Pauanui Ponga pride Pauanui, North Island, New Zealand
By MillsandLills on 12-Jul-16. Waypoint GC6NC40

Enjoyed a bike ride of a few kilometres along this trail this morning, picking up a total of 12 caches. Had 2 DNFs, although I suspect one of those was actually missing. Made jolly hard work of this particular one. Couldnt figure out where the coords were leading me, and certainly couldnt see any ponga tree! Had to trawl through earlier logs for assistance. Read somewhere that there was a fence involved and knew that Id been looking in the wrong area! After that it didnt take a long longer to find. #8124. TFTC.

We found the gate's key before the cache -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --French version below-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --Short late log but more complete now that we are back home.Our vacation will take us to the other side of the world to the land of the Maoris. After many, many hours of flying, a passage through China on the way there and through the United States of America on the way back, we will finally arrive in Christchurch which will be the starting point of our journey.We will enjoy the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and we will go back towards the North Island via State Highway 1. To combine business with pleasure, we will take regular breaks and small detours according to the caches that seem the most accessible to us.With a little more than 3500 km in 20 days, we will have discovered many facets of this island which is soothing. We will have to come back because there are so many places that we have not done . In broad strokes, the path will go from Christchurch to the Kaikoura Peninsula then towards Picton for the crossing to Wellington.New island, new road, and by State Highway 2 we go towards Hastings and Napier. We will leave the seaside for several days to go to Tongariro and Taupo. We will continue north towards Rotorua and Hamilton (without forgetting a detour via Hobbiton ) A detour to the Coromandel Peninsula and finally the almost north of the island with Whangarei and Waitangi to learn the history of this country.There will only be a few days left to spend towards Auckland and its suburbs before taking the plane back to the grayness of our European autumn.The majority of the boxes will be found, we have abandoned those where our English was lacking and where we could not understand the clue. Thanks to all the owners who brightened up our path, who took us to incredible places (that's also geocaching)In short, we had a great vacation, saw beautiful places that simply ask us to come back. We learned a lot about the history of this country and its traditions, it's a great motivation for our destinations.-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --Petit log en retard mais un peu plus complet maintenant que nous sommes rentrs la maison. Nos vacances vont nous emmener lautre bout du monde au pays des Maoris. Aprs beaucoup, beaucoup dheures davion, un passage par la Chine laller et par les Etats-Unis dAmrique au retour, nous arriverons enfin Christchurch qui sera le point de dpart de notre priple.Nous profiterons des plages du de locan Pacifique et nous remonterons en direction de lile du nord via la State highway 1. Pour joindre lutile et lagrable, nous ferons des pauses rgulires et de petits dtours au gr des caches qui nous semble les plus accessibles. Avec un peu plus de 3500 km en 20 jours, nous aurons dcouverts pleins de facettes de cette ile qui est apaisante. Il nous faudra revenir car il y a tellement dendroit que nous navons pas fait . Dans les grand traits, le chemin ira de Christchurch la pninsule Kaikoura puis direction Picton pour la traverse vers Wellington.Nouvelle ile, nouvelle route, et par la State Highway 2 nous remontrons en direction de Hastings et Napier. Nous laisserons le bord de mer plusieurs jours pour aller au Tongariro et Taupo. Nous continuerons vers le nord en direction de Rotorua et Hamilton (sans oublier un dtour par Hobbiton ). Un crochet pour la pninsule de Coromandel et pour finir le presque nord de lile avec Whangarei et Waitangi pour apprendre lhistoire de ce pays. Il ne restera que quelques jours passer vers Auckland et sa banlieue avant de ne reprendre lavion pour retourner dans la grisaille de notre automne europen.La majorit des boites seront trouves, nous avons dlaisser celles o notre anglais faisait dfaut et ou que nous narrivions pas comprendre lindice. Merci tous les poseurs qui ont gay notre chemin, qui nous ont emmen dans des endroits incroyables (cest aussi cela le geocaching)Bref, nous avons pass de superbes vacances, vu des endroits magnifiques qui demandent simplement que lon revienne. Nous avons appris beaucoup de chose sur lhistoire de ce pays et de ces traditions, cest une grande motivation pour nos destinations.

Thanks

Found with Cympull. Took a while but found the right spot. TFC

Thanks for your amazing cache MillsandLills. I really appreciate the time you took to set up and maintain your caches. Found with Fisha1288 Cheers, Cympull.

2nd visit. Nailed it

Tftc

Easy find

Found with Pprime` ... what a great walking trail . Made this harder than it needed to be, hopefully didn't damage the plants

Accio 12:39:37Staying in Pauanui for the middle week of our New Zealand holiday - with T4mmmy - today it was time to walk this trail. An easy 5kms (each way) amble which took just on 3 hours car back to car. Nice area, calm, quiet beautiful.Missed it first look here - had to scramble around at higher T ratings before circling back to the right spot and seeing it.Thanks MillsandLills for entertaining me at this location. *{Overall find #11717}*

Searching all around for possible hint item. Then eventually spotted likely candidate. Glad I had my cycle helmet on. Cache signed and back on the bikes again. Tftc

Great little hide here. TFTC

Day over from the bach on the Thames coast. We come over for a bike ride and a swim. Interesting bike ride when the tide comes in.

My compass was a bit out but the clues were enough to find. Tftc

Never keen to explore punga too closely, due to their being a favourite spot for spiders to hang out. But I sucked it up, stretched, and retrieved the cache. TFTC

TaurusSix and I are in New Zealand for a three weeks holiday. We love New Zealand and have had lots of wonderful experiences here previously. This time we have decided to focus our attention on three destinations for one week each, all in the North Island. The Coromandel Peninsula, Waiheke Island and The Bay of Isles. We are very mindful of not focusing all our attention of the holiday on geocaching, however it will still play an important part. We are deliberately focusing on caches that involve some walking, great views, interesting attractions , history and general points of interest. And this will all happen in between exploring, swimming , walking, doing touristy things and relaxing .
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Day 8 - Christmas Day a lovely relaxed day. We took the early morning quite leisurely before heading off to explore a new beach on the Coromandel Peninsula with a picnic Christmas lunch. As we were leaving Pauanui though we decided to collect the last two caches on the The Pauanui/ Tairua cycle way, to get to them we parked at the nearby resort and took the nice short walk to collect both. Then it was on to Opoutere Beach, nice drive to get there collecting a few caches along the way and once there we collected a few more. The main aim of the day though was to chill out at the beach, swim, read and walk along the beach we managed all three.
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This was our first cache find of the day , we had completed the start of this track and the end of this track and just had two left to go. The track was quiet it is Christmas day after all . This gave us extra time to locate and retrieve the cache before replacing it. Thanks for the cache MillsandLills.

We're staying in Tairua for a few days break and today we traveled over to Pauanui to ride the cycleway and pick up caches. Great spot here, TFTC

Sometimes it doesn’t work with a puppy

Another nice cache along the bike trail this afternoon, grabbed both TB's, TFTC

Mrs rattll decided on a bit of a bike ride to pick up some caches on this trail.
I had a muggle arrive soon after me, so stalled with a drink for a while, but had no problems once the coast was clear.
I swapped one of our homemade rattll coins for the pathtag, left a pet rock - a blue whale, and dropped off a TB.
Thanks for putting this here

Fun times didn’t take anything just left it

**#15,276**
Another old one we forgot to get the last trip to Pauanui, got it this time while running the trail in me jandals!
TNLN TFTC

Out this morning for a ride on our bikes.
We initially missed the turn off from the cycle trail. A short back track and up we went. A quick find, discovering a TB while we were at it. TFTC

Tb drop

TFTF Found with team SEAC. Grabbed a leg for a hoist.

Had to back track and head up the path to this GZ, MrsNZT leant over the fence but couldn't quite reach it - sorry to all the other team members who got a bum stare from my efforts. Luckily Stikacranes arms are a bit longer! TFTC!

I had made a call out to team SEAC to see if anyone wanted to wonder to Pauanui for day outing to grab some caches. Ended up with a swamp of us wanted to go! So on the day itself, we packed up the bikes, picnic food and embarked on this great journey! All logs were signed as "SEAC" to save space.

With MrsNZT leaning over into a compromising position, it was definitely a photo op missed! However, Stikacranes soon found it with my eyes as guidance. TFTC

A plan was hatched amongst a few of the Team SEAC crew from south and east Auckland to spend the day in Pauanui and surrounding areas to find some caches. This trail was the first target. Mr and Mrs HeMaLuDy decided to walk the trail while the others biked, so they dropped us off at one end for us to get started and then they went to the other end to get started with their bikes.
Happy to make the find here, although the GPS was bouncing a bit so we just looked in a likely place, and spotted the container a wee bit further along

Out with my geocaching buddies "Team SEAC" for a day of adventures.

I did this trail back in March 2020 before the big C hit us. This was a DNF on my last visit, so was glad to find this one. Last DNF for my on this trail. I now have a fill line of similes. I feel for the team, as I found one last time that they couldn't...so they are going to have a sad face on their map...but we are wondering if the cache site has been developed.

As luck would have it NZTravellers, B4Dawn and I realised that all our other work and social commitments aligned to give us some free time this week so what better way to put this to use then some afternoon / evening / night caching the WHOLE week!!! After 4 weekdays of very long days (work in the morning, then caching all evening) we took a break on friday to get ready for a bigger Saturday to finish the week off. We had many more Team SEAC keen to join this one which we haven't done in a little while with all the lockdowns etc so it was a great day!

Coordinates seemed a bit off for this one but the crew headed to what looked like an obvious spot. With so many of us I can't believe we missed the shot of Mrs NZT literally hanging over the fence with her fingers just mm away from the cache...ooops just not quite long enough ! Whilst some of us suggested we help her by hanging onto her legs B4Dawn was more helpful to Mr Stik-a-Crane who soon had the log in hand.

Thanks for the cache.

B4Dawn posted in our group chat of a trip down this way, a beautiful part of the country, to locate some of the local caches....some of us had found some but the majority were unfound by the group....

Thanks to the CO's for placing and maintaining the caches, with the majority in good condition and dry...

On our bikes for this stretch of caches, with 2 of the group walking...

Signed in as "SEAC" to save logbook space.

TFTC.

Found a ponga that should have hidden the cache but alas nothing to be found - may be next time.

We found this one as we cycled from Pauanui towards the end of the trail and back again. Not too many muggles on the trail today. We didn't read the cache page and found a key to the gate, before checking another area and soon spotted the yellow lid on this cache. TFTC

I looked behind one punga and spied it a few down behind another one

Anniversary weekend for Vamber and we decided to stay in a Yurt in Pauanui with the geopup. Lovely early morning walk. TFTC.

Had to pay attention to the description.

Find number four of the day with PhilBirdBoys, a little bit of rooting around, found a jar with a key for the gate and then soon had the cache in hand. Tftc.

Went to the wrong spot first after following the geo trail. Carly found it on the other side. TFTC

Found this again after a couple of years

Nice

Another hunt before finally scrambling round the bank to get this one snagged and tagged. Cheers.

Day 10 - Sunday 27 December - Tairua - up to Whenuakite and back and Pauanui power trail today. What will we find today?.

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are off on another geocaching escape over Xmas, this time to the mighty Coromandel, then over to Opotiki and stop off at Rotorua to return home on 5 January. Had an fabulous time exploring many wonders of our country. Rounding up over 400 caches along the way, with a few LABS, 20 odd TMGTs, virtuals and lots of interesting earth caches to keep the mind busy. Watching the sun come up on New Years Day at Mt Maunganui was spectacular. Lots of walking and even more driving. But had an awesome time. Thanks to all COs who made this adventure so special.

Found the gate key! Sometimes it pays to read the desription and ignore the coordinates! I have found quite a few gate keys in my geocaching career.

Taybeedragon and I went on a tour of the Coromandel - one of the few places of New Zealand, especially of Te ika a Maui, that I have yet to explore throughly, and from there along the coast to Opotiki to see one of my many, many sisters. From 18 December to 5 January we found over 400 caches, including 12 adventure labs (60 caches), 20 or so TMGTs and a host of virtuals and earthcaches. And I hosted an event to see the sun come up on New Year's day - surprisingly popular given that it was at 5am. We climbed a lot of hills, saw some amazing beaches that were quite popular despite (or because of) the insane access to them, walk a lot of bush, entered and explored 8 gold mines and generally had an awesome time. However I am glad to be back, but now is the hard part, and I fear it will take just as long - logging!

Poked around and found it

Easy trail walk with ABCDF4,
quick easy find.

Lovely walk
Nice easy find {Not The Key}

Did find the gate key & then looked further.Good hint.TFTC

Good Morning good cycling around. Found only the gate key
TFTC

I am on my way for a few days of caching in Whitianga. But first, I took a side trip to Puanui to get a few along this trail. II looked in several places before I read the description, which made the find much easier. TFTC.

didn’t find the keys

Out and about for a few days for a bit of a road trip around the Coromandel area. Day Four of my road trip. I started my travels in Coromandel Town and ended my day in Tairua. One of the objectives of my trip today was to try to find as many caches along this trail as I could. It would have been nice to have my bike with me but I had to make do with walking the trail on foot which was just fine by me. Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I'll note anything that stood out for me. GPS took a little while to settle round here. There were a couple of possible hiding places and I eventually found the cache in a well hidden logical spot. TFTC, Biggles.

Found the gate keys :-p but no cache container :-p

We are staying on Pauranui thanks to an invitation from two Kiwis we met on holiday in 2018 in Vietnam! Like others before us we found a container harbouring a Gate Key but after reading previous logs, we found the cache! SL. TFTC

The coordinates took me straight to the key hide. After reading other logs I widened my search and looked for pongas. Found! Thanks Millsand Lills.

First thing I noticed was the cctv camera, that made me uneasy, then I found the key, now I felt really uneasy, as in full view of the camera. Decided on giving up on this one.

First we found the key, but no log sheet in the box. Realized that this is NOT the cache.
If you are at the key hide, you still have 8m to go. TFTC

Easily spotted in the likely location. Fortunately there were no muggles around to see what we were up to. TFTC.

We came to Pauanui for a great cycle and geocaching session and we had a really great time. The trail was SO busy with many families out on their bikes too. Loved it! Cache is all good. Out TB. TFTC

Lovely walk on a beautiful autumn day. Once a read the title it helped. Turned a dnf from last year into a smiley. Left a TB. Tftc

Easter Weekend and time to dust the bikes off and get riding. Spotted this trail a while ago and decided to have a go. One half of the team is much more confident on the bike than the other. However we spent a very pleasant several hours on the trail riding and finding caches. Probably timed it right as the trail seemed to get busier on our return trip. Can see it is a very popular activity for walkers and bikers. It was a very pretty trail and certainly the hillier aspects add some interest for the more confident rider lol. Nice hide here. SL. TFTC.

Found the key first - couldnt find cache on bike ride but came back with Mrs TWS ans we found it

TFTC

No go today, but I did get excited momentarily about the hide by the tree... until I found out it was a key for the gate.

Was up this way for the Leadfoot Festival of Speed and noticed I had a couple more caches this way to clear the area again.
Great trail.
Thanks for bringing me here.
TFTC

GPS out about 7m.

Left a buggle.

http://www.stellography.com

A nice quick start to a morning of geocaching along this new trail, once I found the correct side of the pathway. The other side had a gate key. TFTC

This was a last minute planned trip for just the morning to try and get a few numbers for the latest bl**dy souviner challange by Groundspeak. So as it had been a while since I had been over here I thought that starting along this area and working my way south was an option (also would tidy up the map).

I arrived earlier than anticipated so collected the five at the end of the trail were collected as the light was changing and then went and got the opposing end before heading South.
Thank you for placing these along here and giving me a reason to stop on by. Next time I come over it will be to shoot up the hill

Thanks for the placement, Thanks for the cache

Day 2 of our Whangamata holiday and on the quest for more caches and some fun winter beach time. Decided today we would head to Pauanui to tackle the cycle trail and a few others.


We have had a great time cycling this pathway but now Sharkboy is complaining and so are my legs. Time to turn around and head back. Soon found this cache and spotted the signs of more trail being built. Great idea will be fantastic when it is all done.

Time to revisit Pauanui. Last time I was here was in the 70's. Also wanted to give my new e-bike another run.

I found
and am proud.

Cheers for the cache.

Nice hide

We decided we would head up to Coromandel for a couple of days to do some Geocaching and walks, in spite of the heavy rain at home. Once we crossed the hills the weather soon improved and by the time we reached our destination it was fine and sunny. After staying at Thames overnight we decided to do the four or five unfound caches on the Tapu road and carry on to Pauanui. After overnighting down by the beach we spent this morning caching around Pauanui before heading back home. This is the last one for the day. Time to head for home. Took Mr S quite a while and we thought we might be DNF'ing but then he found it after Mrs S had another read of the name and making an assumption.

Thanks MillsandLills. We will be back to do the rest of the trail.

Lid helped a lot nice and easy to locate. TFTC #82

Thought i had found it but was a key.

. Up here for a couple of days and came to check the start of this walk Found using the hint Hopefully this rain goes away for tomorrow TFTC

We didn’t find this one here

Having walked up Mt Pauanui this morning and wanting to stay local to Pauanui today I decided on this trail which I’d been eyeing since arriving on Saturday.
Took way longer than it should, the GPS was indicating completely the opposite direction. Went with the title and there were only a couple in easy reach. Yeah! Another smiley. Just Loopy?? to pick up on the walk back.
Thanks for placing and greetings from the .

Another well placed hide. Enjoyed walk here in lashing rain. Area here reminds me my beloved Ireland. Rain was a cherry on top of the cake. TFTC

The lid helped a lot!

First one on our walk today. TFTC

Great find for the start of our trail. Thanks

All good things come to an end and so did this lovely walkway, too Thanks for placing caches along the way - even though I enjoyed the cacheless return as much

With two pairs of eyes at work we soon had this one in hand. TFTC

Beginning of our bike ride. Quick easy find.

Quick easy find, while on holiday for a few days thought May as well do a few caches. Weather is holding off at the moment since its been raining most of.our trip from tauranga. Tftc

2.40pm. The end of the trail for us. Now about 3.5kms to walk back to the car. An easy find to end the walk on.
Thank you. David & Noeline with Andrea & Natalia.

Found another item behind a tree that was left by the track custodian. Evidently found the cache on the other side of the track

we could not find it anywhere. looked behind all trees.

Cache number 3301 and day 71 of current streak, Decided to try and clear out some of Pauanui. This was the first. Arrived at GZ and looked briefly from one side of the gate. Nothing immediate so went round the other side. Nothing there either so back around. And there it was staring at me. Not sure why I did not see it the first time. Quickly signed and returned. Thank you for the cache.

Found it the hint probably was not compleat since it just said behind

Awesome!! Teamed up with familydouglascaching to find it... TFTC

Second time lucky

We parked the camper van outside the art gallery as it was looking very closed. Headed to start/end of trail to finish off this series. All good here. Thanks for the placement Millsandlills.

We started Steve this end today while the sun was out and a nice fine day ....it was as cold as in the shade there had been a light frost ....so very keen to find quickly and get in the sun thanks Millsand Lills for the great placement

Road trip around the Coromandel with lots of caches to find. GPS would not settle in this spot but I got there eventually. TFTC.

A nice quick find here alongside kiwis69 at the end of the trail. We parted ways and made our way back to Pauanui and the car. TFTC!

#251 at 5.30p.m. back to where we parked the car 2 hours ago! This was a good and easy find, and marked my 12th and final for the day - a new daily record for me. Tftc M&L!

Continued this nice walk today, some great finds and did not try the caches not found 2 days ago. Some are quite challenging and would question the terrain rating. TFTC

It's all in the name! A rose by any other...? TFTC

#299. -all but. No Billy Goats to be seen here though. Just MaL's P P p. As quoted by 4Dawn4. .Tftc.

Could've been our first find of the day but too many muggles when we pulled into the car park, so instead it was our last of the day when we got back to the car. Enjoyed the impromptu catch up with Mikemiss, till next time! TFTC

Searched but couldn't locate it. Not sure if it's been moved or just well hidden. Anyone else found it recently?

Found at the start of the walk. Nice thank you.