Escape from The Arena (BOP) Tauranga, North Island, New Zealand
By TNXPro on 28-Jul-14. Waypoint GC59QR9

Found it

Cooool find!

Wow, such a cool find!!!

Arrived early at the National Franchise Conference and decided to have a quick look. Standing at the right side and looking in the right direction I found it within minutes. Other logs to look for something different helped. Tweezers recommended to get the log out Great cache!

Found the sucker what a mission! Can't say I loved it after all the frustrating hunting hahaha but very very clever!! Kept the kids busy while we were at the national bird show event on at the arena TFTC

Ng mihi m te kimihanga. He tino uaua, engari he pai rawa atu! Ninjahape i tino harikoa.Thanks for the find. That was a hard one, but a good one "finally tick that one off"Ng mihiNinjahape

Dnf

No luck this time

Most of the fun today was orienteering our way here on our bikes, using the new cycle way. Found the area very busy with people setting up for the Home Show. However, they were too busy to notice what we were doing so we did have a pretty good look. But not good enough - no luck finding the cache. TFTC

Spent a while sitting on steps and searching when I got chance but found nothing.

Out with Reschedule finally getting this one, after 4 attempts but each there was major events on so we gave it a miss. Our timing was always horrible. Nice hide, it was exactly what I assumed it would be, was just a matter of locating it. TFTC

Another day over here with Kiwi Does, taken many attempts to get in here without an event being on, finally weve had a chance to scope this one out, Kiwi had a good idea on what we were looking for, cache in hand, signed and put back discretely. TFTC!

Drove up from Palmy to Papamoa for our annual family camp. I Made a list before hand of a couple caches that looked to be more creative or special and this was on that list. We were expecting this to be very tricky but ended up being a quick find. This cache is indeed very well camoed and blends in perfectly. I can tell the CO spent some time on this and gets a FP I wrote in the log and placed the cache carefully back as found. TFTC. Thanks TNXPro for placing this Traditional cache! TNXPro , ! 21 January 2024 at 11:48AM#830th Find

Not the best time to investigate as people everywhere, big stock car event I attended thought I would open my app an see what's around, i did notice something out of place but far to bizzy to move on anything. I will be back for you. DNF

In Tauranga for a weekend away. Morning drive somehow found us in Baypark. Nice hide - No one about so able to take a more methodical approach - took us a little while to locate. Fav point given - TFTC

Awesome cache!!The whole family got involved (5y/o 3y/o and even our 1y/o).Sometimes it helps to try a different perspective. Look for patterns.Definitely a Fav!! TFTC

With the annual Bridge Congress and Geocache event impending, I checked on this cache and its still looking good. Plenty of space on the log left. If there is anyone wanting to find this cache who has failed before, best to join the event happening here soon.

In town for the careers expo, had a quick look yesterday during lunch break but had to come back today to put my hands on this one. Well hidden, just a slight difference gave it away. FP from me, cheers!

Quick overnight stop for a service on hubbys bike, after run found these 2 on our way out thanks for the placement cache was in good order, thankfully didnt take too long + fav point

Tftc

This one also had had me going a little as I had a fairly good idea of what to expect .....but there were many options.......

Day 2 of 4 with junior cacher and Mrs stik-a-crane for some RNR, and luckily the weather decided to play ball for the time we were visiting.

After walking around the base of the mount gathering intel for Ad.Labs we headed back to our accommodation gathering a few favorited caches along the way......

The cache was all good.

Fav.point given.

TFTC.

Playing some bridge at the arena today and after a sandwich I walked over here with a finder from yesterday and with a little help made the find. Signed log and carried onto the hoading for a little more head statching. Well hidden cache. Thanks TNXPro

Playing Bridge at the Arena all week. Some blue sky and warm weather appeared at lunchtime. I cased the hide after lunch and came up empty handed so we went for a walk to The Hoarding. On my return I went looking for another Bridge playing cacher to see if he could provide assistance. Unable to find him I returned to GZ to find him there already searching. Luckily his muggle bridge partner was with us as he was the one to put his hands on it. A nice hide indeed. TFTC

In Tauranga playing bridge and getting a few caches. I had help from my bridge partner. Thanks

Yay on our way home we decided to see if we could find this. Hint had me looking in the wrong place so read a few logs & pondered some more. Put my hand on it but disregarded it to begin with but then on closer inspection it moved. Was ready to give up so glad bluey has turned yellow. Tftc

Have been wanting to grab this one for ages. On a trip back from TECT park, myself and Kimbathelion dropped in… found a side gate open and got to GZ. It took quite some time walking up and down to locate this one…. Was about to give up when Kimbathelion said ‘found it’. Yey.

I'm sure its here but I can't see it. I work nearby so will be back.

Out at Baypark for work. I can confirm the cache is there and in good condition.

Couldn’t locate. A staff member shooed me away and told me no access even though I walked through an open gate and no signage. The other accesses are blocked too so this should be noted with cache description.

Hm - these title icons don't even display on my PC. Getting to GZ was a bit of a mission - most accesses were blocked off or locked, but there was one small gate to the east of the arena. This cache looked daunting, and I resorted to looking at a few older logs, to realise that perhaps it wasn't that bad, and I was eventually surprised to see it va cynva fvtug. Thanks.

Thanks for not finding me during the lockdown. I will still need to confirm whether this place opens up in Level 2 as it was a Covid19 testing centre.

Due to Covid19, and to encourage people to "stay at home" to prevent spreading the virus, I am joining others in temporarily disabling my caches. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THIS CACHE.

Really enjoyed locating this one but only managed it with some help from the CO. A very clever hide and a definite favourite. Thanks for the big effort in placing this one.

We were sure we knew what we should be looking for, but do you think we could find it first time round, No! Leaving the area the next day, so got a bit of guidance, and had a better result second time round. Thanks TNXPro for the great hide, gets a fav.

Love ones like this and this is a great one. Just peeves me off that we didn't find it the first time (even though we had a fair idea what we might be looking for and we were looking in the right area!), and had to ask for help!! Second time, we found it quickly. Thanks for the hide and the help. A definite fav

As Mr had business in the area the Little One and Mrs thought we would tag along and amuse ourselves hunting for the two caches close by. We had done some research and figured we would tackle the harder one first but new we would need to bring our A game given we had read that some had taken multiple attempts and we had yet to tackle a 4. With much positivity and determination we made it to GZ and realised the huge task ahead of us. With much surprise in short time (more good luck than good management?) we noted a possibility although initial investigations had us doubting...but wahoo we had found it! Love it! And we can see why it has bamboozled some. Thanks for this awesome cache.

Such a challenge but so much fun. Had a look for quite a while and then looked at the other activity logs and then had a quick look around and the cache was quickly in hand. This is an amazing cache - hence it's a fave. TFTC

Reading the description and other peoples logs, I decided to attack it from a certain angle.. and in 20 seconds I hit jackpot
It helped that there were noone around. .

Found at 11:59 - #8599 - on a 5 week trip in New Zealand

TFTC

This was a sneaky one. up and down the stairs and looking at everything we could to try and find it. Twisted and turned all sorts of things.
But.... after a long time something looked different, and sure enough it was in hand. This one we both tried to find a lot beforehand, so pleased to finally have found it.

#762 - Came here with Taschynz to try and find it with 2 sets of eyes! as I just couldn't find it on my own! So many possibilities. After looking what we thought was everywhere, I scrolled the logs and someone had wrote that the Co-ords were spot on..so that narrowed the field for us. we did a lot of counting and matching up and finally spotted it!! good work with this one. TFTC

Wow awesome cache finally found after 3rd attempt

I had an hour to kill so came to find having already read many of the successful logs to try find some clues. Its possible that I was too caught up in the previous mentions of "one of these things is not like the other" and "the pitch on this one was slightly off" cause I searched up and down back and front but obviously not seeing it haha so in typical fashion of the CO I was left feeling frustrated by his skillful hiding.
I will be back to turn that blue face yellow though.

Have had my eye on these 3 ever since I started coming down to Papamoa!
Wasn't confident of driving round here...so luckily I had someone happy to drive me this morning.
Wow!
Finally!
I have 2 like this in Auckland....but this was one more level up!
TOTALLY blends in with surroundings!
Thanks TNXPro!

Came back to this one after finding another near by evil is correct

Headed to Tauranga for a long weekend of caching with Merlot58 and Jag50. Armageddon Expo was on so there were plenty of muggles around GZ. There was even a muggle sitting on the stairs nearby and he was oblivious to us searching around him. With four of us looking it didn't take us too long to finally locate the cache that blended in very well.

Teamed up with Merlot58 and Aiden29 to form team JAM. Despite the Armageddon being on we had no trouble getting parking or blending win with the crowd. milling and moving around . A short search and MrJag50 had the cache spotted.

Despite Armageddon being on this weekend there was still plenty of parking available. We were probably the odd looking ones as we weren't in costume as we made our way to gz. Thankfully the search here was brief as we had a fair idea of what we needed to look for and Mr Jag quickly found the cache. I can see how this would be a real tricky one to find as it fits in with the environment very nicely.

After a hint from the CO after our 4th visit our 5th visit was finally successful
thanks to the hint. It still took 4 minutes to hear “found it”
Tftc

What a clever, clever cache. Tagged along with a fellow family member who caches who had a dnf here previously, armed with a hint kindly given to us we had the cache in hand after a few minutes searching. What a superb hide. Tftc.

Third visit here and I have grown attached to the stairs but still no joy

Have been out caching with CamCat1 for the last couple of days. I've looked for this one every time I come up from Hastings with no luck. ( 4+ ) Even yesterday before it got overcrowded with muggles going to the speedway, we spent over an hour touching ( as we thought ) everything that could be a possible cache. No luck. So today had to be the day to find it, ( or not at all !!!! ) After 3/4 of an hour searching, and still nothing, I got in contact with the CO. While waiting for a reply, we headed off to find other caches. CO was quick to reply with a clue, thank you for that, so back we go to GZ. WELL I'LL BE BLOWED, 2 minutes later cache was in hand, I'm dammed sure that wasn't there before. I'm pleased I have got a smiley here now. If I could give it a couple of FP I would. Cheers

This is a very cleverly disguised cache. I have been out with CeeVee the last few days and this was on our to do list. We were sure that we had looked at everything, tried to look for something that was out of place, anything that might be different. We could have sworn that we had moved or pushed everything that we could reach, so finally CeeVee contacted CO for help. We then went off to find more caches and came back to Bay Park with the extra clue, and there it was. Talk about feeling silly. Anyway, thank you for the cache, it really was a mind teaser.

Over in Tauranga to do a couple of things and decided we should at the very least do these two caches which eluded us last time and which people have been finding Hahahahahahhaha. Should have known. We searched high and low last time without any luck. This time Mrs S made the find. She looked and thought ...........hhmmmm maybe that doesn't look quite right and found that indeed it wasn't.

Thanks TNXPro. We give you a FAV for frustration.

OH MY. EVILNESS PERSONIFIED.

OK well not all that bad. I work here a lot so I am always trying to escape from the place. This is a little reason I have spent an extra 7ish hours over 5 hunts looking for this lovely camo'd micro. I reached out for help and someone took pitty on me, thanks man. I was sure i had looked everywhere and touched everything over those many hours looking at this structure.

I feel like I have a relationship with these stairs now that can never be broken so i have to thank you for that TNXPro.

Love the wee poem! We had 2 for 2 when we arrived at GZ so there was no way we weren't going to find this cache... we had a pretty good idea of what we were looking for... and three sets of eyes doing the looking. The GPS said 'here'... and the phones said 'here or maybe here'... we looked high... we looked low... we looked down... we looked up... we looked for what shouldn't be there.... and we looked at patterns... we read some more logs looking for clues... and then we found it... so pleased we didn't give up... and super grateful for a very overcast day that kept lots of muggles away! Cheers TNXPro

After skipping The Hoarding due to construction work in the area we moved to this cache. Had an idea what to look for here and Tinytree made a quick find. In good condition. TFTC.

Had some time to kill between going to the dump and picking up a team member in town, so what better way to deal with spare time than to try and hunt out a geocache. Thanks to some log scouring & some eagle eyes, we spotted this after about 5 minutes of searching. The camo is awesome, and though we have seen something similar before, this one totally blended into the environment. We were able to retrieve the log (after a moment of panic that we may not be able to get it out!), sign it and return it all without being spotted. Youngest team member then insisted we race to the top of the stairs & back down again. Thanks for the cache, and for the exercise! Fave point for this one!

Surprisingly quick find by Phil after Bryan Adams gig! Must have his caching eyes in! SL TFTC

After recent DNF log I checked up on this and its still there and in good condition.

Not doing well today no luck here.

Spiderhouse

Great hide and fantastic camp

Perfect excuse to look for these caches...shopping! The skate shop expo thing was on snd I needed new shoes. Didn't find any shoes but did find a couple of caches which was way more fun. Thanks TNXpro

On a trip over the Kaimais to escape Waikato fog/rain & enjoy some lovely mid-winter BOP sunshine instead. No-one around here today when I arrived, which made for an easy search. Or so I thought ... Was so busy examining the structure that I didn't notice the security man's arrival until a voice asked what I was up to. Hard to explain why a middle-aged woman is lying on the ground, examining a metal stair case !!! Made up a random tale about thinking I'd dropped an earring here .. not sure he was convinced .. he drove off but then returned shortly after. Thankfully I'd found the sneaky cache, replaced it & was walking back to my car when he came back. A fav for the very memorable search! TFTC

This time I will log a D.N.F. as it's my 3rd time here looking. Spent at least 1 1/2 hours here today with a couple of muggle helpers. I'll be back the next in the area. Cheers.

Had a guess confirmed by the CO at a recent event which meant this time I got it at the second try. TFTC.

Spent a wee while here. Sat down and read more previous logs and woo hoo got very cool it gets a fave from us TFTC

Best cache we've had so far. 10/10! Took us 30 minutes to find. We're about to give up but just found it. Hahahaha so hard

Love when we spot something that only slightly looks out of place. A great place for this kind of cache that will make people look closely. Must of been some event here last night as there is a big clean up going on. TFTC

#644 - Had a few spare minutes before i had to pick my son up, so i decided to tackle this one. I spend a lot of time walking in circles, until my GPS was at GZ then it all fell into place.
I think the hint confused me more than helped me, doh. Great cache was a good challenge

Mate!!! That was hard! Finally found after being blown around by the wind and ending up looking like red out of fragile rock! Hahahaha thanks for the fun and the cache. Nice tricky little hide. TFTC

Seeing I was back in town I decided to give this one another go after it defeated me a couple of months ago. Nicely placed.

Cheers for the cache.

Thanks for letting me know the log book is nearly full. I replaced it tonight. Happy hunting!

Got the sucker. I never give up. And its paid off. Went past it so many times. Lol. Then the doh moment arrived. I have enjoyed the hunt for it. Another excellent hide. Tftc

Oh almost forgot the log sheet is coming to an end. Will only 3 more logs.

My second visit to this spot - what a difference time and an extra more experienced pair of eyes makes! Certainly spent less time looking this time around. This really is a great hide and a nifty cache. Tftc.

Caching with a couple of buddies today, we live in the area but I had not attempted these ones yet - probably too intimidated! Took a bit of going around and touching everything and think I got a bit lucky and fell upon it by fluke. Excellent disguise. Thanks for the cache!

With such a large search area we were thinking we'd be here for a while, nope, found in less than a minute. Pleased. Thanks for the cache

Great one thank you

Good cache hide. Took a first timer with us - really impressed with the cache and hide.

This reminds us so much of a certain cache of Glyn's not far from our house which caused visitors to the Mega no end of trouble. Knew exactly what sort of camo we were looking for as soon as we saw GZ and managed to locate this one super quick. Many thanks for this cache

1861 Competing in the Indoor Bowls nationals in the arena so popped out in my bye round to sign this. Struggled to get log out but managed with a tool I found nearby. Like the hide.

Came this way with the kids to find some caches. Cool finds. Kids had fun. Out hunting with jaymie07

Absolutely loved this one . probably took us about half an hour to finally find it. Very clever and the thought and expertise that has gone into this cache placement deserving of a favourite!

Yup thats jyst not nice, well hidden and crafted. Gets a fav.This one is a wrap. Mission accomplished TFTC! Blenheim Bear
This log posted with CacheSense for Android!

Took a bit of searching after being at the Tauranga Home Show. Clever hide. TFTC

ANOTHER successful baypark find!!! 2 out of 2 is a bit better than my last attempt (1 out of 3). That coffee probably helped. Junior wasn't much help at hunting but kids always provide good cover. Luckily we had the right tool with us as it was needed. Another very cool cache, thanks tnxpro. Sorry I'm out of favourite points - it deserves one.

One of these is not like the others.... 2nd visit to this one and got to add another smilie

One of the toughest caches I have ever tried to find.

TFTC.

Was sure I knew what I was looking for and I was correct. Only way to locate was systematically. Not helped by Noidnz who was desperate to go to the toilet. After a trip to the bushes and back I could settle in for more searching. Very evil and clever. Thanks for the cache

A quick look and to the trained eye I spied something with the incorrect pitch ...bingo......an excellent cache ....thought this may have been one of the arduous, torturous, hair pulling and genuine pain in the arse caches but no most enjoyable and a fav from one who loves engineering

Yay! After several attempts we have finally cracked this one. Tried earlier today with no luck but came back and looked by torchlight tonight and found the tricky little blighter with SamTaylor02. Another evil cache, but so satisfying to have found the 3 Baypark caches today that have been eluding us. TFTC.

Nope, not today. At least it was muggle-free so we got to search about freely. Will be back!

Enjoyed the poem and the hunt. Tftc

#11770. More good work by Troodles in spotting this one. TFTC.

After a walk around the Mount this morning, we bought a few supplies from the supermarket and headed home for a coffee and lunch. We decided to have a bike ride in the afternoon, and pick up a few caches. Unfortunately, we had to bike on some busy roads (Mt Maunganui needs more cycle ways!) so the ride back to home base was not a pleasant experience.
Our hearts sunk when we got to GZ, so many places to hide the cache! We had a quick look, then retreated to a shady spot to read up some more about the cache. StreetWalker read out an interesting log, so I looked around and immediately saw something that needed further investigation - yess, the cache. Phew, that was lucky as it could have taken far longer. TFTC.

Very tricky this one, but determined not to give up. Ttfc

Yay finally knocked this one off to fulfill the smiley s in this area. Was bloody frustrating though, have to admit after over an hour of searching, touching, twisting, fondling had to paf, bloody hell, how come this took so long, it's exactly what we thought it would be!! TFTC. Okay a fave too!!

Joined McJandals to attack this one today. Thought 2 pairs of eyes (and hands) would b helpful. Not to be. Had to PAF.
Seriously that had to be the only thing, above and below that we hadn't touched !!
Evil ain't the word that comes to mind.
Cheers

Came up from palmy to watch the jets sprints. This one was really really good & hard, for a beginner cacher like me. Didn't want to come all this way empty handed lol. Waited for the crowd of Muggles to lessen. This was challenging with a very clever hide and tail end of Muggles walking past. This is why I going to make this a memorable favourite TFTC

Frustrating camo, but isn't this the purpose of this cache lol