Skoolz owt Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
By stevecoxnz on 20-Jan-16. Waypoint GC69ZW7

Cache hiding area has been replanted hence the cache has gone. Can no longer fit a cache there.

Appears to be missing, I will check it out soon.

Didn't find the cache, and nearly lost an eye.

Poked alot

Here with net61 but no joy ...only lots of sharp pricks to our arms

second visit to this thorny location and no success.
after several stabbings and scratches contacted CO.
he appeared in what seemed only a couple of minutes.
CO unable to locate this cache also.
so we left than received a note he had replaced it.
thanks Steve .
back and found.
TFTC.

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)... We are trying to wring one last holiday out of the season before we have to return to work. It was decided that we should have a mini break at Kawakawa Bay (Auckland) which was perfect for a caching stint. As Gap was still in town for work, we arranged to meet in the Maraetai-Beachlands area...

This was one of those hides where the combined sum of time spent on site would run into hours. We hunted without success in November, 2022. We searched methodically and used the hint to gingerly pick our way around the spiky plants. We couldn't 'feel' anything... We were amazed and a little jealous that someone had found the cache after our failure. What did we miss? We called in today with enthusiasm, but those thick spikes drove us back to defeat. Gap messaged the CO and he arrived soon after. Right away, it was determined that we were searching higher than the hint called for, but the wall still seemed devoid of a cache. The CO took pity on us and departed to prepare a replacement. We were so pleased when we returned and found a new cache waiting for us. Thank you for responding to our SOS call stevecoxnz. It was great to meet you today. TFTC.

Checked on cache today and decided to put it in a clearer space as the spikey guardian had overgrown too much for safe retrieval. Coords are still good.

TFTC nice PNG! Watch out of the spikes!

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)… Our plans quickly morphed on the fly. After Gap finished his job in Paparimu, we realised that Clevedon was just a stone’s throw away. Let’s go that way…

Persistent rain and a few spikes drained our enthusiasm. After a lot of searching and digging, we gave it away.

Looked for quite a while. Did not find

Clevedon - Duder - Maraetai - Beachlands - Whitford it was my today`s trip.

I had an epic DNF here ... Great to see it finally

Count for a day 21 founds and 0 DNFs!
Cache found at 13:08.
It was my 9509.
TFTC stevecoxnz!

Logged using [GeoCentral Lite](https://www.geocentral.pl)

Took me a little while, but found. Pricklywise it could have been worse.
Tftc

Was doing some work at a house up the road and was able to quickly stop by on my way back.
Cach is safe and dry.
Thanks stevecoxnz for placing and maintaining it

**16.017**
We are certainly aware that skool was owt, as this is the reason that we are geocaching being the last weekend before skool returns for Term 3. Cache was quickly located without managing to get prickled, thankfully. TFTC

Haha this is a mean one! Went to the wrong spikey friend first and that one was evil

This one was found quickly but the local fauna can bit which it did to Mrs beconaze. She insisted Mr beconaze put it back

alert level 2.....lets play again

Due to the covid 19 situation I will be disabling all my caches until we no longer have to self isolate. Anyone logging one after this date will have the log deleted. Stay safe.

Travelled across the city today for the two TMGT caches over this way, and while here we picked up a few more.
Parked near GZ and began to hunt. After several minutes we were about ready to give up and move on. One of us decided to check one other spot - and came out with the cache. TFTC.

Nice and pretty hard

Pretty difficult but enjoyable

Took a little bit of digging but it’s still there TFTC!

Good cache - meow (found a while ago with my mum Raven_eyes)

Gave up here. Maybe next time.

Log later

Just checked cache. It's still there. If you think it's too overgrown you are looking in the wrong area.

I have just been up & checked on the cache. It's still there. If you think it's too overgrown you are looking in the wrong area. Better luck next time.

Dnf too overgrown

??

No luck today. two of us searched for a while but couldn't find it.

Out with cragger, laval and NZIceman for some caching today. Headed out in the general Maraetai and Beachlands direction to collect a few to clear the map and one specific one in Duders Park to tick a box in my D/T grid.

Had previously DNF'd this but noticed Bennett24 had some luck so decided to give it another try with the others. Searched the same area that I looked last time but when we eventually found it it was further along than I had imagined and thats probably why I missed it as I hadn't looked there! Helps to find the right guardian....and yes they are very prickly!!!

Thanks for the cache.

Thanks for the cache.

Found with keylev, cragger and NZIceman.

Thanks for the cache.

Took a little while to find and offered my arm into several places where I had to be very careful when probing around. After several minutes and trying the most difficult spots and wondering if it was still there, we managed to spy the cache and claim the find. TFTC.

In the area for the Santa event at The Franklin so took the opportunity to find some caches.

Found the prickly guardian or shall I say it found me...got suitably prickled but still came away empty handed...was hard to see with my sunnies on but ‘blind’ without them so will have to return...

Clever hiding place! Guardian did his job well. TFTC!

Went to check on this after a DNF. Sure enough it's MIA. Will replace soon.

Cache has been replaced.

No luck with this one, obviously too well guarded.

This evening my son had soccer training at the not so nearby Beachlands Domain. And so after dropping him off to practice I thought that I would try and find a cache or two. I had seen this one on the geo map a number of times, and I decided that tonight was the night. Flip this is a very busy road around 7.30PMish as people must have been coming home from work or just heading out for the evening. Anyway, the guardians certainly did their job well as I fumbled around in the dark trying to find the cache. And as I was about to give up I suddenly had it in my hand. Cool. So I signed the log while sitting in my car, and as I did, the neighbour across the road came out to her mail box and called out asking me if I was ok. And after a bit of social chat, not at all giving away the true reason as to why I was there, she went back inside. And after waiting again for a couple of cars to pass, I returned the cache under the cover of darkness. So thank you once again stevecoxnz for setting this one, along with all of your other ones up. I really appreciate your efforts.

Camping the weekend with Vamber at Omana Campsite . Fish & chips were on the menu for us tonight, and with a long wait we decided to get some caches around the area. Took a bit of searching, even the gloves came out, then finally those little words were uttered, found it. signed KKKT, thanks

We were out camping with KirsTim for the long weekend, staying at Omana Regional Park, and figured we we would hit some of the nearby caches around the area. Quite a prickly wall, it took us a little while to make this find, but luckily we had just the right TOTT in our bag to protect us somewhat. Signed the log and replaced the container. Signed the log as KKKT, respective of each of our first names, in order to save log space. Thanks for the cache!

Took me a while to find this one. After getting poked in the head a lot by the prickly guardian, finally got the cache
TFTC

Out and about with TF and we found 30+ caches today with no DNF's. Someone has trimmed the cover for this cache but it was still tucked away safely. TFTC

Out and about with TW and doing a few drive-bys on the way past. Thanks.

No problems with this one, once we got back the prickly guardian. T4tc

Another year and the first trip for the team out and about while none of us had to work the following day. So todays little jaunt was to be up and arounf the Clevedon Maretai areas to see what we could get before sleep took hold of us. On this adventure in attenence were HKCB, iammrwalker and RWIMF. Departing Hamilton at 7pm after doing the pickups it was with high spirits and high expectations for another good caching year with plenty of miles to be covered before returning home tomorrow morning.

We hoped to get about 50 for the evening and my final taly was 57 finds along with 2 DNF's, not bad for a bunch of beginners.
What a great start, soon started to get into the swing of things and before long we were coolkng with gas.

THanks to all the cache owners whom placed the caches for us to find this evening. Am sure that we will be back again soon to continue our travels

At a recent local Geocaching event I mentioned in passing it had been a while seen we had done any night missions and maybe we could head out for a few hours one evening once the kids were tucked up in bed. Somehow that evolved into me jumping into a car with Cats&Dragons, HKCB and RWIMF at 7pm on the 29th and hopping out of the car eleven hours later at 6am on the 30th. We signed the cache logs RICH an acronym of Geocaching names. I didn’t get as many finds as the others as I crashed and fell asleep in the car for a couple of hours sometime between 3 and 4am. Thanks to all the CO’s for placing and maintaining all the geocaches we found on our trip and for my companions for making the evening so enjoyable. Found in the early hours of the morning

I received a phone call about 2pm asking what I was doing in the evening. I said nothing, so the boys said "come caching!" So we did, leving Hamilton at 7pm to spend the evening picking up caches. This was my No23 of the evening. All logs signed RICH.

The boys found this one, I was searching about 4m away when they located it... still it's all a process of elimination right?

It's been a while since we have done a night mission, so with a few ideas thrown about we settled on heading to the Beachlands/Maraetai area for a bit of a clean out and to locate the two night caches in the area. The team consisted of RWIMF, iammrwalker, Cats&Dragons and myself (HKCB), which meant we signed the logs as RICH an accornym of our caching names.

Leavng home about 7pm we cached through the night, with the goal to reach my 7000th find, unfortunately the late night counting wasn't accurate enough which meant I was 1 short of that goal, but still 67 finds for the night wasn't a bad effort. We all had a great night, and found a handful of really good geocaches as well. A big thanks to all the CO's for the placements.

Just after finding this cache it started drizzling, looked like it wasn't going to stop in a hurry so called it quits. Glad I did, as it drizzled pretty much the whole way home.

TFTC

After finishing work commitments for the day, I headed East to find a few more caches before dinner. A careful search revealed the cache which was retrieved without any upsetting encounters with it's guardian. TFTC, Biggles.

This one definitely presented more than its fair share of obstacles today.
Finding a place to park was the first problem as for some reason there were cars everywhere but a spot was soon located a bit further along the road.
Next was the higher than expected traffic flow past GZ and a few muggles on foot as well.
To help reduce suspicion the age old trick of pretending to be on a phonecall was used, however if anyone had looked closely they would have realised the "phone" was actually a GPS unit and may have called for the men in white coats. But fortunately the muggles were too preoccupied with what they were up to and the ruse worked perfectly.
The guardian was on fine form today and, despite trying to be extra careful, the combination of sporadic searches between passing muggles and the ultimate excitement of finding the cache led to a moment of inattention enabling him to claim another victim.
Whew, at least the cache was now in hand and the mission had been successfully completed......famous last words.
After signing the log, returning the cache became problematic as a car and trailer full to capacity with muggles and suitcases pulled up in the driveway across the road and a team of muggles came running out to greet them.
Another pretend phonecall was initiated but it soon became apparent they weren't going to vacate the area in a hurry, so a return to the car with the cache was required leaving the hugging and kissing muggles to finish their business.
Finally the coast was clear and the cache was quickly returned (avoiding the guardian this time) just as the heavens opened and produced a torrential downpour.
So an unexpectedly difficult find today, the moral of the story being that you really have to pick your moment, and this wasn't it.
But at least we got a smiley, an exciting experience and a test in stealth. TFTC.

Merlot58 pulled out the right TOTT for this cache. Everyone else searched gingerly, but merlot pulled the cache from its prickly hiding spot. Signed as Team H

I'm glad I had my gloves with me as I certainly needed them to extract the cache from it's prickly guardian. Signed as Team H

Some roaming around Maraetai with rebel98, gorby, Aiden29, merlot58, supernanny and jag50.

Luckily merlot58 had some gloves, so quickly dived in and retrieved the cache from its hiding place. Her head did get tangled on one of the barbs, but she worked thru her pain, and kept searching, taking a hit for the team. Thanks for the hide

Out this way for the day and it was now late in the afternoon and we were gradually capturing caches before dinner and ahead of it getting dark and the plan to do a couple of night caches. Soon had this one spotted in a drive by and signed in as Team H.

Found with some muggle friends. Was on a South African Tourism roadshow through Australia and New Zealand. Now visiting some family. This one is really close to their house. Thanks for the cache

We parked nearby and enjoyed the views while eating our lunch froma nearby bakery, then had a quick look where the cache may be. A quick return to the car to get some rubber gloves to make the retrieval painless, and the cache was quickly found, signed and replaced. Found with darthcacher1 and purply

Out and about this afternoon finding caches after work. I have not been out this way for a wee while. With all the new hides it is about time for another visit. I parked up near GZ and began my search. Careful attention to the cache page aided my search here as I quickly narrowed in on a likely spot. Soon had the cache in hand. Cheers for the cache placement!

Tftc great hide! The prickly Guardian got me a few good times but really enjoyed this one

First time ever in this area ! So many caches to do ....will definitely need to return !
Ouch ,,,,Agazo was not exaggerating ! I was also pricked and bled getting this evilly positioned cache !
Thanks ( I think ? ) steve!

I counted one, two, three, four, ouch, ouch. I started by only searching in the safe places, but then had to, ouch, expand to, ouch, the more difficult, ouch, places. Took Simpsons T5 TB. TFTC.

I was staying at the Omana Regional Park in my snail shell and it was suggested to sign off this cache and move a TB on. Being an obliging fella I did.

Swapped TBs.

Cheers for the cache.

I have dropped off a Duck dash TB called "LUST". Help it on it's way to an international geocaching day event on the 20th August 2016. Take photo's & visit as many caches on the way. Thanks

The cache guardian viciously stabbed me in the head whilst searching but at least it resulted in a find! TFTC

First time up this road. No one around while looking.

Took a few minutes,but found it TFTC

Found with jetcar19. Retrieved TB. TFTC

Another great find while holidaying in the area. A nice quick find here.
TFTC

Dropped TB in cache today.

A very quick find here as the GPS was bang on and the hint was quickly worked out "ouch!" TFTC!

Took a few minutes of probing about

TFTC

Decided to return to this one. Had a few cute muggles walk by. But we found the cache and got pricked in the process. The hint did help a lot...thanks.

a quick find but you really have to be aware of the cactus
tftc

Out with UncleSam in Maraetai today picking up a few caches before the weather closed in, and before we were due at a friends house for dinner.

Had attempted to find this one last weekend, but didn't have any luck- there was soooooo many places it could have been- so we decided to come back to avenge our DNF today, especially since stevecoxnz was kind enough to update the hint!!!!

Looked in a couple of places before making the find..... and yup, that guardian sure was prickly!

TFTC!!!

Found, tftc.

Vistra and I were out on the east coast road, we stopped to look for this one but didnt succeed.

Couldn't find this one, but I now see the hint has since been updated - YK83 did get caught by the prickly guardian too - so we must have been close to finding it!

After a constructive message from Unclesamnz i have decided to up the difficulty rating from 1 to 2 as there are many places at GZ where the cache could be hidden. Also have modified the hint.

Too busy and too hot today, not the quick park and grab we were hoping for!

Tftc saw all the spider webs and thought ooooowwww luckily it was just sitting there

Tftc

Had started our walk in Omana so by the time we got to GZ, we were rather hot! After guzzling a heap of unfreezing water, set about to look for the cache. So many places to look. Took on more water, then luckily found the cache not long after. Great views on our walk & enjoying the back road wander. TFTC

I parked right next to GZ, but do you think that was any easier in finding the cache? No way! It took me ages, I had to wait several times for people walking by, an old guy with his dog, a young woman wearing high heels and a tight dress - off where? A nightclub? So I had to bide my time but eventually got there, whew, I'm glad about that.

On look at that giant retaining wall and I thought this could be time consuming. Some fortuitous parking and a glance in the right direction had it finished in a minute. Thanks.

Nice find, thanks!

Published

After realising I was FTF on the previous cache up the road, I decided to take a short drive to another new publication, however muggle activity thwarted my efforts and I decided to leave that cache and come up the road to this one. Tonights dinner was still in its shopping bag, nothing much can go wrong with fish sitting in a hot car for a while can it???

Any way, my phone co-ordinates were a bit jumpy here and I started the search in, what was a lot of options for a hide!! But finally found the cache and yay (FTF) #113 for us. Thanks for the after work fun!