Aranui Park (Nelson/Marlborough) Mapua, South Island, New Zealand
By paddle chick on 02-Aug-14. Waypoint GC5A2X8

Both the signboard and cache are gone

Looks like the board is missing, disabling until I can check it out

No luck for us today. A year since the last find, so not sure if its still in place?

Last minute find before heading out after a week camping in Mapua.
Took a wee bit to get all the required numbers and then not too far away for the find. TFTC

Nice walk and we soon had the cache in hand. TFTC

We soon calculated the coordinates, and headed to the cache, which we found lying in the open. We replaced it where we assumed it should be with some cover to hold/disguise it. TFTC

Nice walk around the park thank you, took a wee while to narrow it down at the end , then spotted it!

There were several small groups having picnics in the area, but none near where I had to be. It took a bit of cleaning to get all the info from the dirty sign.
Once at GZ, I kinda figured where the cache should be. TFTC.

Another one of those "solved a long time ago multis when on a previous trip grabbed the required info but not got back to grab the final" caches. Today tidying up a few left over adventure labs and made the effort to tidy up a couple of other Mapua caches that I had not claimed. Took much longer than expected but got there in the end. Thanks for the multi and thanks for the cache.

Found with NZDi. It is Easter and NZDi decided she wanted to go to the Mapua Easter Fair seeing she missed out last year due to Covid-19 Level 4 Lockdown. Also we purchased a caravan late last year and as Easter is traditionally the last outing of the season before caravans are closed up for winter, we didn't want to waste this opportunity even though we have another trip planned next month.

So the plan is to set up at Motueka Top 10 Holiday Park for three days going to the Fair on Sunday, then on Monday look at the weather and decide whether to spend another three days in Golden Bay or head down the Wet Coast. In the meantime there is some caching to do.

Today is Day 5 of our expedition over the hill. On Friday we managed to get what the purists would say was 17 caches, but two of them were Lab Caches so GCHQ says the tally is 25, and who are we to argue with that. Saturday the purists tally was 20, but one of those was a Lab Cache so GCHQ says 24. Sunday we went to the Mapua Easter Fair so only had the afternoon to cache and only managed to grab 12 with no Lab Caches. Yesterday we went to visit NZDi's old stamping grounds where she lived until she was nine in the Upper Moutere area and later cached the causeway from Motueka to the Ruby Bay/Mapua turn off getting 24 caches in total.

Today the plan is to head toward Mapua getting the odd cache on the way and taking a side trip to Kina Cliffs. This turned out to be our 103rd and find find of the weekend and while the final coordinates were easy to work out, this was a tricky little devil to find. But find it we did... eventually.

TFTC paddle chick, I hope you enjoyed the Queen Charlotte Track.

Found while on an Easter caching holiday with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

TFTC paddle chick

Solved this ages ago. Failed to locate. Got a clue from a previous finder. Then located cache and saved for a day when needed a cache. Trying to up my numbers and today needed more. Managed to get cache and walked off to sign as looked like a council worker and two locals talking about what needed to be done in park. Took their time, and then had to wait for a wheelchair pushing lady to get past as well before could return. TFTC and the multi.

Nice park, I was surprised how few other people I saw around (1)! TFTC!!

We are about to move into level 2 and caching will be allowed from midnight tonight so I'm reactivating my caches. Happy and safe caching

New Zealand is under Level 4 lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I am disabling all my caches for the meantime to remind people that we MUST break the chain of infection.

Covid-19 is now being spread within the community, person to person. We know that the virus will remain on surfaces like metal and plastic for up to 4 days.

We have only one chance to stop the Covid-19 virus spreading further. This is to BREAK the chain of infection by keeping each household separated completely. During this time each of us MUST keep isolated and only share with the people in our own household.

The best advice is to act as though you are infected... which you might be.

If you touch a cache container, you will leave viruses on the plastic, logbook and pen. Those will remain infectious for up to 4 days. Suppose some other person finds the cache tomorrow. They are likely to pick up those viruses and will get infected.

Playground equipment is out of bounds for exactly that reason- touching surfaces can spread infection.

Each of us has to do our bit to save lives. If the Covid-19 virus spreads, a lot of us will die. Maybe your grandmother, or my 9 year old neice who has who has an autoimmune disease

Stay home, stay safe, let's get to the other side of the pandemic before we go geocaching again.

I stopped by after lunching in Mapua yesterday and gathered the details. Worked out later where the final would be, and today rode my bike into Mapua to sign off the cache. Quite a tricky 'needle in the haystack" type of hide. Took me about 8 mins to locate the cache. Thanks for the placement paddle chick.

SJT_NZ and I had solved this some time ago and had a good search at the time but no luck, today an easy find so last time didn't have our caching eyes on. Thanks paddle chick, it's a lovely park so nice to be drawn to the history and then get to have a wee wander.

Tregearp and I solved the coordinates and looked for this one over a year ago with no luck even after nearly 30 minutes searching. As noted in some of the other logs there a tree has come down and there has been some work in the area - which must have been just before we visited last time as the cuts were still fresh and there saw sawdust around. Anyway, for whatever reason we had way overthought it and today made the find in under a minute.

How did we miss that??? Anyway, we did, but a quick find today with all in good order.

Thanks paddle chick for the multi

We have done a couple of caches in this park and enjoy a meander round it again - found the info we needed and soon had co-ords - so off we went got to GZ and had a small search before I decided we weren't quite at GZ - followed gps and there it was in front of me !! Yay thanks for the cache and bringing us here again

This is a familiar area so it was nice now to do another cache here . Got all our required info from the board and headed off enjoying some sun. Arrived at GZ and started our hunt but was a little worried with the tree fallen over the fence! Turned out after a few minutes on site we were directed a little further along to our latest smiley TFTC

Could not find

We stay in Mapua for two days, so we want to find some caches here.
After finding the information, I went to find the cache, and I succeeded, although it is difficult without a hint.
TFTC and greetings from Denmark

Fab find with local Tamaha venturer group.

Its Queens Birthday Weekend so we are off caching for the long weekend. Todays route took us from Motueka through the Rai Valley to Blenheim. This one sure took abit of searching. I had just given up when Mum started researching places she had been and found it. Thanks for placing this cache here for everyone else's enjoyment.

Quick find , very exposed little cache, signed log and rehidden with some more cover. Tftc

Found quickly before start working !

MPLC

A nice park and a quick multi. Great to see the generousity for the community. TFTC

I had a lovely walk around this beautiful park got the information need, a quick easy find just finished placing it and muggles came along.Thanks for placing this multi this one deserves a favorite paddle chick

I have decided, that since there is more than enough local caches for me to complete my calendar project I would try for the Ten Multis in Ten Days Challenge in Paremata, just north of Wellington. But there are not enough multis left in Blenheim, but it can work if I come to Nelson for a couple of weekends. So here I am, with Taybeedragon, Zara and Toby in tow. On a puzzle-only weekend. Well, puzzles, and just one multi per day. The multi done, and with my GPS loaded with nothing but solved puzzles, we set off.
Well, it's supposed to be a puzzle day, but I have run out of solved puzzles before we ran out of daylight. So we are finishing off with finishing off Mapua.

Hey! A plaque! It's a read a plaque cache! Close, but not quite. After reading the near by sign we headed off to the finalMan, what a hunt! I eventually found the cache at the obvious hide, but not till the third time I checked it over, in between which the sharp eyes of t he dragon had already given it a look. In my defence I am going to say that I was distracted by the awesome weather shelter underneath - perfect for a cache. Yeah, poor excuse. I know.

The Seagnoid has finding his solved puzzles and an odd multi on the radar for the weekend - in Nelson. Yes!! Zara and I arrived on Thursday, with The Seagnoid and Toby completing the team Friday night. With the multi out of the way its on to puzzles thanks to The Seagnoid solving abilities and thanks to the COs for the extra mind boggling effort.
The Seagnoid had only loaded puzzles for the weekend. But we are running out and are near Mapua so its over to the trusty Cell Phone so we can cache around here.
Gathered the info at the info signs and checked out the plaque as well. Now lets go for a walk. This became a hunt, here, there and here again. Finally, the Seagnoid snags it after looking there how many time!! Some are just like that. Tagged. Cheers.

A nice and easy Multi cache which was just the thing as we were passing. The numbers were soon gathered at the start point and we headed along to G Z witha 3 legged dog ahead of us. Once himand his owners had moved on we pincer searched for the cache and the find was soon made. T F T M and C paddle chick.

Another weekend day with a Geocaching theme planned; a trip (back) over the hill (again) and head out to Mapua Bay to get the Earthcache out there as well as 'one or two' other options. We left Blenheim at around 730 and returned just after 7 so a good day out was had by all, with the Tasman weather at its best yet again. Caching crew was me, ricardinho.nz and Jojo74 and between us we navigated, found and travelled the roads, and beaches, of Ruby Bay grabbing caches as we went. Logs were signed in various combinations of Ri/Jo/Ca. We also came across a few other cachers; Wellwishers near Marriages Road, 'Snook' (I think) in Mapua athletic park, and a pre-arranged meet up with the good guy that is mr gdguys at Hoddy Estuary park.
A few more for the totals and some more yellow smiley conversion completed over that region of NZ, catching up with Wanganui/Manawatu again.

A nice quick multi in Mapua, with a quick find once a couple of muggles moved on. TFTC paddle chick.
Sunday was the second day over the hill for us this weekend. Today's target area was around Mapua, and the crew today was Jo, Capperz and Ricardinho, with most logs being signed RiCaJo, or something similar. Nelson turned on the weather, and some good caches were found and we bumped into a few cachers on our travels as well. TF all the caches to the COs.

Easy to decode. But took an unnecessary tumble -so blood everywhere BUT found the cache in the end!

Cache was lying out in the open so GK tucked it away a wee bit so that it had a wee bit of protection. Out and about in Mapua with 3 grandkids so just doing a few nice and easy caches while giving them a bit of a look around the area tftc

Yay found with Dr.Davis and justajem

Tftc with justajem and scr0tum

Found with Dr.Davis and Scrotum on a Labour day excursion. Tftc!

In Richmond for a couple days to surprise Dad on his 70th B'day. Came out to Mapua for the boys to do a spot of fishing at Grossi's Point. Grew up in Mapua (then moved to Richmond); gosh it's changed a bit....used to be horse paddocks here (used to feed them apples now and again)...Nice developing park now. Quickly gathered numbers and onto the final for a quick find and sign. Cheers.

Great walk with cachehound after collecting coordinates. Muggle free at gz while I looked around but while signing log was a close call - we stayed motionless and got away with it!
TFTC

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

Staying with family after participating in the National Orienteering Champs at St Arnaud over Easter and time to do a little geocaching today. Mr G had previously attempted to find this with others but they'd had no success in the tangle of vegetation here with lots of possible spots. Today Mrs G first studied previous logs and looked before she leapt into any searching. It didn't take too long to spot the likely hide and sure enough the cache was soon in hand. It was interesting to have this nice little park drawn to our attention too. TFTC

We looked at the sign board last week on the way home and returned to the park today to search. It didn't take long to spot an ideal cache hide. Upon closer inspection we found the cache.
TFTC

We brought our little picnic to this nice little reserve. A quick lunch and the co-Ords were found. We headed off to GZ and sighed. "Needle in a haystack" was our first thought. We climbed about and looked around to no avail. We were just about to give up when I spotted something. Jules leapt into action and soon the cache was ours. A great cache thanks paddle chick.

got the secondary co-ords fine, looked with our blinkers on and then found in a simple place

I worked out the numbers for this multi many months ago, but never had time to find it then and whenever we've been to the area since, there's never been the opportunity to stop.

Until today!

My last stop on a pre-work cache dash and whilst reaching for my phone to check recent logs I spotted the cache.

A nice wee park in a nice area.

Thanks

#981

First time to this park and we had a good walk about looking for caches...thanks Paddle chick..we enjoyed this.

TFTC. It was good to get an insight into a bit of local history on the way to finding the cache.

Enjoyed a nice stroll around here. TFTC.

GPS a bit unsettled but eventually spotted something just a little bit out of place. Local primary school running a practice for their cross country run. Thanks for the visit to this park.

Found in the evening Thank you

Just happened to be in the Mapua area today so took time out to solve this nice little multi. Lovely little reserve. Thanks paddle chick!!

Bonus - going in the right direction. Filling in time while Mrs was at Cushla's... TFTC.

Quick multi for a quick find TFTC (1652)

Nice quick multi-cache, soon off to final location - took a bit of searching to locate.

SL TFTC

On a geocaching holiday with tmann421 seeking out caches at the top of the South Island. Thanks to all the CO's for making this such a memorable trip.

Another good hide here.

TFTC

Took 4 yr old and 7yr old on their bikes to this one. Big park hidden in behind the road. Attacked by mozzy's at GZ but we had a fun time. TFTC

#4897

After driving up from Christchurch to Nelson in a relocation rental car I decided to use the time I had the car to explore some of the area. This was the first stop of the day on my way to Motueka. It didn't take long to work out the coords for the cache, but when I got there I was surprised to only find a micro as there was plenty of place for a small or regular box.

TFTC

Check my blog at [green]ds8300[/green]

Family was heading to Grossi's Point to do a little swimming/kayaking.
I decided to walk so that I could grab a couple of caches along the way.
Easy enough to find the numbers, and the final wasn't too difficult either.
TFTC

Planted a couple of trees for a friend when this park was first set up. They are huge now. Thanks for the cache.

Solved the puzzle, the walk to the cache
Interesting reading
Thank you paddle chick for the puzzle and the hide.

Called by in the drizzle this morning. Did my sums and then drove around to park quite close to the final. Inspected the dead eel at GZ and then located the prize.
TFTC

Great spot of never been to

Sorry hit the wrong cache

#8511. Good job it was just a short walk (it was the last cache of the day and home and a coffee were beckoning). TFTC.

The third and final day of our Labour weekend trip to Golden Bay. There was quite a bit of rain overnight and some drizzle early morning, but mainly it was fine during the day so the weather didn't really put much of a dampener on our trip (apart from long wet grass and mud at some locations).
We had detoured to Mapua to look for the two newly published caches, so decided we'd look for this one too, the last find of the day. Info was soon converted into co-ords and off we trotted. Had some misgivings about our co-ords when we got there as there were so many possible hiding places for a micro. After searching a few possibilities, StreetWalker made the find, phew.
Hadn't explored this park before, we'd stopped for the trad only, a few years ago. Thanks for bringing us back.

I love this place. No problem with assembling the coords and the find. Thank you Paddle Chick for placing this cache.

We decided to get out and about to brush the cobwebs off and grab a few outstanding caches along the way. This was the third of half a dozen we found. I hadn't been down this end of this park before so enjoyed the stroll to GZ after getting the info. Thank you paddle chick.

I had a wee bit of time after work so I walked down and finished this one which I startedthe day it was published TFTC

Woo hoo!!! Yippee!!! Today was finally the last "finds" calendar day for me!!! And what better way to complete the occasion than with the closest to home cache that I was eligible for!!! I had a major blitz on calendar days last year and thought I had everything under control until I realised that being on a flight from Vancouver to Auckland on October 3 was going to mean that for me, that day just wasn't going to exist. - - - It's good to have all the gaps filled. I'm not sure what the next challenge will be. - - - Has been a bit of a challenge just getting out caching lately - - - but that's the way it goes. TFTC .

Found with kiwi nomad on way home from event

Found with bullertrout on the way home from the event

We really enjoyed reading the history and then a wander round the whole circuit. Even came back with the fish and chips because it was a lot more sheltered than down at the wharf. TFTC #6032

Yippee! Found it. A lovely day for a wander around the park. Not too many muggles at this time of day. TFTC

I seemed to have missed out on all the initial publication fun and games with this cache. Today I took a lunch time drive to Mapua and had a go at this new multi there. Didn't take long to find the information required and derive the final location. A shortish walk to that spot and a good hiding place was quickly spotted. Nice one! TFTC, Biggles.

Nice to return here. Sounds like being slow meant we missed all the drama.
Although, I was starting to doubt the direction being micro, but easily found.
Thanks paddle chick for the cache

we came we read we looked we left, we'll be back soon TFTC

FTF with Kiwi Grandad. With my streak over its nice to be able to find more than one local cache in a day. Particularly when they are new ones. We found the sign and the answers pretty easily but then some confusion followed. Decided on a tried and tested strategy I've used on multi caches before. That gave us a few possible places to check and a micro to find without a hint would normally be impossible. But Kiwi Grandad saw something he wanted to check and then I saw another something worth checking. No cache at either spot but as we headed back out Kiwi Grandad tried one more place and there was the cache. A mixture of team work, caching nous, good luck and eagle eyes made this find possible.
Thanks paddle chick for the cache.

#8507

Nice to get another FTF along with Mr. KE. His knowledge of multis my eyes spotting the unusual. TFTC

This was bypassed in the morning as we wanted to cache in Motueka and avoid the threatening rain. It had held off so we stopped on our way back. Found the numbers we needed and spotted the problem the previous loggers mentioned - and decided the CO must mean..... or ...... But when we headed for those coordinates we were heading out of the park -and would have been on private property. A second thought looked unlikely and the rain was threatening. Then a thought to check if the cache had been found - and the logs tied in with our experience. So we PAF - no prizes for guessing which friend. He suggested a way to deal with the values we had - and that lead to a find. It would have been a strategy we Might have considered - Might - but not when rain was so close. It started just as we left the park.
Thanks for the wander which took us to a part of the park we have been before, but not often, as well us to an unintended extra area.

Sorry to those who had trouble with this one today. I've corrected the error in the coordinates. Congratulations to those that found it in spite of the error

Published