309 Pony Express #23 All Aboard Stop Coromandel Waiau, North Island, New Zealand
By Darby&Joan on 21-Jun-14. Waypoint GC56NVV

Up in the Coromandel today on a road trip and picking up some caches. We decided to travel down this road and had very mixed success with finding caches - think I scored a record number of DNF's! This was a previous DNF of mine as the cache had gone missing and has since been replaced. Great to turn a blue face into a yellow smiley. TFTC

Had better luck with this one compared to the last couple. Thanks!

Easy find.Thank you.

Found it

Found with stairman1. Day 2 of this road. The clue had us right next to a dead goat . All good here.TFTC

Found with goldielover today. Remains quite close here.TFTC

Found it during our holiday in Coromandel. Quick stop. Tftc

Thanks for the cache and greetings from Czechia.

We are on our long-awaited journey around the world in 99 days. Second try after canceling in 2020.
Our third stop after Los Angeles and Hawaii is New Zealand.

This time was of course used to find some geocaches here.
Today we take the „Highway 309“ and while that time we were searching for some of the 309 Pony Express caches!

Thank to the Hints and the good coordinates the little box was found quickly!
After signing the logbook there is a new smile on our geocaching map!

At least we would like to take this opportunity to thank Darby&Joan for creating and maintaining this nice series of caches along our way today!

Greetings from Nuermberg/Germany
**Wild_Bee_**

P.S. To save space in the logbooks, we not only enter in sequence, but also in empty spaces between.
_
Thank you for the cache - जियोकैश के लिए धन्यवाद - Vielen Dank für den Cache - Gracias por el caché - Merci pour le cache - Grazie per la cache - Obrigado pelo Cache - Bedankt voor de cache - Tak for cachen - Hvala na predmemoriji - Takk for cachen - Kiitos välimuistista - Tack för cachen - Спасибо за кеш - Díky za mezipaměť - Dzięki za skrytkę - Önbellek için teşekkürler - Dankie vir die kas - Asante kwa kache - ขอบคุณสำหรับแคช - 感謝您的緩存 - キャッシュをありがとう - ޝުކުރިއްޔާ - Terima kasih atas cache

Day 14 on our holiday in New Zealand. Today we are in the area and surrounding area of Whitianga. We also visited this tradi, found it, and signed the logbook.



***T4T$ - Many Thanks to Darby&Joan for hiding and maintaining of this cache*** ️

TaurusSix and I are in New Zealand for a three weeks holiday. We love New Zealand and have had lots of wonderful experiences here previously. This time we have decided to focus our attention on three destinations for one week each, all in the North Island. The Coromandel Peninsula, Waiheke Island and The Bay of Isles. We are very mindful of not focusing all our attention of the holiday on geocaching, however it will still play an important part. We are deliberately focusing on caches that involve some walking, great views, interesting attractions , history and general points of interest. And this will all happen in between exploring, swimming , walking, doing touristy things and relaxing .
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Day 9- Our last day in the Coromandel Peninsula before heading off to Waiheke Island tomorrow. We decided to make the most of it and circle the peninsula going clockwise from Pauanui , down to Thames up past Tapu and then on to Coromandel town , before heading back via the road 309. We started our caching day by picking a couple up in Thames, amazed by how busy the traffic is, clearly everyone is setting off on their holidays today. We then went to to Rapaura Water Gardens , we tried to go here the other day but they had already closed be-time we got there so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time today. They were spectacular and well worth the visit. After that we headed to Coromandel Town and the Driving Creek Railway for a trip through the mountains. Amazing what one mans vision created and certainly a novel way to explore. In the end we collected 11 actual caches and one Adventure Lab for the day before time got the better of us.
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This is our ninth cache find of the day along with the nearby Adventure Lab. When we decided to come backboard road 309 we knew we would not have time for many caches so we decided just to pick a few at random to collect along the way and this was one of them . We were keen to checkout the waterfall too so needed to leave time , for that . Thanks for the cache Darby&Joan

Certainly parking can be a challenge along here but managed to find a park nearby, quick find here cheers

Phew, that a world rally champs experience

On a road trip today with Hal2929 and muggle Moss to collect the caches on this 309 road. Had numerous DNF's maybe because of no cell coverage but also a grader had been through destroying lots of the corners , and also there has been servere floods since the previous logs.
thanks for the caches Darby and Joan, loved the trip.

on a roadie with Kiscardi getting some caches. We have had more the usual DNFs on this trip but not here. Thanks

Another bites the dust or in this case the wet ground as a lot of the containers and logs are waterlogged.
Tftc

We left today set out to get the caches along this road. Some were a lot trickier than others. The area the whole way was really mucky, lots of mud and very few good areas to pull over.
Was out with emiliyah and watcache.

Thanks for the trail.

We left today set out to get the caches along this road. Some were a lot trickier than others. The area the whole way was really mucky, lots of mud and very few good areas to pull over.
Was out with Xsaveya and watcache.

Thanks for the trail.

Cool

Easy

Yess

TFTC

Didn't think I was going to be caching anymore today but I had planned to do some photography on Waiau Falls. Since I was passing this area,... might as well get what I can before the sun went down. Might as well....

Easy park and grab. TFTC

Staying in Whitianga for the weekend and decided to take this route to Coromandel purely for the Pony Express Caches!
Quick easy find here. Plenty of parking space!

Cool container. TFTC

Found with toby84

T4TC. Found with Reny90

All Aboard. OK after I get this one tagged. Cheers.

Day 6 - Wednesday 23 December - Coromandel - Whitianga - Coromandel -And back to Whitianga again. 309 Pony express is the aim today. But it was a hot dusty day and many caches below par so dissapointing. Left Zara in Whitianga and headed out around the loop in Toby.

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are off on another geocaching escape over Xmas, this time to the mighty Coromandel, then over to Opotiki and stop off at Rotorua to return home on 5 January. Had an fabulous time exploring many wonders of our country. Rounding up over 400 caches along the way, with a few LABS, 20 odd TMGTs, virtuals and lots of interesting earth caches to keep the mind busy. Watching the sun come up on New Years Day at Mt Maunganui was spectacular. Lots of walking and even more driving. But had an awesome time. Thanks to all COs who made this adventure so special.

Just after we found the cache, someone turned up (coming the other way) and told us to stay put. A truck with a roller is coming. So we stayed - yep. Truck with roller. Trying to squeeze past that would ... well, wouldn't, actually!

Taybeedragon and I went on a tour of the Coromandel - one of the few places of New Zealand, especially of Te ika a Maui, that I have yet to explore throughly, and from there along the coast to Opotiki to see one of my many, many sisters. From 18 December to 5 January we found over 400 caches, including 12 adventure labs (60 caches), 20 or so TMGTs and a host of virtuals and earthcaches. And I hosted an event to see the sun come up on New Year's day - surprisingly popular given that it was at 5am. We climbed a lot of hills, saw some amazing beaches that were quite popular despite (or because of) the insane access to them, walk a lot of bush, entered and explored 8 gold mines and generally had an awesome time. However I am glad to be back, but now is the hard part, and I fear it will take just as long - logging!

Quick find for a change. Container and log is in good condition, thank you for the hide.

Out and about for a few days for a bit of a road trip around the Coromandel area. Day Three of my road trip. I started my travels in Whitianga and ended my day in Coromandel Town. My main objective for today was to find as many of the 309 Pony Express caches as I could manage. Weather had changed from yesterday - it was hot and sunny then - a bit cooler today and I encountered a few showers along the way. Not enough to dampen my enthusiasm though. Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I'll note anything that stood out for me. No problem here. TFTC, Biggles.

A new drive for me along the 309 road collecting caches along the way.
Most caches didn't take too long to find, a few took a little longer though.
Logs were signed and caches replaced as found.
Sorry for the cut and paste logs.
A few of the caches could do with a CO visit, but I didn't keep notes on individual caches, only the numbers of the ones I stopped for and found.
TYFTC

Found on the drive from Coromandel to Whitianga. Liked the message nearby 'Love Yourself'. TFTC

A nice quick find today. Parking was pretty good where we stopped, but someone must be playing with you. A lot of the bisons appear to be only a log book in a plastic bag.

Christmas holiday road trip to Auckland time. Day ten Hamilton to Coromandel

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

Find number 6265. Another day with Boges in the Coromandel. Our mission was to do a circuit to clear the area (again) for him and for me to grab a few extras on the way. My last visit to GZ brought about a DNF as the railing and been recently replaced and repainted. Pleased to be back today to make the find. Thank you for the placement.

Out and about aiming for a couple of caches for the GeoTour and Jasmer challenge...
Thought I'd grab some of the 309 caches on the way down to Thames to grab a couple more TMGTs! Have been meaning to do this series since after publishing, but I never seem to got around to it.

Thanks for bringing me here, Darby&Joan! TFTC, #2070

Found it during Coromandel adventure trip with Aiden29. Perfect day for it. Enjoyed fairly quick finds along Road 309 all together with perfect weather , first day of Spring and Father`s Day. Some of the finds took bit longer to locate some of them were just right there. GPS coordinates usually bang on and traffic was light too. Thanks for placements and recent maintenance on some of them.

Tramyard already had plans to complete this power trail today, but he asked me if I wanted to join him while we were at an event last night. I jumped at the chance to go on a road trip to the Coromandel - my first time this far up the Peninsula. The weather was perfect, just a little cold and quite foggy along State Highway 2 early in the morning, but once the sun rose we quickly stripped down to our t-shirts (contrary to the last month of weather in Auckland!).

The road was relatively quiet and not too dusty. We didn't have too much trouble with the finds although some took a little longer than others. Thank you for this series.

Trouvé !

This ended up being the hardest caching day of my trip so far. The weather wasn't good and some of the caches were hard to find. Still enjoyed it and thanks for the caches.

Called by to check on this cache, to find a brand new cache in place. Thank you to whoever put it there. Cache is all good.

Put a new one there. Today we make the Pony Express Route .. not an easy one. Thank you for this Route

On a road trip north, enjoying the day and pic up some caches. TFTC

Greetings from 2 Austrians  
Die_Asseln

On a whistle stop tour of the Coromandel (today and tomorrow) but always have time to pick up a few caches. We stayed at Cooks Beach last night, and decided to travel up this road to pick up some caches that I've had my eye on for a while. We had very mixed success - great series and fun to travel on this road from old NZ....there are earthworks and a large new retaining wall here. Also a huge slip next to it. Suspect that this one has gone

Nothing today. Barrier seems to have been changed recently

With a long day of exploring drawing to a close there was only time to look for a few of the many caches along this twisting road. It was decided to start at the middle and find as many as i could as we headed to the motel in Coromandel. Several I bypassed but managed to find about half of the total in the diminishing light. TFTC Darby&Joan

sorry for taking so long to log. Caching with Keylev TFTC

We took advantage of it being the school holidays to head across here from Auckland for the day to attempt this trail. Signed logs with SEAC x 6 - representing us, Keylev, craggar, laval, darthcacher1, and purply. Lots of gorse and blackberry with the odd patch of cutty grass as well along this road. Happy to make a find here.

Out on a mission with Mrs HeMaLuDy, darthcacher, purply, cragger and laval to try and complete this series.

Thanks for the cache. This area was a bit stinky .

Signed all logs as SEAC 6 (South East Auckland Crew/Cachers x 6 of us) to save log space.

I was with seac
thanks for the cache

Out on a day with Team S.E.A.C. x6. Had lots of fun with these caches.

Thanks for the Cache.

I had a day off from my work remodeling our kitchen, so I planned a day doing both the "There n back" and the "309 Pony Express". This turned out to be quite a bit for one person, so if I couldn't find the cache right away, I gave up quickly.
A quick peek and there it was. TFTC.

We take the 309 to drive from Whitianga to our last New Zealand destination Auckland. Swiss Greetings and happy 2018.

NQF here TFTC Made us laugh as the pot has been painted the same as the host!

Super fast one to find. Thanks for the cache. Devvin

Quick easy find. Specific hint.

Team BOP caching in Coromandel this weekend an action packed weekend was had but very tired when we got home .
Tftc

Team BOP have reunited for a two day journey up to the top of the Coromandel. We were pleased to be tackling these not long after a maintenance run as it's nice to know the caches are all in good order. They all seemed well placed with adequate parking and in spite of the repetitive nature of power trails - it was quite and enjoyable run.

This cache was found quickly and in good condition thanks to accurate coords and a straight forward hint. Cheers Darby&Joan, TFTC.

Team BOP were heading to the Coromandel west coast and we had to knock off the 309 Road first.
Another quick find thanks to the good coords and hint.
TFTC

On a weekend road trip with Team BOP - Heading to the top of Coromandel but completing this series first. With so many caches in the series it is hard to remember each one. It was great to see maintenance being done on the caches and thought done when placing them for parking. It did start to rain as we began our journey but by the time we finished the sun was shining TFTC

Please see main log at: 309 Pony Express #1 – Whitianga PO Stop Coromandel. soon found. TFTC really enjoying these

Quick find. Please see main log at #1. Many thanks

Travelling around the world with Dartmoor Deliverer celebrating her taking early retirement!

NB Dont forget our Devon UK Mega 2017 GC6JZNY this August in the beautiful East Devon area of our county. UK Megas are over one week full of events and geocaching - a wonderful way to enjoy our county!

Road trip around the Coromandel with lots of caches to find. Checking out the back roads. This one reminds me of driving though the forests of home in the Far North. Quick easy find. TFTC.

During our vacation in New Zealand we also did some geocaching. We already found geocaches placed on the year 2000. Now we are heading to Coromendal and there we also did some caches. We found some and also didn't found some. But we had a lot of fun, and that is what geocaching ment to be. We loved the route 309. We had the speed of a pony, so after a long day we finally found the last one. We had no idea what to do with the letterboxes, so we didn't found them. Randsom we ad some FP's.



Darby&Joan hartelijk dank voor het leggen en onderhouden van deze cache.

Groetjes,
Team Geo Meijer
(We loggen vaak met TGM)

Dit was onze: 6583 gevonden cache

12.05pm. A quick park and grab.
Thank you. David and Noeline.

Tftc

**10997**
#23 of pony express series, and enjoyable little series with well hidden caches. TFTC
**5.26pm**

RWIMF came up with this one this time. Bit of a search but still got to sign it off.

Nice quick find this one. All logs today signed BR.

While spending some quality-time together with my Manaia588 in Whitianga I thought that we could collect some nice caches. Thx for the nice trail.

With MUEZ (aka "the driver") on Road 309 from Whitianga to Coromandel: Thanks for showing us this entertaining and historic "shortcut" from the East to the West Coast.

A nice easy one to finish a day of caching as the rain started.

TFTC

CZECH
dneska jsme si užili tuto cestu, jen 2 kešky jsme nenašli, některé ležely jinde než měly a některé nám daly trochu zabrat... ¨počasí bylo střídavě deštivo a slunečno, ale stálo to za to
už jsme podobných cest projeli dost, takže pro nás nic nového, ale přece jen byla nejdelší

As part of our trip from Rotorua to Thames today we drove along the eastern side then decided to do as much as we could of this series as we head across the peninsular to Thames. A very enjoyable drive and some lovely views. Apologies for the generic logs - series is certainly worthy of a favourite point. Thanks Darby&Joan.

On a country drive exploring a beautiful part of New Zealand today we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Thanks for placing these caches Darby&Joan that have enhanced our experience of today. Cheers and happy caching! Cache found, log signed, cache replaced as found.

The forth one of this series today in the second take at this road in our rush to claim them all before heading back home.
This one was a nice quick find here enabling us to move onto the next one...

Cache was all good.

Thanks to Darby&Joan for all the work that has gone into this series.

TFTC.

Easy find thanks.

Decided this was a must do while in Whitianga. Drove the 309 and braved the rain. Lunch at Coromandel and back over the Kopu- Coroglen Rd. Very muddy. Found with bkj97. Excuse the repetitive logs.

One of many caches found while on a mission to grab some caches on the 309 and the tapu-Coroglen rds. Found with little blue hen Enjoyed the challenge despite rain and mud. TFTCSL

TFTC

All good here, TFTC

The long and winding 309.
We were in thrall of the variety of cache containers and the extent of the ingenious recycling and re-use deployed. Also, clearly a large amount of the country's quota of waterproof paper was put to use.
We dodged mud, puddles, muggles, gorse, and assorted trees and their branches to access these caches. But it was a great road trip experience, all of it, east to west. Thanks for laying this trail.
All in order here; log signed, then cache safely re-hidden just as found.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

We're visiting from Florida, USA. That was great fun. Thanks for placing the cache.

All ok

Today we are on tour to coromandel town! Found it together with MFFK50
Thanks for the fun and greetings from Austria

As we would like to have a little adventure, the_ kc and me drive the 309 to our next accomodation. And luckily there are a lot of stops to do! Thanks for hiding and maintaining this caches! !!!

Replaced log book.

Did the nice drive on the 309 with The-Shredder. Had a lot of fun. TFTC Skyryser
Ps: logbook is full

Did the nice drive on the 309 with Skyryser. Had a lot of fun searching for the caches. TFTC The-Shredder

Quick stop on the way.
Thanks

Found it during roadtrip at New Zealand. Tftc! And greetings from Finland!

a lovely day today to hopefully finish the 309 which we started the other day in horrendous weather and abandoned. This was a quick find but the log book full and managed to squeeze our name in. TFTC

#11397. After a couple of false starts, we finally got to drive the 309 road. We enjoyed our drive, even though the DNF rate was quite high. TFTC.

Today is our last day in Whitianga, and so is the last chance to catch the Pony Express. Weather forecast not too bad, a chance of showers (though all we experienced was a few spots of rain early in the day) so we were away before 8.30am. Found 30 out of the 39 in the series, DNFed 8 (a couple may still there but we were unwilling to tackle the gorse) and drove past #38 where the container had been reported as gone. Not one of the best outcomes, but I am pleased we made this scenic journey. Thanks for all the hard work gone into laying this trail.
Log book pretty full so squeezed our names into a bit of spare space. TFTC.

Quick found.

Thank you very much for this nice serie and to see this nice places

This was our 8. find on our trip along this nice road (with new gravel). We found many of this caches very easy, on some places it is not so easy to stop so we "skip" some places. But finally we found 15 boxes. And this was one of the quickest finds.

Thank you for all the work on this "power trail" and sorry for this "standard"-logtext

TFTC
Photomaus (Germany)

On our way to the Driving Creek Railway our navigation app directed us via 309 road. We had only little time, so we did only 3 caches on this road. A German proverb is saying: All good things comes in threes. TFTC!

Same cache as the last one

Hehe easy one!!