Otawa Series #8 Piwakawaka Te Puke, North Island, New Zealand
By HambrookHunters on 03-Aug-15. Waypoint GC64MCB

No luck with this one

A previous cacher noted that it was hidden back in a different place, but perhaps should have noted in their log where they put it. Looked on the way up and back, but there were too many options. Owner should probably look at this

Spending a few weeks working in Whakatane. Had the weekend free so headed off for some caching. Last year I found the first 5 in this series. Today came to complete the series but sadly no joy here. Found items that fitting the hint but no cache. Then read the last log suggesting the cache may not have been as per hint so widened my search. Finally gave up Thanks anyway for the adventure.

Otawa Series #8 Piwakawaka was transferred from HambrookHunters to user kimbathelion

Log was very visible and easy to find. I put it back as I found it but in hind site it was possibly not in its original located. Never the less another smiley for our map. Thanks

Just as described

A lovely walk. A nice easy find. Log was a little damp. Unfortunately no bonus numbers in this one to get towards the bonus cache.

Series completed yay. Lost some of the bonus letters so couldn't grab that. Tftc series. Awesome walk up here. Cache a bit damp but still writeable.

Found it chur

Found after a bit of a search. Great find.

The hint has rotted and collapsed, found log under leafage so we found a replacement hint and put in same spot

We needed to get a few km under the belt before a trip we have planned next month, so off we go with our packs fully loaded with over night gear, feeling a bit over prepared. This series has always been on the todo list and now we have an excuse.

found this one on the second place we checked, thanks for a well placed series

#11,541
With this cache trail potentially getting archived a quick plan was hatched to kill 2 birds with 1 stone , I needed to go for my daily run and needed to find this trail of caches.(no actual birds were killed )
Checked out the map and decided on starting at Manoeka Rd end to maximise elevation gain for my mountain running training.
This find was a little more challenging and after reading some logs I uncovered the cache close to the 3 pronged tree, noted down the bonus numbers and carried on.

This was our only DNF on the trail today. Searched a few places, but so much leaf litter made the search more challenging.

A plan was hatched to tackle the mighty Otawa track today. DC and I left his van at the Otawa Lodge carpark and headed up to the top carpark on the Quarry Rd.
We thought this was a strange place to put a cache with many other options around. Maybe its hidey hole has changed since first placed. Found it easily and quickly and that's all that counts.
Thanks for bringing me here.
TFTC.


*Found with [Geooh Live](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobiltal.geoohLive)*

On this mission today with TNXPRO and McJandals. A lovely sunny morning after a day of rain. Many Thanks for this series and for eventually bringing me here. Cheers

The message came through last night asking who wants to do this series. I was keen as I didn’t want to have to walk this track on my own and have been avoiding doing so. I have also written this template on Cachly to log as I go. On this mission today with TNXPRO and Davidson Clan. A lovely sunny morning after a day of rain. Many Thanks for this series and for eventually bringing me here. Cheers

The hollow punga has rotted and collapsed, but replace the cache under the debris. Perhaps could do with moving to opposite side of the track with similar feature.
Found with Tparty, ABBA1026 and GHopa

This was a while in the planning, and the day finally arrived when four of us (GHopa, Abba1026, SuMars41 & Tparty) took to the hills for the 10 km walk around the Otawa Reserve. The weather had turned for the better today, and it was a pleasant stroll around the track. We were in no hurry, and took the time to enjoy the scenery. A car had been parked at the Manoeka Road end, and thanks to a friendly muggle, we got dropped off at the Te Puke Quarry end. This was a good move in hindsight, as it eliminated a fair bit of steep climbing had we gone the other way. We were unable to find #1, even though we knew it had been moved. It's hiding place eluded us, but it will not be a hardship to return to this one at a later date. We were also unable to find #5. Recent logs suggested that GZ had changed a little since the original placement. Despite armed with this knowledge, and a fair bit of time spent searching, we were still unable to turn it up. We will return sometime in the future. We made sure that the bonus numbers were collected along the way, but we walked past it in the end, and decided not to go back to retrieve it. This can wait for a later time when we return to pick up the remainder of the series. Many thanks to HambrookHunters for making the effort to lay out the trail. It's a great challenge and well worth the effort. We had little difficulty finding the containers using the hints provided. A couple of logbooks are damp but still able to be used. A very enjoyable walk with a great group of friends. TFTC

Carrying on up the hill, this section didn't seem so hard. It's warmer here in the Bay than on the Plateau where we have recently been tramping, but not so hot that we sweat. Pleasant overall...
The cache took some finding, after a while I had to resort to "thump all over the ground with a stick" technique until I heard the sound of plastic. Cache is pretty much where the hint says, but was buried in a thick layer of leaf litter. No need for that, I returned it in the same spot, minus the leaves so should be easier to find next time.

Needed a bit of searching to find this one. Read the hint, makes sense but still after a short time fanfan-77 turned up the good with her stick poke tool. TFTC

A chance to get out and about before the festive stupidities start (with the Otawa Track as the main objective for the day as we have been looking at for a long time), but of course a few other caches are always going to get caught into the action. So in the company of HKCB & Kyb3r we set off in two cars (parking at each end) and beginning the walk from the northern end and heading south.

Started walking at 5.33am, Distance 12km. Total Time 3hrs17min, Moving Time 2hrs33min. Conditions great and nice and cool throughout the walk.
Started out very nice through the long grass of a farm walk, which was followed by a nice gentle bush walk that for the most part was easy to moderate in intensity (at least that's what the smartwatch tells me). Most finds were located quickly (with good use of the hints) and all in all we were glad we walked the direction that we did.
There was plenty of laughter and good nature'd ribbing about many different topics and a thoroughly enjoyable time to be had by us all.
Thanks for putting this in place and getting us out and about, it was brilliant.
Our thanks goes out to the CO for the effort in getting these out here.

Thanks for the placement, Thanks for the cache

As usual this series is another one of those series you've been wanting to get since it was first published. However this one proved to have another challenge thrown into the mix as it involved either there and back walk or a vehicle at two ends! Hence as I wasn't yet prepared to do a there and back walk this series was put on the back burner.

However a few hours this morning managed to make itself free and we quickly filled it with this series. It had finally got the best of me so teamed up with Cats&Dragons and Kyb3r and headed over from Hamilton in two cars. As I needed to be back in Hamilton by 10.30am, a early start meant we had positioned cars at both ends and had started walking a bit after 5.30am.

With the time against us there was no room to stop and smell the flowers, so it was head down and get the heart rate up. And it paid off as we completed the track with all caches found, plus an extra unpublished one at the end of the track in 3 1/4 hours, which included a 20min hunt for one cache. The rest were found without much hassle, and the bonus cache was well made.

Thanks for the series!

Great walk. This was the target for today as it fills a hole in the D/T grid. Unfortunately no bonus code in the replacement cache. TFTC.

Found it eventually ...I try to locate as mant caches as possible using the co- ords and GPS only ....but this one was a real test and I needed every bit of help I could find....I finally located it close to co-ords after a 20 minute search and wasn't as the hint had directed ....but have replaced exactly as found thanks HambrookHunters for this teaser...first you test my lungs now my brain ...I'll been warnout after this great day out

This one had me going for a while. Found the hint ponga and searched all around it. Expanded the search and still no luck. Returned to original spot and fossicked and cache was revealed. It's hiding spot has fallen apart and moved. Cache left in spot found. All clean and dry here though. No Piwakawakas spotted here unfortunately as they are a lovely friendly bird. In fact I was disappointed in the bird life here. Thanks HambrookHunters for the cache placement.

Cache has been replaced.

After a few DNFs, we'll disable this cache and aim to go to check and replace if necessary.

Unfortunately we did not find this cache. I was hunting for this cache with georunnermatt. We think we found the place where it used to be so we suspect that it is gone...

Had a good look around GZ with DotjeNL, but came up empty. Found the place where we thought it should be from the description in the hint, but couldn't find it here or in the surrounding areas (much like the previous DNF log). Still a good walk workout though

We had a good hunt around but only found the first part of the hint. It hasn't been logged for a long time - hopefully it's still there. Really nice track here. If I know the cache IS still here then I'll attempt the walk from te puke quarry road.

Received notification of new caches at Te Puke and got a text from Squirrel Nutcase asking if I was interested in going for these. As we needed caches for published on day for our challenge my answer was yes without looking to see where they were. Next message was that the Tauranga guys were also going for them tonight so a bit more pressure to go so I suggested that they start at one end and us at the other end and do a vehicle key swap when we meet up on the track. Great idea so off to pick up the Squirrel. By the time we got to the start it was 8.30pm and not to worried about the distance to the end.
Walked up through farmland and at first missed gate into the bush. Quick discussion and we were onto the track. By this time received text from team at other end who were struggling with finds with only finding one cache at this stage.
Good walking track up and steadily finding caches as we went with more texts from other end of track, almost to #4 when we met the other team, buggar me its Philip and his 10 year old son which I got the impression they were glad to see us. I felt it was a brave effort on their part ( we just get called mad, crazy etc etc which is mostly from Mrs Fap) anyway a bit of a pick me up talk we swapped keys and parted. Apart from a bit of a search for bonus cache all others were found fairly quickly with hint and Co Ords except #9 as our phones had gone flat about half an hour before so will be back to get this one but maybe in daylight. We finally arrived home at 4am Friday, lucky for Squirrel he is on school holidays but me it's a another work day.

1.20am - (FTF) with Squirrel - 3 pungas, hollow branch, let's just think awhile. Thinking caching hides and we soon had it. SLTFTC

Still a lot of bird life, and a well maintained track. Found number 8, signed the log, and still NOT first. This could be a trend for the day. Can't remember if this was the one with the missing pencil or not.

Really enjoying the walk - a good track and lots of birdsong - it has been awhile since I have done this track. Found the cache and added to the log- two catchers from Rotorua were either up very early or very late TFTC

This entry was edited by NZFlossy on Monday, 12 October 2015 at 02:22:47 UTC.

{FTF} On the hunt with Gap (of Fap and Gap).

Day 39 of a hopeful 50-day caching streak...

The notifications for the Otawa series began to pour in just before 6:30PM. Shortly after, Gap phoned to gauge my interest... How badly do we need these caches for our geocaching license? (Challenge: find 20 caches on the day of publishing)... Naturally, I was keen to go, but wanted to see who else might be in the area tonight. A few texts revealed that Philip Perry and son were coming in from the lodge end. We arranged to do a car key swap along the walk...

Our iPhones were close to powering down, so we tried to use them as little as possible. The distance to this cache and the slippery conditions started to take their toll... I should have brought some drinking water (stupid)... We eventually located ground zone, but it took a few minutes to register the cache in the darkness. TFTC...

While setting up for the last cache in this series, both of our phones went flat. With nothing else left in the tank... We concentrated on walking out. We'll be back for number nine...

Published