Tirau Oaks (Tirau) Waikato Tirau, North Island, New Zealand
By FapAndGap on 13-Sep-15. Waypoint GC63EZ4

Nice and quick find today by my daughter once we had the right tree. Pick up a TB

Not too much traffic today- we decided to look and make a call- was an easy cross over and a quick find. TFTC

A quick find on the way to morrinsville, cache in good condition tftc

On our way from Hamilton to Taupo, then back to Waikanae Beach 2moro. Stopped at Tirau for a coffee & bite to eat , noticed the local caches. Managed to get 2 out of 3 before the rain beat us. TFTC. PS - just a heads up. The cache is no longer a Sistema container but appears to still be in the same location.

We have passed this cache countless times, and every time, it has been too awkward to cross the road onto the roundabout to retrieve... today however, under the cover of darkness, we approached the carpark with minimal traffic on the roads! Over the road we went, into the harakeke and boom cache! Neat wee spot, TFTC

Out with Reschedule for another random caching mission. We have driven past here so many times, but with traffic volumes always being extreme I have never been too keen to head on in. However under the cover of darkness, and nice quiet roads, now was the time! The funny thing is, once inside, you don't even realise you are standing in the middle of SH1. Altho this is a perfect night mission, as the numerous streetlights all around make navigating within very easy.Finally that green mark is gone. TFTC

Started searching at the wrong tree initially. Once at the correct tree, didnt take too long. Tftc

TFTF fun place to hide a cache careful on the road please

A fun cache to finish a quick visit to Tirau. I am visiting family in the wider area. Today was a day for a leisurely Easter Sat drive and a Tirau Cafe for lunch. Dad, Mum and Nanna stayed in the car at the Domin amused, while I headed across. Got a good spot across and found my way in. I of course, searched the wrong item first and didn't find a cache or Bees. Headed over to the other one and found it reasonably quickly. Not quite where I thought it would be as per advice, but fun find, thank you. A FAV for location, not often we can find a cache in a roundabout, totally secluded and a spot of significance as well. A lovely spot.

4-week family trip through NZ - Find #70!After crossing the road (not easy, as there was _a lot_ of traffic today), we walked about 300 degrees around the trees before finding the entry . After that, the cache was a quick find at the first tree we looked.TFTC!

Today we travelled from Rotorua to Hamilton. We picked up a few caches on the way.Parked nearby and approached GZ found a way in and soon had the cache in hand TFTCTim and Viv - ddm

Driving back home and knew it was not so busy just going on dusk so was able to find quickly. I did read through previous logs that it was water damaged so I emptied my lolly bag and found some paper to replace log and dried inside the container and dried the stashs. I left out the rusted bottle cap and wet log though. Hopefully still dry for the next hunter. TFTC cheers

Found on my way home. An interesting bit of history. Called in Sunday morning and traffic light so an easy find here.TFTC

We often pass by here and comment that there is a cache in the roundabout but it is usually too late to stop, too much traffic, too wet, too daunting or there is some other reason to say "We'll get it next time".
Well today we finally decided it needed to be found so we circled the roundabout and turned into what looks to be a very new carpark. Not sure why the carpark is there as there doesn't seem to be anything around that needs a parking area, except for the cache of course. But whatever the reason for its construction it provided the perfect parking spot for the cache and it also had a public toilet.
The road was thankfully not very busy but crossing it still required care.
The next step was accessing the centre area and it was surprising to see there was no obvious entry point. Maybe there used to be and nature closed it up.
After careful stepping through some rather wet bushes the magical inner sanctum revealed itself, and was much larger than expected.
After admiring the monolith the search for the cache began and it was a nice quick find, or at least it was when the correct tree was searched.
Unfortunately the log is completely saturated so we have taken a photo to prove we were there if the CO would like a copy.
Thanks FapandGap for a very challenging but also rewarding cache. We are very pleased to finally gain a smiley here .
A favourite point for the experience.

Thanks for the cache and greetings from Czechia

An easy park and dash across. Lid on cache must’ve been left slightly open so unable to sign and didn’t have a replacement waterproof bag. Great idea for a placement. Tftc

We parked in the car park and luckily traffic was reasonably quiet so it was easy to make the dash across the road. Cache was full of water, log is mush so took photo as I had no spare logs

An early morning excursion allowed us the chance to brave the traffic and get wet feet to grab this cache. Great spot for a hide, unfortunately the cache is completely water logged and the log book was ruined and will need some maintenance. TFTC though.

On my way to a flying camp in Hamilton. TFTC

Getting across the road was the easy part. The flax planting is getting big and one possible route was full of thistles. The inner grove is nice with lots of little oak trees coming up.

1856. 3:25 pm. We turned off into the car parking area before I realised it wasn't our exit. Ah well! There are toilets and parking and a nearby geocache! Bonus! eKitten and I made the find. I love these big trees. FP. Logbook damp. TFT(arbour)C.

Took a bit of finding as there's been some erosion. But sure enough after a while it came to hand. TFTC

Interesting spot. Lot of history. Tftc.

Making my way North today and parked in the nearby rest stop before wandering over for a look. Once I reached the central traffic island I carried on walking around until finding a nice easy access over the other side. Found the smaller test pot container, log a bit wet but still able to write my name, TFTC

Found

The most difficult part was finding my way in. Today I'm hitchhiking from Whitianga to Napier. 2 for 2 today

Tuesday lunchtime and not much traffic. Searched for the 'hole' but all I found in it were a broken hubcap and a crunched up booze can. Started to head back tobthe car, then saw the second tree! Duh...tunnel vision! Found the cache easily thank you.

Found! 26/9/22

Crossing the State Highway on a busy Sunday afternoon was quite something, but as the description and logs say, easy after that! TFTC!

Not too hard to get across today even being a Sunday. Flax bashed to get in but found a better way out. Was in good order, thanks to previous geocachers who had added paper to sign. Much appreciated. Fascinating history and some beautiful trees. TFTC!

It's been a full-on weekend, which started on Friday with me taking my son up to Auckland so that he could fly out on Saturday on his OE. As I type this, he's still on that journey, whilst at the same time I've spent most of today driving back down so that I can go back to work tomorrow.

But of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to target a few caches to break up my journey. I've always meant to stop and have a crack at this one, but always said "next time' as I whizzed past. Well today I finally stopped. An interesting effort to get to GZ, but once there the cache was a quick find.

No issues here with this cache and I had soon signed the log and replaced everything back as found before heading off to the next one. Thanks for helping to break up my 600 Km drive today.

Was cool to go and check out the middle of the roundabout I drive past every day. My neice was happy to find this one before I did.

Definitely takes a bit of stealth and patience to get across and back. Easy find once in and kids enjoyed picking up acorns. Thanks

After the grey and the rain and the fog coming from Rotorua the weather suddenly improved and was brightening up, so I suggested the possibility of getting this cache. There was no traffic in front of us and none behind as we reached the roundabout so I pulled into the spare exit which is now a carpark for a skatepark. As soon as GeohoundandI walked back towards where I had spotted an entrance through the undergrowth on the roundabout traffic came from all directions. Eventually there was a break so we made a run for it. The GPS took us to one tree where we found nothing, so we tried the other tree and had the cache in hand straight away. GeohoundandI navigated us back towards the car on a completely different route over the top of several plants instead of a my nice gap through it.
So glad to finally have got this one, it has taunted me every time I driven down here.

The scrub is dense to begin with but by the trees wasnt easily found but could bring the kids to this one

Cache in good condition. Interesting history to the trees thanks for the efforts to place the cache

Really cool spot for a cache! Tftc

Awesome spot for a cache. Navigated the traffic with ease. Tftc

Took a mini weekend trip with the family to enjoy the water park in Taupo. Sure was a blast but I needed to do some caching.

I just YOLO into the bush. Had a couple of scratches to show for it. Once in there, I found the cache pretty quickly. However, it's evolved into a black circular container! Darwin would have been proud!
TFTC

TFTC! Great spot

We went the wrong way around the roundabout to find a way in but after finally penetrating the outer ring we made a quick find at gz

Took a few minutes of scouting around. Found after a trip to the blue springs nearby. TFTC

I was the Health & Safety Road Patrol person today while LNM1961 crossed over to do the hunt. The trees looked majestic - even better when there are leaves. It was quite interesting watching the truck and trailer inputs go by and seeing how much of a lean they had depending on speed, weight and whether they were talking the Tirau or the SH 5 exit.
Our trip continues after being curtailed on day 2 when we went into lockdown (that was an 800+ km day to get back to our respective homes). The trip with LNM1961 (logs signed either with our own names or ‘LE’) continues. We are travelling around the Rua area of the PWGT to collect all of these caches, plus some in the Tahi area. However, we aren’t just focussing on them. We are targeting others - oldies, ones that help us qualify for challenges, ones out of the way (especially on the Desert Road), as well as having fun, exploring NZ and seeing the countryside. TFTC

Not too bad a traffic day, might be part of covid lockdown for Auckland area, but had Ethness on duty like patrol. Thanks very much for another roundabout cache. Cache all dry considering the weather we have had.

**#14,175**
On our way to Te Awamutu, quick stop and find on our way past, it's like a whole different world in the middle of the roundabout!!

Found after reading previous clues - also it's not a systemia container

Decided to Grab this one as we drove past. Luckily it wasn't too busy so crossing the road was easy. Nice and easy find once we searched the right tree.

Thanks for the cache

Found it after changing tree, really good place to stop and hunt. TFTC!

Noticed this cache on the way to Rotorua on Friday but didn't stop. We were on our way home eariler than thought today so we stopped this afternoon. Once we made it to GZ we made a fairly quick find. A pity there is so little access to the dedication stone. Certainly had an adventure getting in and out and more of one trying to get back to the car - thankfully some kind person stopped to let me cross (Gar had unexpectedly made a dash and I wasn't prepared and had to wait for a very long line of cars) - we had made it across without much of a wait, but getting back was another story.

I’m heading to Turangi to stay with FMZ’s parents Punga and Paua for about a week. Several of us are supposed to be climbing Mnt Ngauruhoe for my milestone, but I have set in my mind to enable my 9000th cache to land on rustynz’s Celebration Event instead on Mnt Ruapehu and not Ngauruhoe. I have rusty in my car, I picked her up, we left Auckland at 7:30am and she’s picking out a few caches along the way. This cache is one rusty has done.

No worries with the cache.... once you have the correct tree that is. I approached from the west side, seemed to be the easier option.

A nice quick find thanks. The traffic was quite quiet so we decided to give it a go, and we were successful.

Ms_KR and I are on our annual pilgrimage to Auckland for our family Christmas. Today we cruised from Rotorua to Hamilton. Please excuse the generic logs, there have been a few finds and they get muddled up sometimes.

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

Too hard being in all that traffic and visible too. Oh there's no traffic and we'll be sort of hidden. Yay. Nek minnit I have to wait to cross back as there are so many cars and I'm trying to not look guilty or embarrassed. Glad that's over! Tftc

Really nice stop on a hot day. Found in the tree away from gz.
In lieu of Akld Mega 2020, we decided a side trip to the new tribute cache (to GC45) was in order. Travelling with South Island cachers, we found a number of caches including this one.
We have typically signed as mrandmrschosen1978 or occasionally MM78.
Thanks for this cache (plus fav from us)

Visiting North Island from Otago as I still had my flights etc all booked last Christmas for what was going to be the Mega Weekend. Joined up with the Southland Geocachers (MrandMrsChosen1978, Wombat_4, NZBozzy, Kiscardi, Mrs Hazzer, Tregram and I) formed the Southern Raiders to have a Mega time caching in Auckland and Rotorua.

Day 2 - 6.30am start and 10.30pm back at hotel. Today the aim was to get to the GC45 plaque. A great day trip and some really good caches found, some old DNFs avenged and lots of new caching memories made.

Once we found the right path in we went straight to GZ then read past notes and went ok over there it is. The flax around GZ was starting to bloom and in the lovely warm air it sends out a lovely perfume. I keep coming across oak trees planted in 'random' spots to commemorate the Queens visit at this time, I wonder how many were planted in total and if all have caches beside them?

***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

[NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) is definitely happening, but has been postponed until 2021. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 22 to 25 October 2021. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20+ years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20+ years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* All the 20s and now 21 as well!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](http://nzmega.com) - you won't want to miss it!

Day 2 of some of us South Island cachers hitting the area around Auckland. Today was going to be something to remember as heading down to GC45... excited much?!!?
Lovely wee area, beautiful trees. Didn't seem too much of a problem hiding from muggles in cars as the bush around was well established in height there tftc

Another cool spot for a cache. Its quite an amazing little sanctuary. Managed to cross road ok & found our way in to GZ. Looking looking maybe its over there. Call went up cache had been found log signed & returned to hiding place. Lots of new oaks trying their best to grow.
TFTC

Who would have thought a cache would be here. The road wasn't too busy to cross & once at trees no one would know we were there. TFTC

On my way back to Whangarei after completing the 50 km Taupo Ultra marathon on the weekend. Still a little stiff, so needed to break up the journey with some frequent stops to have a walk and find some caches.

A little bit of a mission getting across the busy road and then finding the way in, but once there, cache was soon located, log signed and then returned safe and secure as found. TFTC

Heading home from a weekend in Wellington. Ended up walking 340 degrees here before we found the opening into the middle. After that it was plain sailing. TFTC

TFTC needs a new logbook

A bit of a trip away to get out the Waikato, I decided to target some Eastern GeoTour caches. This trip ended up being 1294kms over the two days, and a good run for the car. Day 2

Homeward bound, I couldn't resist making this find, as it was after midnight and figured it'd be a great time. Easily found this time, I see I logged a Needs Maintenance October 2015... sheesh I'm slack!
TFTC FapAndGap, the cache was found in good order Signed, sealed and returned to GZ. 1 find(s) of 3 today, making this find #2230

Pulled over for a stretch and noticed this cache, definitely a funny little location with the trees, but after a few moments I found the cache!

All good here!

Thanks!

Stopped to find this cache on my way to Hamilton. I definitely felt a bit crazy crossing the road and climbing through the flax although there is now a bit of an opening made on the side closest to the reserve. Thanks for showing me a cool bit of history. Would definitely recommend the next searcher bring a replacement log as the ones there are a bit fragile. Tftc!!!

Was fun making our way into the center. Found easier way out! Log sheet is getting full. Thanks for the cache.

Fought my way through and got totally wet through. Went to the wrong tree initially then after checking comments switched to the correct tree for a quick find. Hardly any traffic here today.

Interesting to work out how to access - and then there is a huge obelisk? Why would they not leave a access route I wonder? Quick find once I was at the right spot, probably not many people venture in here! TFTC!!

Nicht so einfach.

Nicht so einfach.

Cool spot I didn’t know that about these trees. Nice bit of local history

Didn’t sign, forgot pen! TFTC

**S 37° 59.118 E 175° 46.034**

#11,679. An interesting stop in Tirau to see these oaks. Fortunately the traffic was not too heavy and GZ was all quiet at the time of our visit. Found after widening the area a little, at about 11 metres away. The cache was in good 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.

Last day driving to Auckland from Taupo and grabbed this one filling gaps and gaining a new smiley face. Wanted to grab this one on our last journey and as traffic weas not heave did it today. Thanks CO for the cache.

Die Eiche ist nur zweieinhalb Monate älter als ich aber viel viel größer Gruß aus Oberösterreich

Great trees! Thanks for showing! As we had found an entry, we had soon found the cache!

On the way to hobbiton greetings from Austria tftc

Finally got my my chance to stop and grab this one. TFTC

Thanks FapAndGap for placing this cache in an interesting location

I parked out west as suggested and was able to cross to the South side of the Island before any traffic came...There was less flax obstructing this side

The find took me several searches - probably because I was searching in the dark and looking for a 200ml sistema as described in the write-up. Cache is now small, circular and not a sistema but still in an obvious spot

TNLNSL TFTC

A short stop on the way back to Hamilton after visiting the Blue Spring.
Thanks for the cache FapAndGap

I loved the look on the peoples faces when we came out of the round about. TFTC

After stopping for a coffee in Tirau we thought we would find this cache before continuing south. We were able to access gz easily as a recent car accident had squashed the flax down on the Taupo side of the roundabout. Once at gz we had no problems finding the cache.

#18 great hide! No bees but bring a pen!

Weiter gehts für fazzyOne und mich auf unserer Tour durch Neuseeland. Auf dem Weg Richtung Auckland haben wir wieder einige Urwälder durchschritten, viele verschimmelte Logstreifen gesehen und einige Überraschungen erlebt. Dieser Cache konnte nach einigem Suchen gut gefunden werden. Oder viel mehr konnte er schnell von fazzyOne nach einem Kampf mit dem Gestrüpp gefunden werden, denn ich hatte kurze Hosen an und habe am Rand gewartet. [;P]

Die Tagestour ging zurück zum Start. Die letzten Tage in diesem wundervollen Land sollen direkt am Abflugort verbracht werden. Schließlich gibt es dort noch einige Attraktionen zu sehen. Auf dem Weg lag der ein oder andere Cache; so wie dieser hier. Wieder mal gabs diverse feuchte Logbücher, aber am Ende konnten wir alle finden und signieren.
19. April 2019, 12:08 Uhr

Der Einstieg war eigentlich ganz easy.

Been out Tokoroa and decided to pop in collect the caches in Tirau. The smell of silage was strong here today. Hate that smell. Lol. Nice to see what was hidden in here. No problems finding cache.Tftc

Meanwhile this is my third geocaching-trip to Middle-Earth . And I love it! [:X]
But still there are routes and places in this beautiful country that are on the 'discover-me' list and want to be visited and explored.
Day #11:
The red rental-cache-car took me on a very long northbound journey from Palmerston North to Mount Wellington near Auckland .
The weather was quite pleasant, except in the Ruhapehu-Region [xx(] - just like during the previous visits ...
Along the scenic route there were some great geo-treasures [^] worth a stop. Just like this one:
Really admired these two oaks planted in honor of Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1954 .
Imagining that I wasn’t even born then (and my age is 55 something...) and she was already in charge as Queen of England - this is really funny [:o)]!
Thanks to the owner [:X] for placing and maintaining this cache and cheers from Germany!

We are on vacation in New Zealand and of course we seek some caches.
Thanks for this one!
Greetings from the Dutch.

After we have visited Hobbiton we would like to do some cache. The difficulty was to find a way through the maze of flaxmill. I matched it and the rest was a 50:50 chance. Thanks for the cache!

Time to start heading down the island towards home in Feilding, however I’m stopping if in Rotorua for a night at the holiday home that they have rented for a couple of days.

I set off early and I didn’t want to spend too much time caching prior to Auckland as I wasn’t sure what the traffic was going to be like through the city. However I decided to grab a few on the way. Got through Auckland in good time and now I’ve got a bit more luxury for some more caching.

The hardest part of this cache was finding way through first wall of flax. Once through, it was a quick find and then to struggle my way out and back to the car. TFTC

No longer a sistema but a black Resene test pot. Great place for a cache. Feels like bush

Definitely a challenge in timing to get over to the island, and then to make a path through to the trees. But once there, no problem. All safe and dry here. TFTC

The hard part was trying to find the entry, until we realised there isn't one. Searched the wrong tree first before finding and signing. I seriously doubt the passing traffic can see anything in here now. Thanks FapAndGap.

Some trepidation doing a dodge in the traffic but alls well.
Thanks for the cache

Today was a day for a one way road trip from Napier to Auckland. I flew across from Auckland to pick up our son's 'new' car after winning a Trademe auction on Monday. (Sunday I'll be starting another leg of the Auckland - Wellington - Picton - Nelson journey) Time to find a few caches along the way of course. Well that was interesting. I parked in the side road as indicated and wandered over to the island to see what I could see. Not enough visitors for a geotrail here - which is probably a good thing. I finally found a path of least resistance and made my way in to the centre. Found cache in the second place I looked after reading the listing properly. TFTC, Biggles.

Today we had our second day in Rotorua and made a trip around the wonderful Hobbiton area in Matamata. Special emphasis had we on a visit in Hobbiton. On this trip we searched, found and logged many caches, too. The weather was bad in the morning, not sunny, but it got better and worse all day long, including raining from time to time. Only sometimes then there was some sun to be seen.
Almost no muggels observed us as they had better things to do than observing two geocachers.

Thanks to FapAndGap for showing us this location and for the fun we had at Tirau Oaks (Tirau) Waikato. The search we had here today didn't take too much time.

Greetings from Germany and hope to see you soon in the forest.

TFTC says H_M_A @ 1. November 2018 @ 13:07 Uhr @ [#12279](https://coord.info/GC63EZ4)

Nice easy one year right. Tftc

Thank you your majesty. TFTSCL

Nabbed with bkj97 en route to Whitianga. T4TCSL

Wow! Even at night this place is super busy! Glad they kept these trees!

Huge island! TFTC

#316. Those muggles must wonder. Largely a bush crash to get to GZ these days. GC exposed and a bit damp. Probably could do with a new logbook. Tftc.