Leprechaun's Centre Ridge (Upper Hutt) Upper Hutt, North Island, New Zealand
By wb1116 on 11-Sep-15. Waypoint GC638X7

#11,807. I decided today was a good opportunity during Labour weekend to pick off a few of the back country caches at the head of the Remutaka cycle trail. But the plan was to access them by walking in via Collies Track. The track has had some recent cutting and marking on the north slope so was fairly easy to follow and creates a nice shortcut into the upper reaches if you don't mind a bit of hill climbing. I wandered down the trail to Via Dela Rosa Road and then onto Back Road. The Road Closed sign is there for a good reason. There is a massive washout on the road between here and the previous cache that makes a tank trap look like a small ditch. Don't hit that at speed on your bike. You will come off second best..

After a few ups and downs on the trail I finally reached this road junction and stopped to have some lunch in the shade of the trees. Read the past logs and saw that previous searches had not been successful. I was prepared for this and brought a new container in case I also drew a blank. Fortified by lunch I set about checking around every pine tree within 5m of the road and withiin 15m of the coordinates on both sides. Having scoured out the leaf litter around each one I felt certain the cache has been rolled away by possums or rats. So identified the tree that best matched the hint at GZ. There is no secure hiding spot below it. A pair of pine trees about 6-7m away looked the best option. The new container is tucked in behind and 2-3m from the road. Dug it in a bit with top exposed and covered in small branches. Hopefully nothing will get into that one. Being an old garlic salt jar it will at least keep the vampires away from the cache! Signed the fresh logsheet. Thanks wb1116 for hiding it here.

No luck here. That's two DNFs - I think this one is missing - Twig and I had a pretty thorough search.

Caching today with the Seagnoid, we spent at least 20 minutes here systematically searching behind a lot of trees (at least 20-30m from the posted co-ordinates) on both sides of the track. It might still be here, but if so then it is buried well or else further from the co-ords.

I had planned to try a find here a couple of weeks ago when I dusted off the bike and rode up here from Cross Creek. I managed to tidy up the caches I hadn't already logged on the Wairarapa side, but just as I pulled up next to Pipe Dream near the summit my GPSr batteries suddenly died. Unfortunately I had changed my backpack at the last minute that morning and didn't have any spares. Today I was more organised and left the carpark heading straight to this cache. By the time I got here I was more than ready to get out of the saddle so began my search. I managed to find many kinds of cool fungi but sadly no cache. My GPSr repeatedly sent me back to the same spot, but I tried widening my search, even checking the opposite side of the track just in case. After more than 30 minutes with no luck I decided to call this one quits and continue along the Back Road, hoping for a change of luck.

After biking all this way we were determined to find this one so we widened our search and found it out in the open so rehid it in the area we found but the GPS was well out and was bouncing around
Many thanks

Had a phone call from 2Bulbars earlier in the week wanting to head back into the remutaka's area and start from the fear
featherston side so here we are and no rain insight yay good ride up had lunch at the summit then headed around the backroad which at the mega we only found this road by mistake so have been keen to come back and of course pick up the few caches around this way.
This was not a quick find here as we entered GZ it became apparent quickly there was no cache to be found so widened the search area still nothing so we read previous logs and the recent logs didnt look favourably as they were dnf's so read the one's before and they mentioned that it had gnaw marks on the container and might have been subjected to curious critters , so we widened our search to see if they might have left it out in the open but no so we headed for the tree's and by share luck we came across this intact container sighned a dampend log and think we have replaced as close to gz as possible and covered with pine needles.
what a mission thanks for the smiley

Nice day out with mumandme. track is slightly over grown in some places but a nice walk, wasn't much wind.

No luck with this guy today!

Spent quite a while searching all the hint objects but couldn't find it. It is a while since the last find and they commented they found it in the open with gnaw marks so might have been taken off by the locals.

This one was sitting right opt in the open when we walked up here - even I could spot it! After signing, we replaced it at the base of the nearest pine tree with a 'suspicious' covering of sticks to hopefully keep it in situ for the next finder. TFTC.

Quick find out in the open, with gnaw marks. Now back to the track we’re meant to be on. Cheers wb!

After stopping for lunch at Summit it was time for a slog up the hill to have another go at this cache, Thanks to IanL1# for doing a more comprehensive search than I did and restoring the cache to something like it was supposed to be. I remember looking at the location where the cache now is because everything seemed to suggest that where it was supposed to be and it was nice to find it right there today. The short blast back down the hill was as close as I got to any MTB downhill today which was fun while it lasted. TFTC.

Good Ride to an area that I have never been before. Even came across a couple of pig hunters!

It looks like another gremlin has been visiting here Found just the outer container without lid and the log half buried under pine needles The road verges have been hacked back in the last couple of days but the log burial seems much older than that Signed the log and left the container with log inside on the stump of a small branch behind a tree with camoflage over TFTC

The first of many failures for me today. Going by how long it took me to find others that I did find I think I just lost my mojo. Good excuse for a ride up here though.

15th of the day and #1300 overall. Saw it as I approached - the glint of white made it an easy find. All in good condition. TFTC.

Last find of the day on a 30 km MTB mission on the Rimutaka Incline, Dela Rosa and Back Road in cold drizzle. Very well replaced by previous finder, had to search a bit to eventually find it. Off home next to thaw fingers and drink a well deserved beer.

I have found a few caches in recent weeks that have been considerately placed by the green guy to aid cacher's navigation. While such caches will be of particularly use to out of towners, I appreciate them too. It was a quick find as the container had again become exposed so I took a moment to cover it up.

All good here! The cache was a little exposed so we made sure to cover it back over. Thanks to the green man for advising us not to head further up this way!

Find #2502. Early start to the cycle trail with no one around at 7.30. Freezing cold on the bike after the southerly yesterday, despite the sunshine and took some distance to warm up. Lovely at the Summit, paused for a while to enjoy the quiet, then detoured up Back Road to collect this and the other cache. Went back to the trail rather than going around. SL TFTC

Rode into here on an epic cycling adventure on a beautiful summery Sunday afternoon. Magical.
Started our ride at Tunnel Gully and came by the Phew route. So, pushing the stamina+ button around about now.
We came up the Back Road, and would probably prefer to do it the other way around, i.e. starting at Summit.
Cache find was straightforward.
Cache in order; log signed, safely re-hidden, just as found.
TFTC found with team cacher Sweet P too
The Turtle strikes again!

all good here, TFTC

Out searching on the Back road for a few new caches in the incline area on a very fine day. Search, find, signed and replaced as found. All in good order. TFTC.

Sixth of seven for the day. I needed some exercise and with 7 new caches in the area for me to find, it was worth going for a bike ride. Returned this way from the Summit, a quick find in the third place checked. Signed log, TFTC

Joint {FTF} with huhugrub at 11:07 a.m.

After meeting up with huhugrub at Leprechaun's Back Road cache we agreed to carry on together in the hopes of a joint FTF for this one as well, me pushing my bike up the steep hills, which was hard work, though cycling up them would have been as well. I prefer walking the Back Road to cycling it, but time was of the essence this morning. We stopped off briefly at my cache Pipit's Progress so I could check it was OK, then continued to the intersection with the Centre Ridge track and headed for GZ, where we split up to search for the cache.

Took us a few minutes and in the end I came up trumps and we both signed the nice empty log. The description of how to get at this one was very apt, but the hint wasn't very hinty . I took a photo of the area nearby to add to my log entry: this view will change a lot in the next few years as the pines are at a size now where they will grow very fast indeed. Then back at the intersection we parted company, as I carried on (mainly downhill) to Summit so I could ride the much faster Rimutaka Rail Trail home.

Enjoyed the chance to get out here again and the exercise on a fine morning (24.6 km round trip for me today) plus the unexpected encounter with a familiar face for a small part of the journey. TFTC

This entry was edited by BarnabysTravels on Tuesday, 15 September 2015 at 05:32:36 UTC.

#6993. Joint {FTF} @ 11:07 with BarnabysTravels. Returned this morning to have another good walk in Rimutaka Hill. Parked off the Rimutaka Hill Road for an up and down hike. Bumped into BarnabysTravels at Leprechaun's Back Road and we carried on up the Back Road together towards the Centre Ridge. Arrived at GZ and we started a short search. BarnabysTravels soon had the nicely hidden cache in hand. The cache was in excellent condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

We headed in separate directions afterwards. Turned around back down the Back Road for the return down and up hike back to the Rimutaka Hill Road, while BarnabysTravels continued down the Back Road to the Summit Yards and Rail Trail.

| = = = = = T h a n k s _ f o r _ t h e _ c a c h e = = = = = |

Published