Sad

Replaced log

Aha- on the way down we had another think and another search and this time we got it!!! TFTC

We failed to get this one on the way up, but thought again about the hint, and then went for boulders rather the rocks. There is actually a tell-tale sign of something out of place that is visible if you look very carefully and the cache is then found. Excellent hide.

Went out for a hike up Mt Manaia late this afternoon with my son to work off the Christmas dinners and the excessive eating that occurs at this time of the year. Even at 5.00p.m. it was still hot during the climb so we were glad to have the couple of canteens of water with us.

As the GPS wasn't giving great accuracy on this cache hunt up the mountain we were relying on the hints to locate the caches. There were as many muggles as there were boulders in this section of the track so after both of us had searched for awhile we decided to log a DNF.

Or Chet Faker

A very welcome excuse for a break. Certainly a steamy climb. This was the only cache of the day where my GPS was spot on

Just a few boulders to choose from here. Replacement log required for this cache.

We had to stop and 'admire the views' (or was it catch our breath) a lot here as the never ending steps continued to rise. Some beautiful bush here but we heard very few birds. Tftc

Another find while walking the Mount Manaia track this morning. The path is starting to get a bit steeper now, so a good place to stop and search for a cache! TFTC

Easy find. Good and helpful hint. GPS was pretty spot on.

A few guesses as to which boulder but once found we were happy. TFTC!

Easily found

The junior cachers - darthcacher1 and purply - spotted this from the rock they were resting on waiting for their unfit mum and patient dad to catch up.

Got it! *_*
Wonderful track.
TFTC!
Jolo.

First one on this track, thanks for
TFTC

First one to find on my way up! Actually it's very busy here... Thanks for the cache!

Dang, beautiful spot for a cache. Getting closer to the top... TFTC!

After the thunder and rain came for a walk up here. Good hint. Enjoyed the hike. Moose TB dipped. TFTC. TM from N Wales

The weather was still not ideal, but we decided that as we are not made of sugar, we will last the trip! The main aim was Mt Manaia for the day. We set of nice and early, and maybe we should have waited until the afternoon when the clouds mostly lifted!! Great place to visit in any case! no luck on the way up, much better on the way down. TFTC!!

We found this Cache on our way to the top of Mt. Manaia.

Out for a walk with the kids. Nice quick find just off the track. TFTC

TFTC

We just couldn’t find it. GPS was not very precise and checked a lot of boulders. Eventually gave up.

Found it easy one. We moved the boulder a bit closer to the path.

After attending the Onerahi foreshore CITO, this morning and picking up the last of the OC caches as well afterward, I headed out to Manaia, to try and clear up the remaining green dots on my map here.

The carpark was absolutely full and there were even other cars parked on the roadside, so I wondered if I might have a problem with muggles on the track. There were certainly lots met who were heading back down, and unfortunately, right at GZ, there were two lots loitering, so I passed on this one to look for on the way back down instead.

GZ was muggle free on the way down and with the good hint, cache was quickly located, log signed and returned as found, before the next lot of muggles arrived. TFTC

Just randomly did the right pull. Tftc.

The steps were getting more frequent and rests needed. I was glad of an excuse to stop even though it wasn't long as the cache was quickly found, TFTC

We found this cache on our climb to Mt Manaia, which was quite a nice workout!
Thanks so much for hiding it!

I'm travelling around NZ for 7 weeks, using geocaching as my travel-planner. I was so lucky to be offered to stay overnight with thegreatauk and his mom, and that also meant that I could go crazy geocaching with thegreatauk. We had a big day today, we left the house at 6.45am and came back 10.45pm. We started off with the Tiger-caches, then we walked up to Mt Manaia and finished off with the SpotX. We had plans to go to Peach Cove and Eagle Rock as well, but we didn't have the time (or energy) for that. A great day with lots of beautiful scenery and caches.

About this cache:
This one was also quickly found, thanks to the good hint. Tftc

Out for a full days geocaching in the heads trying to get as many caches as possible leaving early coming back late but having a great day out doing urquharts bay/Smugglers cove and Mt Manaia was great. A few DNF's but mainly finding the caches. Thanks to all the cache owners for placing caches to find. After getting to the right boulder this was easy enough to find, now to the old one! TFTC.

Reasonably quick find.

Found it! Wahooooo! TFTC

Nice easy find. TFTC

Coordinates changed from:
S 35° 49.120 E 174° 31.164

Coordinates changed to:
S 35° 49.122 E 174° 31.155

Distance from original: 46.0 feet or 14.0 meters.

Under the side of a boulder on side of path, No need to leave path.

Under the side of a boulder on side of path, No need to leave path.

Tftc

#739 There on repositioning. TFT(updated)C.

Do not attempt. A big Kauri Die Back track upgrade has happened on Mt Manaia to stop people going off track.

Again the gps had a sleep in and we first looked at wrong boulder. Got my trusty phone out and it led me right to gz and fantastic views again. Thanks for the placement Riser5

Great climb ....love all the steps ....I wonder how they transported the materials up here....took a few minutes to find the correct rock then a quick sign and rehide ...cache a KL good thanks riser5

Enjoying the excuse for a break to look for caches!

Log wet dryer out while we want to the top

Photo proof as the log was too wet. Hard critter to find!

Climbed up to Manaia today and had a look for this cache. We could find it after a little search!
Thanks for the cache. It was beautiful today!

Another good hide and spot,getting close to the top now,Tftc.

With CO amongst the group climbing Mt Manaia today it was sort of obvious where to look. Found the log soaking wet so he replaced it with a nice new dry one, 3 of us signed and I before I placed the dry log I did a pretty good job drying out the cache container with a tissue. Thanks for the adventure Riser5!

Was visiting Mount Manaia for the get out of doors day event, whilst hiking the mountain took the opportinity and breathing room to pick up the caches.

As it starts to get steep I start to get slower, will make it, just not at the others speed, but they are all very kind and kept waiting for me. TFTC

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Choice

Continuing up the trail.... still no pen. Great hide tftc