Bridge View (West Coast) Hector, South Island, New Zealand
By bumandworker on 24-Oct-14. Waypoint GC5FCJ7

This cache is being archived rather than disabled due to the lack of maintenance and long term closure of the track.

The section of track has been closed for a few years and wont be opened any time soon ...this cache and the ones caches down stream should be archived

track going to be shut for a wee while.

Big slip has come down, burying a 30T digger and a compressor.
The workers just escaped with a second to spare !

Hundreds of tonnes of rocks , still moving !

3 January 2020 14:43. This is as far as the track goes for now (see photo). I was a bit uncertain as to whether this would still be accessible. Stopped and looked around for possible locations before investigating.

The cache is accessible without going past the metal barrier, but you do have to leave the path and climb over the wooden barrier to get this one. Use your own judgement on this one.

Lovely place could find cache. Signs of lots of water been through, also where the track is closed from this side, because of the slip.

Log was full, but I did enjoy this bridge. I remember last time we were here my daughter was a bit scared of coming over the bridge with her bike, she was quite young and didnt enjoy the track with so many railway sleepers to cycle over, its much better now with some having been removed and also a lot have worn down. TFTC

A team effort here with Mrs SoBad seeing it from one angle and me retrieving it from another. We are all loving the walk along here together. TFTC # 14,585

No need for patience today as the track was quiet. We were the only people who seemed to be starting from the northern end and even the southern end had only a few groups on it. So easy to view the items in the listing and also a cache.
Thanks.

We had to get this on the way back as other people around, but we spotted it on the way out so easy (ish) pick up on the way back tftc

TYFTC

The rock was almost keyed in took a tad of wiggling and maneuvering to access the nice big container thanks great placement with awesome views

Fab view of the river and one of its bridges from here, would be awesome to see this river after some rain in the hills, reckon it could be pretty scary in places. cache replaced as found

We stopped and looked back towards the swing bridge. Great view. Thanks for bringing us here bumandworker

Another quick find, Capperz found first this time, TFTC Bum.

I got the invite from Capperz to go for a tramp this weekend with a few other keen souls from his work’s outdoor adventure group.
The target area was the Charming Creek walkway on day one, while on the second day we planned a taster of a few hours on the Old Ghost Road. Good news for me as I have not been up here before, so it was all new unexplored territory.
We had decent digs in Seddonville on the Saturday night as well so made use of the this and the van to get a few others in this area and nearby Mokihinui.
We’d kept an eye on the weather forecasts, but in the end it worked out pretty well. Saturday was stunning, and Charming Creek was a picture. I cannot recommend this walk enough - it is an easy gradient, has great views and history dotted along it and is well maintained.
Sunday morning dawned wet - no problem for us, but not so great for some of the others camping down the road. However, once on the OGR it had cleared up, and by the time we did our out-and-back it was quite warm. Back in the van and back to base by 5 ish.
All up a fun trip, and thanks again to the COs for bringing us here.

A good sized container for those that like that sort of thing and all good with the find. This area is so photogenic I stopped a few times to take a snap. T F T C b&w

This weekends activities was a treat. A weekend trip across to the West Coast and a double dip at two tracks over that way. Day 1 was to be Charming Creek out of Hector and up to Seddonville with a van collecting us from the track end. Day 2 was to be a dabble at the end of the Old Ghost Road which thus far I'd only glanced longingly at, following a 'did not happen' organised trip which was switched off late into the planning.
We set off from a sulky grey Blenheim and as we headed through the Buller River area the weather steadily improved until arriving at Westport the sun blazed it's very best. Along for the trip were a few from Base, and Ricardinho who had not been out this way before.
We were onto the track just after 1230 and came off the top end around 3 hours later. A gently rising and well formed tracks with great views, historical vale and information as well as renovated relics, discarded relics, and 23 caches. We only DNFd the one which is almost certainly missing and grabbed caches from a variety of COs. Awesome trip and I would say the best short walk I've done in NZ.
We followed all this activity up with a later trip out in the van into the surrounding area and grabbed a few more for a decent haul of 34 for the day. Good for the numbers and good for the diversity and enjoyment, as well as a 10KM plus walk.

Tftc

Great find, thank you for the cache, a favourite one here.

Well worth it . Nice find. Thank you for the cache.

#3893 Too many caches here, again nice place . Thanks for the cache, greetings from Czech Republic.

#3892 Nice big box, found easily. Thanks for the cache, greetings from Czech Republic.

I walked the charming creek walkway today with tarmac Prof. Some logs were signed as JD and TP to save space. We had a great time on the walk and enjoyed all the varied landscapes. We started at the top and walked down, it was much busier at the bottom. Thanks to all the cache owners for placing and maintaining their caches!

A quick find with Tregearp whilst enjoying this power-trail. We found all but five caches - one of which we'll log a DNF for, but the others we could have missed through not having time to complete a thorough search.

Thanks to all the CO's for their caches, a beautiful walkway and thoroughly recommended for anyone who may be wavering.

SJT_NZ and I were keen to check out the historical railway so a couple of nights staying locally and picnic lunch packed we headed off. Starting at the Granity end and walking to Seddonville end and heading back again. Plenty of other walkers and cyclists on the trail and a lovely day, with caching it was a 3.5 hour jolly but the return was 1 hour 50 and a over 30,000 step day. Thanks for all the caches along the way, a few were too well hidden for us so will bring the bikes back at some point and spend a little more time on the search.

We enjoyed the charming creek walk, this is really worth to do it.
This was our forth cache, not easy to found
Special thanks to all the owner to hide on this walk caches.
TFTC, Freak_22

Tftc

While everyone took pics of the views & waterfall, we looked & found the cache. TFTC

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are on another 4 day exploration of the Upper West Coast.
Its Charming Creek Walkway today with our new geocaching mate Jimmy, the Frenchman. Jimmy named us 'The 3 Dwarfs" so signing as from here on.
Loved the falls here. Another snag and tag along this awesome walkway. Cheers

Taybeedragon and I are on a 4 day weekend exploring hte upper West Coast. Along without our new found geocacher buddy, Jimmy the Frenchman, we are doing something I have wanted to do for a long time, walk the Charming Creek mine trail.
Interesting to the rails bent and launching into space, pushed off by the rock fall. Also the neat rock wall, with its apparent path to the top.
Signed as "3 dwarves".

Nice spot on a lovely walk

Staying in Seddonville and cycled the Charming Creek Walkway. There are still a lot of sleepers left so its a very bumpy ride. GPS had me on the other side of the river and there had been some cutting back of vegetation so had to give up. TFTC

Time to do a wee bit of walking on the Charming Creek trail. Found all that we attempted which was a surprise with the GPS playing silly most of the way, my track often showing me on the other side of the river--- IMPOSSIBLE. A nice and quick find here, on the return journey. Cheers.

Today was spent travelling from Reefton to Karamea. A really nice day of caching, nice weather and a few walks.

Thanks to all the CO's for placing and maintaining these caches. Cheers.

We did the Charming Creek Walk with the kids today and found this one. The caches were a good insensitive to keep them walking at least to the mill. TFTC

Tftc

I had decided last night that I would do the Charming Creek walkway up and back today. So I left the caravan at 0800 hours expecting it to be a long day.

What a nice little waterfall.

Cheers for the cache.

Lovely walk with the family. Quick find. Good condition. Thanks to all cache owners for taking the time to place and maintain your caches. BJ25. Find # 1517

Waited for a clear shot at the cache, then grabbed and signed and dropped a TB in. tftc

A car at each end so could do a through walk today. Straightforward find, but then a biker rode up - a worker on the Old Ghost Trail on his day off - so we had a gossip and explained geocaching to him before returning the cache to its hideyhole.

Nice view of the waterfall.

CZECH
ooo houpací most, ten si užiju

Staying in Millerton for a few days and trying to get some Whitebait. We went for a walk up to the old Mill area today. River is pretty high and some heavy rain showers along the way. Interesting to see the history along here. Cache was found pretty quickly. A couple of damp logbooks, but the one in the second container was ok. TFTC

Away for a few days holiday during the school break. In Westport for a couple days exploring. Aiming for a bit of a walk up Charming Creek.....see how far we can get; aiming for the DOC Kiwi Guardian post if we can make it that far.....Track signs at the start indicating part of the track is closed (due to a rock fall)...hmmm...oh well; lets head off and see how far we get. On seeing the rock fall we decided to continue...but you will need to make up your own mind....
Fantastic! With all the rain a tonne of water was charging over this 'waterfall'...making us quite wet as we crossed the bridge! Cache was visible from above so added a couple more rocks as cover. Way cool! On the verge of turning around but spied the swing bridge in the distance...and we think the Guardian post is up there....so; onwards!

fixed months ago, not logged as such

Easy find.

TFTC

Found with NZDi. We had been intending to do a trip to the Coast after a workmate and fellow geocacher came back from a Christmas camping holiday and dropped a map of walks around Westport on my desk. On comparing the walk and geocaching maps, it was apparent to see there was plenty of scope for a geocaching holiday or three to the coast. The only thing we needed to ensure was that the weather played the game, unlike when my workmate had her Christmas break there. Knowing that we had the weekend free this weekend I kept an eye on the forecast for the coast and it was looking pretty good, so a motel was booked and a rudimentary and flexible geocaching plan was hatched.

The idea was to head to the Coast early on Friday morning picking up no more than half a dozen caches along the way. We limited ourselves to this as we know from previous experience that it can take over six hours to do an hour and a quarter trip if you are geocaching as well.. Once we got to the coast, we were going to do the Cape Foulwind walk, then cache as much as we could from there back to town. We then intended to do as much of the K.R.T caches before retiring for the night and in the morning do the Charming Creek Walk before heading back home again picking up the odd cache along the way. In the end it was mission achieved with 74 finds over two days and only one DNF along the way.

We came across from Blenheim yesterday getting a few caches along the way. On arrival on the Coast we first headed out to the Cape Foulwind walking track and did that both ways. Then we found most of the other caches on the west side of the river. After that we headed over to the east side of river and did the K.R.T series and accompanying caches. Today's mission is to do the Charming Creek Walkway.

The DOC website said the track was closed 1km from the Ngakawau end, so we decided to start at this end and see how far we could get. Once on the track we met plenty of people coming the other was both on bike and on foot. After talking to them it appeared that DOC was being a bit 'precious' and although there were some rocks on a small section of the track nobody we talked to seemed too concerned about the danger.

I thought we had got all the caches on the outward trip, but when checking at the Ngakawau end, I came across this one that I could not recall. As we were heading back the way we came, I plugged it into the GPS and sure enough, when we got here we realised we missed it. The GPS was a bit flakey here, one minute reading at one end of the bridge and the next the other end. I finally go the GPS to indicate where I found it but by the time I had finished signing the log and replacing the cache, it was reading 23m away... go figure.

TFTC B&W

Found with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

TFTC B&W

Cycling the Charming Creek Walkway today.
Rode to the bridge, jumped the "closed track" fence and walked down to this neat spot.
The waterfall was all sparkly as it gentle ran down the rock wall before us.
We decided not to carry on to Rock Fall as that was probably in the area of why this part of the track is closed. Although we note that the previous cacher, three weeks ago walked the length of the closed off area.
Stunning part of the walkway.
TFTC

A nice quick find on our walk to midway point today.

Enjoying the bike ride. Been looking forward to this for a long time

caching with Bullertrout on our way to MTB the Charming Creek trail lovely sunny day lovely view from here

We are camping at nearby Carters beach for a week and have not had much luck with the weather... So this is the first whole day that the forecast was "supposed" to be nice. I conned hubby into packing some snacks and a couple of jackets to come on a "bit of a walk" with me. Didn't tell him it would be around 5 hours return to the car. This walk is fantastic and we both loved it.
No trouble locating... this part of the track is awesome.
TFTC B&W

This one is exposed to rainfall and the plastic box has no seals, so is partially full of water.

Both logs inside are saturated and pretty difficult to write on - and since it was well away from our vehicle, we did not have any cache repair materials to help.

It really needs a box that is waterproof to be successful in this location.

Another new cache since our last walk through here 9 years ago.

A god spot to feature the first view of the suspension bridge.

Nice day to walk some of the way up the track. Many Thanks Bitsprayer

Found it on this nice walk TFTC

*French*
Objectif du jour: Charming Creek track
On commence sous la fine pluie et on terminera avec un timide soleil
Belle balade pour les premiers km après cela devient un peu monotone

Beaucoup d'eau aujourd'hui

bumandworker, thanks for the geocache
Frank et Muriel
#10176
Belgique
Log with GSAK

Great walk while visiting this great country. Quick find here

Found it reasonably quickly. A great place to stop and enjoy the view. TFTC.

Took a bit of looking but found eventually on way back

Checked on recent bike ride.

Cache a tad visible, had to add some extra camo. Other wise, all good.

We are traveling around New Zealand. We are so glad that we can discover this beautiful country. We enjoy it so much. This cache was found during our travel.

Thank you. Greetings from Czech Republic

Unfortunately not found.

Gk made short work of this one tftc

Three of us were looking for this for a very long time ! Nearly gave up , then Ric tried one more place and we had it ! Phew ! Tricky one .....

Boy oh boy, this had us going for a while, but got there in the end. Tftc

Spent ages searching only to find the container wasn't in its hidey hole but had actually fallen down the bank a meter or and the lid had partially opened letting in a bit of water. Log was soaked so replaced log with a new plastic bag. Great location. TFTC B&W

#4407

Parked the car at the other carpark and started from there the track again.
Very nice view
Thank you for the cache.

I was fortunate enough to be able to squeeze an 11 day holiday out of two leave days!! I headed out west to find some caches, see some sights, and relax before the madness of the semester hits. The weather was unbelievably good, only a bit of a storm over Arthur's Pass on the first day, otherwise hot and sunny. I found a great variety of caches, drive by's, walks, hikes, even a power trail. Thank you to all the CO's for their great hides!!!
It was time to a long walk to the other end, hardly anyone around, especially in the second half. TFTC!!

What an amazing view. This is such a great spot especially when the water is in full flood. Found the cache quickly between muggles. TFTC.

In fact, amazing views in all directions . Really loving this walk, in fact my phrase of the day was "if you only ever do one walk in your life, make it Charming Creek." How's that for high praise!!!! TFTC .

Fast becoming my favourite walk. Loving the bush, the waterfalls, everything! TFTC
Thank you bumandworker for all your work in placing these caches.

Nice find onthe mtb. Tftc

Finally locked bikes and are walking the walkway. Lots of bikes going further but they are much heavier duty than ours. What a spot here. Fav for it and all the effort you've put in. Nino TFTC

Found with Mporokosa - TFTC

I can't wait to come back and do the entire walkway, maybe on a MTB. It just took us a bit long with stopping for caches and taking pictures. Lovely.

On the cost for a weeks holiday. The Charming creek walk would have to be one of the hightlights of the trip. The native bush, the tunnels ,swing bridges , water falls or the history it all made for one of the best walks I have ever dune. Thanks for the caches along the way

Well hidden, but got it in the end. Coordinates out by 10m or so, so we had to use the hint. TFTC

We decided to cut the whole track in half, we walked in from Seddonville end skipping every second cache until haflway and then finding the rest on the way back to the car then we drove around to the other end to do the same. It was a long but enjoyable day walking the Charming Creek. I apologize for the very late log but Thanks for the cache

The walk on the old railway was very interesting with the relicts beside the path!

Thank you for the cache!

Took a while to find this - note - there is no need to go looking far off the track. GPS units may struggle a bit in this area to maintain accuracy due to trees and canyon.

Loved Charming creek - highly recommend the walk and finding as many Geocaches as possible. Lots of cool tunnels, bridges and awesome scenery.

Easy find on my walk up to the Falls and back.
Rata is in flower, big patches of red on the surrounding hill.
TFTCl

A quick stop with Kiwi Grandad while biking the trail today.
Thanks bumandworker for the cache.

#8752

Quick stop and grab, on to the next.TFTC

found with annevoi on this beautiful afternoon walk. TFTC!

This track just kept getting better and better! TFTC.

Walked up the trail as far as the old Mill, and got almost all the caches along the way. What a neat walkway - pretty much flat, two tunnels, a suspension bridge, some old buildings, a scenic river gorge, and a bunch of caches! We had great weather - it rained off and on on the drive up, but was clear and sunny our entire walk!
Took a little work to grab this one. Container was wet inside, but the log is well sealed.

FTF With Holymu. Just after replacing the cache two young hoons on motorbikes appeared. Exhaust fumes of badly tuned engines are offensive. Especially in a pristine environment. Thank you Bumandworker for placing this cache.

FTF with Hazedarus. Our peace and quiet was shattered soon after leaving this cache, first we heard a bang then two chaps on motor bikes came along heading towards the falls. Not far behind them, we then had to wait while first one then the other had to extricate themselves from the mesh on the side of the bridge when they tried to ride across it. We came across them again past Watsons mill with their bikes pulled several metres from the track while they had a smoke. Shortly after we heard them returning the same way they came, thankful they didn't come further our way. Thank you bumandworker.

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