LOTR14 - Treebeard Tongariro National Park, North Island, New Zealand
By yorkshirekiwi83 on 14-May-16. Waypoint GC6J6BZ

Not able to maintain them, freeing them up for other cachers to use the space, cache has been removed.

No longer able to maintain, pulling series out to make room for other people

Tftf

Great walk of the first lot of caches in the series. I only saw another 3 people the entire time in total! TFTC!!

Thanks yorkshirekiwi83 for placing this cache

It was so sunny that we were shedding layers and applying sunscreen here... then took my shoes off to cool down in the freezing water

Thanks for the cool series!!
TNLNSL TFTC

An easy find as we enjoyed the spectacular views.

I was supposed to be hiking the Tongariro Crossing today but the weather wasn't playing ball, so I decided to do some other hikes instead. The Silica Rapids walk was nice and quiet which made searching for the caches easy. TFTC!

Enjoying walking the Silica Rapids track - beautiful scenery and bush. Like others have found there was nothing at this hint object, but I headed back uphill a few metres to the next one and there it was. Thanks yorkshirekiwi83.

Heading around the Silica Rapids track. Didn't find this in the first spot but widened the search and soon had the cache in hand. TFTC

We can spot them.

Hard to believe that the previous person found it!

Went 10 metres on to the next board and there it was

Our first bushwalk since the Covid-19 lock down. We had held off on doing the silica rapids walk with the kids for a few years due to the length of road walking. But the kids are older now and waking along the road is no longer a worry The bush walk was great and collecting the caches was fun for the kids as usual. Had a nice picnic lunch by the rapids too. This cache was a quick find. TFTC

Nothing here. Noted that a piece of the drainage board was missing so perhaps cache was removed as well?

First day of autumn: the original plan for today was to try Tongariro Alpine Crossing, but we felt it could be too much. And we were not sure about the weather as well.
So we changed plans and choosed the easier hike to Silica Rapids, which was a very good idea.

After a nice break at the Silica Falls (and collecting everything we needed for the EC) we started the second part - "returning" to our car. The terrain changed a bit into vulcanic surrounding.

We still had some bonus infos to collect and were glad that we found this cache.

Thank you for the cache!

Treebeard a quick step and find TFTC

Cosily placed cache found after looking at another place nearby. Tftc

Found with MrsC on our travels in NZ. A fantastic walk tftc.

Found with mr c on our travels from the UK thank you

Arrived in Whakapapa (Middel Earth) we decided to do two hiking tours.
The coordinates were exactly measured and with the hints the cans could be found well.
The values for the bonus were written down and so the bonus could be found.
They were very nice hiking trails with great views into the nature.

Thank you for this wonderful round and for hiding the cans.
Many greetings from Cologne from Pöni.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

In the morning i did this walk, founded easily. Now it’s sunny. Thanks!

really tricky till we found the right board. Tftc

Found it on our way with The One Ring Thanks for guiding us to this fantastic track

Another quick find as I close in on my planned turn around point of Silica Springs.

A nice loop in a pretty nice area.

For more read LOTR02
Greets from Germany
Tftc. Danke fürs Dösle

Found on a delightful November day while wasting a day around Whakapapa. I put my hand in some dark places while doing this series, thank goodness there are no nasty venomous things in NZ. Thanks for the cache Yorshirekiwi83

just arrived at the camping area we planned an evening walkout for some middle earth caches
Thanks - team bycycle

After the Tama lakes and the loop, we still have some energy left. We go again at the end of the day to do this beautiful tour! wow.

---
Thanks yorkshirekiwi83 for the geocache [^]
Greetings from Belgium,
Frank et Muriel travelling in New Zealand

Happy geocaching

Neither at this board nor at the others around.

On a abandonné après un quart d'heure de recherche, surement sur les mauvaises planches.
Merci pour le chemin.

Found as a part of a previous group TanjackMüley, aka WanderingSparrow. Now I'm continuing on my own. TFTC

Glad we read veggie growers as we assumed it wasnt here and was about to move on. Tftc.

Greetings from the Czech republic. Beautiful walking, thank you for this cache.

Coords were 10m off so was looking around the wrong board for a while then moved on to the next one where it was

Out on a LOTR mission today with Tramper Ted. Not the nicest of days, but no rain, and the occasional spot of sun made for a pleasant temperature and day to do these. Sorry they are too much of a blur for individual logs but will add a few comments here and there.

TFTC

Took a moment as coords a little out.

Time to do this series with Sp8sm8. Apologies for the repetitive logs, just to say that we enjoyed the series and some sensible hides. TFTC

Easy find while tramping the Whakapapaiti Valley Track stopping for a break at the Whakapapaiti Hut Punaruku Falls, Silica Rapids. cach's in good order some logs hard to get out.

Gps tried to trick us near this one

Today we make an other walk...Lotr. This is a really nice one. Thank you dear Owner for the top conditions.

On a road trip north, enjoying the day and pic up some caches. TFTC

Greetings from 2 Austrians  
Die_Asseln

Quick find here after visiting rhe rapids. Tftc.

Found on a beautiful autumn day. Cheers!

A bit of a trickier one for me. I had to try a couple of options before I located the cache. TFTC

Out to see the silica rapids and a couple of caches before having to leave this great area.

Day 12 of our NZ trip. This series was one of the first things on our 'must do' list. We were not disappointed! We were able to find LOTR 1 - 33 (with the exception of the mystery cache). All of the caches were easy to find and in great shape. Thank you yorkshirekiwi83 for placing and maintaining this series for our enjoyment. Greetings from

I'm always keen to get my step count average up and this weekend with yeetrees and bkj97 was an opportunity to do so. It's been a few years (about 30) since I was in the area doing a mountain marathon so I was keen to see how the area had changed. Certainly the tracks are far more tourist friendly. Great day out and 50 caches scored. Really enjoyed the challenge so thanks for making it possible by placing the series. T4tcsl. My apologies for the generic logs.

Saw this series of caches when they were published and really haven't had the opportunity to ever look at coming up here to attempt them. When the opportunity arose that this series was up for adoption, I decided to contact the CO and sent yorkshirekiwi83 an email saying that we were happy to adopt them as we didnt want to see them being archived. Yorkshirekiwi83 was happy and willing to let me adopt them, decided that we should go and find the caches before adopting this series of caches .

A plan was to come out here and spend the weekend near the start of the track, so a plan was hatched on Christmas Day 2018, we checked out the accommodation and Mrs Yeetrees said that she had always wanted to stay at the Chateau Tongariro, as her family was a legacy visitor, but that is another story.

After the accommodation was all booked it was just a matter of planning the trip, and saving the funds [xx(], well a plan was set in motion..... and the start of the journey from there and back again.

We meet up with bkj97 and the Little Blue Hen while we out and about and had mentioned that we were going to go up the mountain attempt this series, they said that they were happy to come along as well if we didn’t mind the company, well twos company more are cachers, why not as two eyes are better than mine as I am know to be blind, so the plan was amended for a team effort [^].

Today was the day one of our two day visit on this lovely mountain and we decided that we would attempt the LOTR series, having made our way up here last night with bkj97 being our most gracious chauffeur who go us to our accommodation safely last night [^].

After finding GC66TEH - Silica Rapids (Central North Island), this was the next cache we had to find as we were making our way along the Silica Rapids track and continue on our journey towards the next cache of the series. As we were making our way towards GZ, we decided to check the hint, and as we neared GZ, it only took bkj97 a few seconds to spot the hiding spot of the cache, and we soon found the cache.

Managed to retrieve the cache, signed and then we replaced the cache with a new logbook and cache container before replacing the cache back where I found it, well the cache was a bit exposed at the current location and we managed to find a more suitable location with the same hint. Thanks yorkshirekiwi83 for placing this cache series here and for bringing me to this spot, TFTC TNLNSL (14319). The cache is now at S39 13.153 E175 31.975

Now it is time to make our way to the next cache in the series, the adventure and journey continues ....

Information:
Treebeard, also known as Fangorn, was the oldest of the Ents left in Middle-earth, an ancient tree-like being who was a "shepherd of trees". He had a very tall and stiff-limbed appearance, with bark-like skin and leafy hair.

In Chapter 5 of The Two Towers, Gandalf calls Treebeard "...the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth." In The Return of the King, chapter 6, "Many Partings", Celeborn addresses Treebeard as "Eldest."

Disclaimer:
This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author.

Otherwise, what one says may be construed as being what the entire one believes, thinks or condones, and this may be very inaccurate and damaging, or just complete fiction......

Birthday Friday and a drive to the Chateau arriving in the dark courtesy of Yeetrees tours unlimited. Saturday morning with wonderful weather, a substantial Chateau buffet breakfast to keep us going and off we went on our LOR quest for the day. Yeetree's organisational skills were amazing and the actual cache maintenance went without a hitch. Mrs Yeetrees and little blue hen completed the party and a thoroughly good time was had by all. Having detoured for an earthcache this was the 15th of fifty for the day. A great series that was well worth the effort. Tftcsl. Apologies for very generic logs.

A wonderful hiking day in Tongariro National Park for D4nielB and me. We walked the Taranaki Falls Loop, the Tama Lakes Track to the lower lake and a loop track to visit the Silica Rapids. It was awesome. On our way we also looked for some geocaches.
This one was another quick find.
Greetings from Hamburg, Germany.
Juliane

Today Jul1ane and me used the day for a lot of hiking in Tongariro National Park, starting with Upper Taranaki Falls Track, Tama Lakes Track to Lower Tama Lake and Lower Taranaki Falls track, followed by a round trip along Lower and Upper Silica Springs Track. Of course we also used these for a big load of cache finds.

We found this cache without problems and in good shape.

With Lemmer in New Zealand at amazing caches. Thank you for showing all that beautiful places. flatrate

A great walk at Tongariro. Not himself but the silica rapids. Amazing view. The very first round in NZ with great hints and easy finds. Thank you very much. Lemmer and flatrate

We had planned to do the Tongariro Crossing but it was cancelled due to weather so we did the Taranaki Falls and Silica Rapids tracks instead. No problems here, thanks

This afternoon we had free as we had planned to be over walking the Red Crater for the whole day, but sadly the weather played up! Instead we went on this picturesque walk to Silica Rapids and picked up most of the caches on this circuit. Thanks so much for this series, TFTC

Back home in Denmark again from my 4th visit to New Zealand.
Luckily I had some time for geocaching when there, so now it is time to log my findes.
Took up this trail again from last year.
This cache was found, and the logbook was signed.
TFTC

Find #3035. A day spent in the Whakapapa area hiking short trails while son #1 walked the Tongariro Crossing. Misty early on but the day soon cleared to warm sun and blue skies. Very busy in the area with the Tussock Traverse on today.
With the Taranaki Falls Track and caches completed, there was time to walk the Silica Rapids Track, starting from the lower end.
After viewing the Silica Rapids, I followed the track as it turned north east and up towards Bruce Road. And more views.
Spied the SPOR marking the cache. SL TFTC

11213
At first we wanted to do the Tongariro Crossing this day, but the weather was so bad that we had to decide differently. Instead we made a hike in the surroundings of the visitor centre. We were drawn here by the trail LOTR, but also some other caches were found.
The LOTR follows a beautiful path. About halfway the weather got worse. We had a strong drizzle, with some heavy winds. The higher we got, the colder. But we kept on going and finally we stood on the Bruce Road. Unfortunately we could not find another trail to bring us back to the visitor centre, so we continued to walk on the road. We found a few other caches there, but the Bonus of this series was not one of them. We had a coordinate for the bonus, but it could not have been right. Either it is completely out of course or we did something wrong. Anyway, we were satisfied with all the caches we did find on this beautiful trail.
Thanks for placing this series!

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

We arrived today at Tongariro very early. Therefore we would like to do one of the nice rounds. This one was very nice because have seen wonderful nature. Only the way back was not beautiful...thanks for the caches!

We got up early in order to finish this LOTR series in order to head to Hobbiton. We got all the caches and it took us 3.5 hours for the remaining caches that we hadn't time for yesterday. We apologise for the same log for all the caches but there were simply too many. Thank you for the caches.

After returning from Round the mountain walk, I still had to wait for my room. That's why the time until check-in in the chateau was used optimally and completed the second of three laps in the footsteps of the LOTR. Unfortunately, I was missing some caches, but the round was so much fun. Thanks for this idea and greetings from Germany.

TFTC says Fawkes.de

TFTC

Morning walk to Silica Springs, picking up a few caches along the upper track as we go.
Thanks for the cache.

See log for LOTR 1, TFTC

Nice stop on a beautiful walk
TFTC

TFTC
Great walk, great series
Cheers
IP

At this beautiful day we made two of the LOTR-Tracks. We visited the fellowship and the villains of the trilogy. Both of the walks are really great and we had a lot of fun to hike a little bit and go for geocaching at the same time. The caches a not so hard to find, so we had enough time to enjoy the track. On each track we didn’t find one cache, so there are still two green points between all the smileys . Sorry about the same log for all caches, we are here for holidays and had so many things to do .... but not enough time!
We enjoyed really all the caches today, because we love LOTR. Many many thanks for bringing us to this locations and the tracks and also for hiding the caches along this wonderful ways!! We leave a blue ring in the first cache of all !
Greetings from Germany!
#536

Enjoying the weekend in Whakapapa Village to get some hiking training in for my upcoming big hike of the Green Gully Track in OZ. Great weather today to be out in the area to enjoy the scenery. TFTC

Today was focused on hiking in the wunderful Whakapapa area. The weather was nearly good, only interrupted by some rainfalls. The boxes were almost easy to find, as it should be on a long powertrail.

Thanks for the caches!

There are plenty of Treebeards on this trail, but not here! Still going up, but still a nice climb.Thanks for bringing us here yorkshirekiwi83.

This is a unique area ...very interesting and still we climb ...found easily and signed the log
Tftc

# 1968 07.11.2018

Great walk with awesome views!
Thanks to yorkshirekiwi83 for placing!
ViT4 Steffi & Peter

A steady drizzle and chilly wind did not spoil the pleasure we had this morning when tramping the beautiful Silica Rapids Walk. Finding all the LOTR caches along the way was great fun, too. The hints were very precise and helpful and we enjoyed that we did not have to leave the path. All caches could be easily spotted, unfortunately most of the logbooks are wet or even soaked.
Tftc! We leave a couple of FP points

Found! More to come...

Today we had our second day in National Park Whakapapa and made a trip around the wonderful walks here. Special emphasis had we on the vulcanic mountains around us. On this trip we searched, found and logged many caches, too. The weather was good in the morning, sunny, but it got worse all day long, until raining at noon and later. 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 yorkshirekiwi83 for showing us this location and for the fun we had at LOTR14 - Treebeard. 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 @ 29. Oktober 2018 @ 14:05 Uhr @ [#12217](https://coord.info/GC6J6BZ)

It was quite cloudy this morning and so I decided to hike the short round to the Silica Rapids. I am always happy when a round is motivated by a few caches. So here too!
The containers were regularly very good to find and most in good condition.

tftc

Very impressed Yorkshirekiwi83 - caches relentlessly hidden at just about the minimum distance, yet a lot of variety in the hiding places, and nicely achievable! Awesome series so far!

Found with our 2 and 5 y.o. T4TC. Great trail. Thanks!

On our Route through New Zealand we found this nice Place. Thank you for showing us!
We logged as Team EIN
Yours Slashgirl

During our stay in Chateau Tongoriro we did some walking and had time to look for some caches. This is one of them. We logged as Team EIN. TftC! Greetings from Germany! - Willow

Contents frozen so logged as best I could! TFTC

TFTG live from team Stockley

Nicely hidden in plain sight

TFTC

Working my way to the Silica Rapids on a beautiful morning. Starting at the campground end and coming back down the road. Another cache within easy reach of the track, with spot on co-ordinates. Thank you for the effort and care taken with your placements. TFTC

Für wahr, wir haben uns der Gemeinschaft angeschlossen und werden zum Gelingen der Mission beitragen

Heute bei sehr schönem Wetter haben wir uns die Runde LOTR vorgenommen. Die Runde führt uns an schöne Aussichtspunkte und an tollen Wasserfällen vorbei. Alle Dosen waren gut zu finden. Vielen Dank fürs Legen.

Today in very nice weather we have made the round LOTR. The round takes us to beautiful viewpoints and great waterfalls over. All cans were good to find. Thank you for laying.

Straightforward find. TFTC

Plesant find among a lot of other well placed and maintained caches in Whakapapa area. We had lovely weekend here. Found many caches and enjoyed all of them. Accurate coordinates and helpful hints does the job! TFTC

Nice trail
Thanks.

on our journey through neeseeland we visited many beautiful places,
Here, too, we were able to log into the logbook. Thank you for the lay and the many greetings from Germany from the team stierwade

Nice landscape
Thank you for hiding the box
Happy hunting

A really nice Trail through the beautiful landscape. Thank you for hiding the cache.

Find number 3741. I had a plan today to collect a First to Find in Owhango, Complete the LOTR series and end up in Taurmarunui to have dinner with my brother. So it was out of bed at 5 am and straight on the road. I arrived at Owhango at 7.40 and achieved the First to Find. Stage 1 completed. Then arrived at Whakapapa about 8 and decided to shout myself a big breakfast before starting. I did the 3 loops in numerical order 1-19 then 20-33 and finally 34-49. I managed to find all the caches (Stage 2 completed) and a few others as well. In the end I achieved a total of 56 finds with only 1 not found and that was "Naki Splash" (too many muggles round). Total walking time was 8 hours. And still made it to dinner by 6 pm. (Stage 3 completed). Thank you for all the placements.
After visiting the rapids and seeing my first humans on the track I made my way on to here. Another quick find unless you stand around and enjoy the view.

Found it! Does have code in it. Would recommend getting all the hints prior to the walk as reception is a problem further in.

Found this cache together with my family (Sibuk and Finn). For details see the log of Sibuk.

Thanks for the cache, Lupid

During our wonderful vacation in New Zealand Lupid, me, and our little geocaching apprentice managed to find some caches.

Today we visited the Tongariro N.P. As we thought the crossing would be a little bit too much for the little one, we decided to go to the Silica Terraces, and so we did
A nice hike with a lot of caches to find. Fortunately nearly all of them were easy to find - otherwise we might have stopped searching for them as the walk and enjoying the nature were our main goal for today. But as it is, it was a nice add-on to the beautiful walk.

Thanks for the caches and greetings from Germany, Sibuk

Tftc !

Had a good look around the rapids, took pictures etc and on our way again. TFTC

A quick find and a good cache.TFTC!

Checked all in the Fellowship section of the series, replaced log books, plastic bags and actual caches where needed, whole series is complete.

If anyone comes across these and the logs do need replacing or the plastic bags are missing and you are able to help out it would be most appreciated if you could. Thanks in advance