309 Pony Express #37 – Coromandel PO -Coromandel Waiau, North Island, New Zealand
By Darby&Joan on 21-Jun-14. Waypoint GC56NXT

It seems the cache has disappeared again. We are calling it a day on this spot. Thanks to all visitors over the years, its been fun.

We don't found too...
Maybe she is disappear?

Hard to find series of caches (just our opinion).
This one, we could not find

TFTC,

JuStMeMi

Found the clue but no cache and steep drop to be aware of

Easy find, I love that cute stamp !!!
But there is a dead fish at roadside (!!) and it's smeel very strong...
I drop a TB and grab one.

Found this one nice and quick thanks to good hint. Nice easy place to pull over. Thanks for the cache. Devvin

Quick find. Great hint.

We had planned a big weekend with 6 of us travelling the Coromandel area and logging caches as team BOP. Found many great spots, several caches we replaced wet log sheets and others missing for some time. Lots of km's travelled on tarseal, gravel and some not so good roads. Lots of rained showers seemed to plague us on the first day. SLTFTC
Well this time we found it.

With Gap (of Fap and Gap), (Mr) Davidson clan, NZFlossy, TNXPro, and Philip.Perry… This is the first time we have cache overnight together. What an adventure… We group signed as Team BOP for efficiency and expediency.

We visited so many beautiful and remote locations on the Coromandel Peninsula. Many of these areas deserved to be hosts to caches. However, we encountered several that needed owner maintenance. Wet logbooks seemed to be far too common (We’ve had a lot of rain). Oftentimes, a sodden logbook was stuffed back into the container with a new, bagged logbook alongside (What's up with that?). And then there were some caches that were quite obviously missing (and have been for a while)… Nevertheless, a huge thank you to all of the COs for bringing us to these amazing places… We are determined to return and explore some more.

We're pleased to give this one some closure today after a previous DNF... TFTC

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

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.

Having fun with Team BOP on a weekend road trip. There is so much history on this road and amazing what they did in the past. Thanks for all the work in doing this series especially the regular maintenance. Caches were in good order and coords usually spot on. TFTC

Team BOP were heading to the Coromandel west coast and we had to knock off the 309 Road first.
Whiule I was concentrating on looking in the wrong place, Philip walked straight to this.
TFTC

Called by to check on this cache. All in good condition. Dropped a TB.

Please see main log at: 309 Pony Express #1 – Whitianga PO Stop Coromandel. another one I found with No problems. MTFTC took the TB to move on.

Cache soon found, geocaching log signed and Letterbox book stamped as we also do Dartmoor Letterboxing on Dartmoor when at home. 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. It's that ruddy plant again (gorse). TFTC.

Caching with JK2 on route from Colomandel quick easy find here no issue signed log and replaced as found with TB TFTC

On holiday in NZ with Higsters. Staying in Hahei and took a drive out to Coromandel. Thought we'd try and pick up a few of these caches on our way back (won't have time to do them all) so doing them in reverse order. Initially went to the obvious but wrong item so widened our search and Higgi eventually spotted the correct one and the cache was soon in hand. TFTC

Deze cache heeft heel erg onderhoud nodig!



Groetjes

Team Geo Meijer

Nice to have another letterbox under our belts. Tftc.

Found during a clockwise circumnavigation from Tairua to Thames to Coromandel and back, primarily to gather info for the Coromandel Cemetery Circuit multi.

Like others I initially went for the wrong hint object but got there in the end. TFTC

**11010**
#37 of pony express series, after making it safely through a herd of swine, and a couple of DNF's, thankfully this time the cache was soon in hand. TFTC
**6.55pm**

This one had us snookered for a bit as we were fixated on a different object for a while. When we finally gave up on that and refocused the RWIMF had the yahoo moment.

An easy find - but only because I was trying to avoid the gorse, blackberries and cutty grass. T4tc

This one took me a while to find! went to the wrong marker, then wondered round lost for a while before turning my phone onto compass mode and finally spotting the right spot!

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.

Finally found, wasn't where we first thought.

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.

We are really enjoying the caches in this series that we have stopped for today. I just wish we'd had time to find them all. Oh well, a few to finish off on another visit in the future hopefully. Thanks for placing them and enhancing our drive today. Cheers!

Winding our way toward the waterfall. Thanks for making it an interesting drive! Beware of the spikey bushes.

The sixteenth one of this series today in the second take at this road in our rush to claim them all before heading back home.
All finds are now considered night caches, just without reflectors to help...non the less we had seen this one was still disabled but also knew the CO's had been in the area so took the punt they just hadn't got around to updating the cache page when we arrived... checked a couple of locations with the old hint as an indicator, and read a few of the logs, and soon came up with the find...Yah...thanks Darby&Joan for the new log book at this cache...

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

TFTC.

Called by today, cache is still in place away from anything yucky. Happy Hunting. Have updated clue to help.

Called by today and the cache is still in place. It is not at the lamp post. Hidden power marker 1825 is where it is located. Although this stop area appears to have a lot of poacher activity and junk that goes with it, the cache is not near this. Please follow your GPS and you will see the geo trail to the hidden spot.

A bit or a lot of CITO required here plus a new cache.

As previously stated will check at weekend again. If gone, we will be archiving it.

Will check cache at weekend, we have placed it at the lower end of the layby in an effort to keep away from any animal remains that seem to be there from time to time. We have no control over what people choose to do in the layby. However we have done our best to have the cache away from this activity. Will check at weekend, and if not there we will archive this cache.

No cache ....just bags of rubbish.

Yuk. Offal dump.
Would have made the search but for this and the previous DNF.
It's a problem I think.
DNF

We're visiting from Florida, USA. That was great fun.lots of trash and fresh offal no cache. Thanks for placing the cache.

Today we are on tour to coromandel town! Found it together with MFFK50
Thanks for the fun and greetings from Austria
Found this 17 meters more left from the hint!

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! !

Found it, but go 17meters left from gz

When I planned my four week trip to beautifull NZ at home in Germany, I had the idea to visit this powertrail while I'm here. Today I arrived but I realized that I don't want to spend so much time with it. To much lovely things around. But I picked up a few Caches and if I come back one time (I really hope so!!!) I'll do more.

Thanks a lot for the Caches.
dG

Finished the 309 route today with Skyryser. TFTC The-Shredder

Finished the 309 route today with The-Shredder. Found it quickly. TFTC Skyryser

Went to the co-rods but nothing there, then we saw something similar went there and there was the cache. Signed the log and replaced. TFTC

Thought I had already logged this a dnf. A lot of rubbish ate here hint sent us but co ords off and couldn't find anything at them either.

#11409. 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.
After ignoring the hint and trusting the GPSr, we found the cache (might pay to update the hint if the cache has moved as it is pretty yukky there at the moment). TFTC.

Found this one on our way to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.
Unfortunatelly we did not have enough time to find all the other caches on that road...

Nice Spot. TFTC

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

#6000
Found during our holiday in New Zealand. Thanks for the cache. Greetings from the Czech Republic.

Having a wonderful time on our last day in NZ, before heading back to Mandurah, W Aus tomorrow, driving around the Coromandel Peninsular, and picking up caches at various stops. Being on such a limited timeframe, there were sadly far too many caches in this series for us to stop for, so I was able to only pick out the two Letterbox ones to find. (BTW, both of them small size caches, not regular.)
Many thanks for the caches Darby&Joan.

Today: caching-tour on road 309. Thanks for all the caches! We had a great time Greetings from Franzi and Jonas
Found the cache at the new position - next to a stinky goat feet.

Another late night cache find, me and FMZ had successfully gained 3 FTF's further north tonight, now we're heading back to Auckland. It's about 11pm I suppose and he has already found this cache quite some time ago, but since I had a DNF awhile ago, he graciously pulled in here for my benefit and helped me search for it in it's new pozi. I was about to give up when I spotted something I overlooked in my first passing! Thankfully I found it! No ammo can here but still I can sign this one off now (with updated co-ords albeit a bit late!).

The cache is NOT now as per the hint at the "Base Power Pole". The base of the power pole is a tip, and the new placement of the cache is much improved. My Garmin had S 36° 47.913 E 175° 31.534 (with an accuracy claim of 3 metres). TFTC Darby&Joan.

Just checking Darby and Joan, is the hint still applicable? Or is that the old hint now.

Coordinates changed from:
S 36° 47.925 E 175° 31.532

Coordinates changed to:
S 36° 47.916 E 175° 31.534

Distance from original: 55.6 feet or 17 meters.
Have had to move this one a short distance, hopefully it lives here a bit longer.

No go here!

Tftc

Found a temporary cache.
SIgned with CNSZ as a geocaching team ot on a power trail.
Cheers from Polynesia
nzkeko

Found temporary cache. Forgot to log at the time. On a geocaching weekend with my favourite geo buddies, we hope to get loads of caches this weekend. We've decided to sign the log sheet as - day trippers CNSZ in order to save space on the log sheets. Thanks to the cachers who hid these caches for us to find and make our weekend such fun.

Really enjoy finding letterbox caches and liked the ones on this trail.

Thanks for the fun day.

Nice to see a big cache container
Tflc

Think I've been feeding the ol' steed too much oats ... totally bolted passed this one and had to pull it up. Spun it around and back to find one of the cleanest, tidyest ammo cans ever. Cool cache [;-)]

No worries finding this one. TFTC

I joined forces with yorkshirekiwi83 for a couple of days caching around the Coromandel Peninsula. After a very early departure from Auckland, we then drove around the Peninsula anticlockwise, calling in at Pauanui, Tairua, Hahei and Cooks Beach, to find caches in those places, before taking the 309 Road to Coromandel, where we stayed the night.

Nearing the end of our day, YK83 took over driving duties at the start of the 309 Road as she had previously done the Pony Express cache trail - leaving me to dash out and find the caches for myself! Most of the caches were nice quick finds, with only 1 DNF for me in the series. Thanks for taking the time to place this trail and apologies for the copy and paste logs!

[red] 2016 NZ Mega Event in Turangi... http://www.nzmega2016.nz

Found it. Returning from Coromandel to Whitianga we done this nice serie. A wonderful trip, TFTC!!!

On the way home from a wedding on the Coromandel and decided to collect a few caches.

Another quick find on the Pony Express trail.

#3781

Fair bit of rubbish and something very smelly, just made up fotr by the graet container.

TFTC

Left gerald to find this as there was another dead stinky animal and a load of rubbish by the GZ. Great container

Tftc

Good big cache, Spiderman decided he had found a great place to stay.

Visited this cache with bubblezone during our long journey around the world

many thanks to the owner for this publish and sorry for the late log!

dear owner, can you please check - your final coords show to another cache (a traditional) of your pony express series. obviously a mistake? thank you!

Had to dodge some blackberries and thistles and some rubbish too, but got the nice big cache.
TFTC

Today we did the "309 Pony Express" and enjoyed it much.
We couldn't find all caches but the most.
Mahopalu

Easy found - nice with one more letterbox ..

Today we decided to go to The Coromandel Peninsula, and why not take route 309 and find some caches too. We started from the Whitianga end, as recommended in the description, and we were quite happy, we did that, as it was a lot easier to make safe stops, compared to driving in the opposite direction .

We had a very nice trip towards Coromandel Town, and we found all the caches in this series, except one. Thanks to Darby&Joan for all the caches and for making this route even more interesting (for geocachers, at least ). We apologize for writing allmost similar logs, but it is hard to remember all the caches, and we have written a little bit to some of them.

Greetings from Denmark
Pia and Frode

Our first mail log. Yeah

#1931, Had this on our radar for a while and finally decided to go for it, a good trail but road was very busy and dusty today. Some of the young locals drive suicidally, was relieved to make it to the other end. Thanks for placing the trail. Fittingly saw a lady walking two ponies at the beginning of the trail. TFTC

# 967 one of 100+ and we also placed 5 caches in NZ this trip as a thank you to the NZ Cachers that made this trip so enjoyable.

We are over the ditch for 18 days, with the goal of achieving our 1000 milestone at East Cape, (less than 40 to go) which will give us our Most Easterly Find as well, 4* east of our current one.

Sorry about the delay in logging, no access to a computer, had to wait until we are home in Qld.

On our way to Coromandel via the 309 Road, before heading out to the East Cape.

We are in to it, so far so good
An easy
All with the cache.
TFTC Darby&Joan

Got to post some of the collected mail and use my new stamp, that nasty gorse again

Our first power trail! some lovely areas to pull over and have an explore. We left from Whitianga and the majority of the time had no problems with parking. Was travelling with rebel98 and urbangypsynz; a joint effort in making the finds. A long day, we are not known for speed! and enjoy getting out the thermos. A sunny hot day, getting some sunburn along the way. Thanks for the hides.

Well we got to find this one, and our stamps got some use! Its been a long day, but we are almost at the end. Just the long drive home.

After a long day of caching this was good to see as it meant we were just about at the end of our trail ready to head home grabbed a quick lunch in the sun at a park further down the road with Rustynz and Urbangyspynz Tftc.

Finishing our previous mission...TFTC

Tftc

Decided we'd take a break and head to the Coromandel for a long weekend staying at Cooks Beach. On our return we had planned to return via the 309 Road to collect this series of caches. The weather wasn't that great with abit of drizzle along the way but it was overcast and the temperature was cooler which was a bonus.

A bit of traffic on this stretch of the road but as we continued on we spotted a car every 20 mins or so. We managed to find every cache on the trail but there were a couple that took abit of time to locate! The trail took roughly 2 hours to complete and we were amazed at the excellent pullover areas on such a windy road. Thanks for a memorable detour and a very well put together trail!

A road workers 4WD parked right on GZ but thankfully the 4WD was not occupied. A nice quick find here, TFTC!

I decided we need a night away in Whitianga, and to finally tackle this power trail.

We trotted along keeping an eye out for a silver station wagon, but we never did see it...

We found them all, and thanks for replacing that missing one Lisa, a nice little path tag too, coolies

Couldn't find a couple but we had a break from the trail and came back to them and found them easily, cache blindness.

One issue with some dogs sitting at GZ on one cache, but they were pretty friendly

Thanks for setting up team, we had a good blast finding them, all placed well. Nice warm weather too, what more could one ask for..

TFTPT

Cache # 2,165 - Did the 309 trail today with Violet Butterfly and Astro Hunter. Enjoyed the trip. Most caches were quick finds, although a couple took some poking to locate and one wasn't there. This one, the third letterbox on the trail, was a quick find, although there was another animal pelt nearby this one too - lying in the grass. TNLNSL. Thanks for the series!

Did today with Astro Hunter and The Wandering Dragons on a big day in the Coromandel. Thank you!

Cache # 830

Found today with Violet Butterfly and The Wandering Dragons. Thanks!

Cache # 281

This trail has been on our " to do" list for some time and as we had to come up here for a couple of reasons today was the day to 'knock the bugger off'. We have traveled this road a number of times, the first time in a Peugeot 309 on our Honeymoon so it has a special place in our hearts. It has improved somewhat over the years and is now a very good and interesting drive.

Found the cache OK. Also found something dead. At first we thought it was one of the pigs back by the previous cache and someone had knocked one off for his dinner. But decided it was a very black goat skin.

Thanks Darby&Joan.

I had been wanting to do this little trail for a while, but had not found the time. Planned for a day off and a drive today. The series was nicely placed with easy parking etc. My GPS turned into a brick after the first few caches and I had to use my phone. Glad of the hints as the phone (like all of them) seems to be accurate to about 200m, so I missed the odd cache and had to backtrack a couple of times. But all part of the day. Thanks for the trail.

Heading over to Coromandel town for a evening fishing on a charter boat, so thought I'd head over earlier and tackle this new trail. Had been over this road a couple of times, and from memory was expecting a road much worse than this, I was also worried about the side of the road parking. To my surprise the CO has done a fantastic job of placements where you can safely park the car.

A little bit of traffic on the road today, and saw a car about every 20mins or so. Managed to locate every cache thou a there were some which took a few minutes to locate. All up the trail took me about 2 1/2 to complete by myself, so I thought that wasn't to bad going. Thanks for placing a well put together PT.

nearing the end of the series, having a blast on a nice warm day.. well a little on the hot side now though...already passed our record for caches on one day ( perhaps up and on the trail way earlier then last time.. lol ) up lifted a TB that wasn't supposed to be there but didn't see the one that was apparently there...

advise from MR A.... don't disturb the green bag at gz.. that some low life country person has dumped there ( clearly to far to assume it was the normal city slicker) .. its ripe.. god only knows how much riper it will get if you pick it up!

Another day (wet) caching around the coromandel. Say it's our last day away and heading back to the big smoke of Auckland. Tftc