Gravel Run #7 (manawatu) Halcombe, North Island, New Zealand
By marisa&kaleb on 09-Jan-15. Waypoint GC5K19A

Sadly no luck here today.A few bones laying around the power pole and lots of spiders in residence... ??

gone

Gone?

This one appears to have become a victim to the floods!

Headed out for an evening of caching. Completed the Bowie series so now for some Planets and Cars. Did a large loop and ended up near the gravel road. Just enough time for a few more. Thanks for the smileys.

No idea how I missed this last cache on the Gravel Run, but I had. Put that right today after continuing on from GR#3. All in good order here, although the log is getting full. Thanks for the cache. Beautiful day, beautiful countryside.

Having been thwarted from approaching GZ on a previous visit due to close muggle activity we tried again today and found a clear run was possible. This was a quick park and grab and all was good inside. SLTNLN TFTC.

Out and about today to celebrate my birthday. A bit of a weird vibe this year, what with all the issues around Covid-19, but with Level 3 in place we had a bit of latitude so long as the Rules were strictly observed. Stay within our regions, and within 75km. Stay within our bubbles. Practice social distancing. Those last two were easy as I didn't see another person all day.

I picked out a few caches to do today that I knew would be reasonably remote, and not likely to have been handled in a while. Most of what I found today hadn't been found in at least 6 weeks, and some of them not since last year. And I had my trusty bottle of hand sanitizer with me.

This was a straightforward find and there were no issues with the cache or the log, which was signed before returning everything back as I found it and moving onto the next.

Thank you for placing this cache.

Stopped and visited during our Xmas roadtrip around the area. No problem locating this one TFTC. Merry Christmas and safe travels to all cachers

Out for a trip to the grandparents and thought a road trip to get some caches was in order

Nice place to park and easy find

Quick park and grab. Vinaka

Weather is trying to be kind...nice hide...TFTC

Thanks for this cache, another find by hubby. Thanks for this series. A lovely rural road to explore with nice views. Completed the Mystery at the Museum challenge with this road. Thanks to the CO’s for placing these.

Found on my trip north enjoying the caches. On and off rain all day so not getting all of the caches. Aiming for a certain total then stopping for the day. Nearing the end of my trip now.

Spent the afternoon cycling and caching to get a couple more for the challenge caches. Barely any traffic about so no need to worry about any muggles today. Made a number of finds, and also enjoyed the views of the hills.

Quick find. TFTC

Cool

Let's start the new year with some good numbers - so power caching. TFTC

Early start today to get this run done and home before there was too much traffic on the roads.
Nice quick finds with great hints
TFTC

Day #2 of our four day caching trip to Palmerston North. With the weather forecast for thunderstorms and wind, we decided to leave the Stickman trail for another day and today head north to Feilding and beyond.
The black clouds that have been menacing us for a while now are starting to drop large rain drops. We'd better hurry up. TFTC.

#16406. A downpour was about to begin, so I raced to GZ and signed the log as quickly as I could. TFTC.

Up for the Mega for the week, had a great day in the Bulls and the sunrounding areas many thanks to the cache placer's - Bitsprayer

On a road trip with Team BOP, having a blast and gathering a few smileys along the way. Please excuse generic logs in advance. Many Thanks to all you cache owners for the placements. Cheers

10.52pm
Travelled to Manawatu area with BOP members for the weekend.
All logs signed as Team BOP.
Generally caches were good and all but 2 found.
Thanks to cache owners for placements. SLTFTC

Signed Teambop. Came down to Fielding for the weekend with Philip.Perry, Tnxpro, Nzflossy, McJandals, Squirrel Nutcase and FapandGap . Staying at a farmhouse down the road from here.


Tftc

Road trip time! This weekend Team BOP consisted of Davidson Clan, TNXPro, Squirrelnutcase, FapAndGap, McJandals, NZFlossy & myself. We'd had this trip on the cards for a while but only recently had we locked in all the details. We were off to central Manawatu and we had a very narrow list of ‘must gets’ so this trip was essentially a numbers mission. We had a great time and managed just over 200 finds. Most of the caches were found quickly and in good condition thanks to accurate coords and straight forward placements although we replaced a lot of logs and a few containers as well. A huge thank you to the CO’s as this was a beautiful area to visit and there was certainly an abundance of geocaches!!

Team BOP on tour in the Manawatu-Whanganui Region... With Gap (of Fap and Gap), (Mr) Davidson clan, McJandals, NZFlossy, Philip.Perry, and TNXPro.

This weekend had been in the pipeline for ages. It was always going to be a mission for various team members to get coordinated leave passes... We secured accommodation in the rural heart of the Manawatu. This placed us well within reach of a massive trail of caches... We travelled in one vehicle, so our journey was filled with lots of laughs, and good times... Fortunately, the majority of caches were in place and were fairly quick to locate - thanks to straightforward hints and great coordinates. Many of the caches had not been found in a while, so containers were waterlogged, and logbooks were wet... Thank goodness for waterproof paper. A huge thank you also, to the various COs who made our weekend worthwhile... TFTC.

Team BOP decided that with the MEGA rapidly approaching, we need to boost our numbers so we could try for a milestone number at the Mega. I am approaching my 3000th cache but was still about 325 caches away from that. Reaching the milestone may or may not happen, but this weekend certainly was about the numbers. I had an initial target I was trying to beat and that was my highest number of caches found in one day and we comfortably beat that, achieving 158 caches (subject to confirmation, once I log them all).
The best way to do the high numbers is with power trails and out here, there is a smorgasborg of powertrails.
We loaded up the van, gathered up all seven of us and headed to our accomodation somewhere in the middle of nowhere, getting there well after dark. The location was convenient, as it was right in the thick of a power trail territory.
There was no splitting us up, as we only had one vehicle, so we all experienced the cache locations, some beautiful and some not so.
As with powertails we have done in the past, there was a high proportion of waterlogged caches, but unlike powertails we have done previously, we managed to find every cache and were glad to be able to clear out an area. Also, with powertails, comes cut and paste logs, to which I apologise for.
Thanks to all those CO's who have placed the caches out there. Without you, our fun road trips wouldnt exist. We all had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend and got home completely shattered. It was so worth it.

Team BOP were still going. Its well after nightfall and we have now been caching for 15 hours. We passed 100 finds for the day earlier this evening and we were still powering on!
TFTC

On a road trip with Team BOP to Feilding. Set off Friday night and back home Sunday. Lots of caches and lots of laughs with great weather and great scenery. Thanks to all the COs for giving us a awesome trip

We are back in Feilding for the birthday of our 3 year old grandson. Taking the opportunity of a fine spell this afternoon to pick up a few local caches.
Another quick find for us at #7, thanks.

Found it Thanks for the cache

One of 28 caches located whilst ‘exploring’ the Palmerston North/Feilding region today, including 17 on these “back country” roads. Quick find. #1724. TFTC.

#4685. I had been planning on doing a big day out caching in the Manawatu for some months. On Tuesday the forecast for Friday/Saturday looked great and even on Wed it was still OK but by Friday I discovered you can't trust the Metservice to identify a rain band. Horribly wrong forecast with rain falling most of the day. Needed gumboots on all day long. By now I had booked a motel in Palmerston North so too late to turn back. Got rather wet getting in and out of the car to grab these caches with steady showers of rain. In the end I managed a respectable total of 65 caches. Nice quick find. Signed the log and replaced as found. Thanks for the cache mar1sa.

Simple find

Log very dry . TFTC

#9364. Enjoyed a drive along Junction Road to Halcombe on the gravel run today. The weather was excellent and we got great views along the way. GZ was all quiet when we visited. Quick find. The cache was in excellent condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Thanks for the placement and for bringing us to this site, and …

.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.
.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.

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Did you know that planning has started for a Mega Event in Wellington in 2018? Check out the details on the [WENZ2018 website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's page on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/).
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Found with Spudge and the 2 dogs. TFTC

Found with Polargirl while finding caches around Halcombe.

This cache was attempted as part of our final day in Palmerston North on our "Road to 6000" Extravaganza 2016.

A quick find.

#5896

Really enjoying our self drive tour of the back country Manawatu today guided along by all the trails and other caches there are on offer. I especially enjoyed all the beautiful rolling hillsides through here. What a wonderful way to explore the country and boost the numbers. Thanks so much for contributing hugely to our day. TFTC #9537

Loving our drive through the countryside. Thankful for the longer days that summer brings. TFTC .

Heading towards the Mega. Thought it would be impolite not to grab a few on the way through. Thanks all for the hides.

Sanson to Fielding
How do you take 4 hours to get to a place that a local has told us should only take about 10minutes.
Thats easy, when your out searching for flashy motor cars, along farming country roads while completing not a power trail,but as I would have called it a TributeTrail to David Bowie.
This was great way to see the area.
Thanks for placing this cache marisa&kaleb

I had parked the caravan up in Marton and travelled over to North Fielding to pick up as many caches as I could.

Cheers for the cache.

Great run of caches for the family... we are racing each other to see who can find the most... mum is down but getting the tricky ones today

Tftc

Quick park and grab - replaced as found.

tftc

Another quick find. kids loved the afternoon finding all your caches. TFTC

TFTC!

A quick find while on a road trip in the area today. TFTC

Checked on the cache all good - please remember to re-seal the bag for others to find a dry log come winter

On my way to Palmy North and thought I would grab some drive bys on the way. Decided to take a small detour to do this road circuit and pick up the small power trails here. Thanks.

Tftc

With ebhm. Tftc

On my way through here in the campervan heading to Fielding.
Enjoyed the journey and many thanks for the placement [:0]

We were having a bit of a mare today! After missing nearly all the caches down Stanway and the start of Junction young Teeps almost told me that was enough for today. This find was enough to get him enthused and keen to do a few more. TFTC.

#1866 As i was picked up just after 4am to head to the Manawatu I realised this was not going to be a dot day. This was an attempt to get 270 caches in one day. There are a couple of great circuits in the Manawatu that will help work toward this goal so thanks to the CO's that have placed them for our enjoyment.

Thanks also to my partner in geo crime and driver for the day Yetrees. Without an able driver an attempt such as this would be impracticable so thanks for enabling it.

Thanks to all the CO's for their contribution to my smilie tally.

It is forecast to be a long day geocaching, hoping to make the 270 target. To be honest I'd be pretty happy with 200, however why not go for the Emerald badge (see project-gc.com)

Great Sunday drive around the manawatū and rangitikei area. TFTC. Happy hunting

Park n grab

Doing a cache raid today have team up with the [Blue]the [Red]W[/Red]andering dragon [/Blue],[Blue] [Red]I[/Red]nfoferret[/Blue]and [Blue][Red]T[/Red]aybee nz [/Blue] the main arm of the cache raid is to 1 Have fun and we did have fun
2 To qualify for the 142 in 24 challenge all hid but [Blue][Red]T[/Red]aybee[/Blue] did back in june
3 To crack the 3000 cache barrier for [Blue]the wandering dragon [/Blue],[Blue]Infoferret[/Blue]and [Blue]taybee nz [/Blue] all did this
4 To crack the 3200 for [Blue]taybee [/Blue] miss it by 27 cache
5 [Blue]taybee nz [/Blue] over take [Blue]taybee [/Blue] found count he miss it by 12
6 to get CANZ at halcombe and a Nigth Cache at foxton

Stats for the day
time door to door 15 hours 30 mins
Kms total was 424km work out to be 2.58 kms per cache
caching time was 11 hours 13 mins time between caches was app 4 mins per cach
As I have done 90% of the caches already i was the driver [Blue]taybee nz [/Blue] was find of must of the caches [Blue]the wandering dragon [/Blue],[Blue]Infoferret[/Blue] was sign the log books Must of the log's were sign as[Red] WITT[/Red]
Cache was find at 17/01/2016 19:08 Found: GPS > 2016-01-17T06:08Z

TFTC

[?] Found with taybee [?] Sign log book as WITT

Found as part of Team WITT on an epic caching mission. TFTC

Cache # 3,003 - part of a massive 13-hour day, doing a blitz around Palmerston North wider area with team WITT (Wandering Dragons, Infoferret, Taybee and TaybeeNZ), ultimately resulting in 160 caches for me. The KAS trail was the heart of this effort, but we continued on past that to a number of points further north in Halcombe and Feilding to get our numbers up. TNLNSL. TFTC!

Out on a sunny day to tackle some Halcome caches.
Racing through the gravel now

easy park and grab

I had no trouble tracking down the whereabouts of this cache.

[green] A beautiful day to go go caching, and no Christmas duties till lunch! An on top of that, I'm just 10 caches away from a personal objective - 2000 cache finds in one year, a new personal record.
So out to the gravel run, and a few odds and ends along the way.

Realised as we were heading to this one there was no reception out this way and we hadn't stored the caches had to do a five point turn on the narrow gravel road to go back to where there was reception to save them so we could carry on!! Nice quick find and sign of the log. Not seen any other cars along here. Tftc

Out today in our local area before heading to South Island TFTC

Nice park and grab, jumped out and brought it to Jesserfly who hadn't gotten out the car yet.
all in good order here, signed in the car as a brief shower was in progress, and we commented about how well the road condition is for a gravel road, it seems really well maintained.
Cheers
~G

After completing the Rotorua Tough Guys & Girls Challenge in the weekend and then having to drive south for work on sunday this was going to be one of those very long weeks. So without rest and having to do presentations all day to a number of different groups today I managed to get ahead of things and make time for myself to find a few caches before the night set in.
This was the first of the afternoon so made it all the better as could get some local caches now and worry about work later on, but now its caching time.
A nice little series that HKCB and I missed a fortnight ago when we came down for a raid as it was a little out of the way so tonight it was nice to have the opportunity to make a few extra trads into smilies.

Thanks for the placement and the fun

A quick find on an afterboon's caching in the area after the morning event cache near Sanson. Signed log, TFTC

nice and easy find today after the rain

Out for a mega day of caching in the Manawatu with Yeetrees and Taybee. With the KAS trail under our belt we continued caching in the area with an aim of locating 145+ caches on this drive. And yes we succeeded.
Continuing our drive along the road finding the caches as we passed by. TFTC

Teamed up with[Red] Yeetrees[/Red] and [Red]SAROC[/Red] for a trip to Manawatu to do the KAS series of Caches was planing to do this in the school hoildays. Will have to bring taybee nz back to do the caches same time Same Stats for the day Round trip 12 hours app 367 km's 146 caches
caching time 8 hours 15 mins 2mins 56sec per cache
easy and quick find here
Sign log book as [Blue]taybee[/Blue] or [Blue]tb[/Blue] and cache in good order TFTC log by Gsak

Parked. Located. Signed and off! TFTC

Out and about the Manawatu for a day's caching. A great day for it and a most enjoyable tiki tour around the back blocks.

TFTC marisa&kaleb

All good..signed and re-concealed. TFTC!

The woolly sheep watched on as we located #7, TFTC.

We decided to go out for a drive and collect a few caches, as it was a very nice day,
Must have done this series the wrong way, as parking was pretty dodgy, but it was still a nice drive and we got through it, Nice hide, TFTC
Found with jesso22 sorry about the late logging

Thought this series had been taunting me for too long, so we decided to come out and grab them this weekend. Another quick find, thanks for the cache.

Spending some time in the Manawatu catching up with a friend, spent the afternoon exploring some of the backroads grabbing caches....Quick find, clue says it all. TFTC

Another quick find - tftc

A quick easy find through the sloppy wet grass. TFTC

I had a bit of spare time so I decided to attempt this small series of caches near home. I chucked spud jr in the truck and off I went. Not as much gravel as I was expecting but still a good drive.
Another quick and easy find here. Took nothing and replaced the cache as I found it.
Thanks for the cache and the smiley.

Down in the area for a caching week.
Enjoying the caches.
TFTC

Out and about today, exploring an area I hadn't been to before. Wasn't as much gravel as I was expecting. TFTC

Little

Headed over to Halcombe for a Sunday drive and pick up some caches. Nice hand crafts marisa&kaleb. TNLNSL and onto the next one. TFTH.

Found with Just-Lookin on a little geocaching trip away.

SL TFTC

Out on a short road trip with tmann421 on Waitangi Weekend.

Enjoyed this series of good caches.

TFTC

No problem here. TFTC

Detour on my way home from Bulls, didn't need the hint for this one. Thanks for the cache marisa&kaleb.

Off early on the road this morning. Picked up friend from Feilding and off we set. We went around in the loop and finished with the Cockroach on Lethbridge road as we came back into town. This series was all very straight forward and the bigger caches had a myriad of treasures including GF weetbix which i hadn't seen before.... Many thanks to you two for this series.

In PN for 2 nights so out and about in this lovely weather, such good times

TFTC

Quick find of another nice little stash. Took nothing; left a "Little Shop" item. TFTC

Got it.

Quick jump out-jump in, and off. Tftc

Awesome day to be out on the back roads today, summer doesn't get any better than this, and the gravel roads don't get much dustier either, hehe. Carried on in a loop circuit after completing the Mangaone series. Really nice to find such well done, and well stocked caches, a rarity these days.

Many thanks to marisa&kaleb for the hides.

Nice little hide. TNLNSL