Mars (Manawatu) Beaconsfield, North Island, New Zealand
By marisa&kaleb on 13-Aug-16. Waypoint GC6Q6YG

Out on the back roads to find some of the caches in the area. A good day, with only a few showers, followed by a rainbow. Hardly any traffic. TFTC!!

Easy find, but very wet and buggy. TFTC.

Managed to avoid the canal.

What a corker hide location. Cache full of slaters. Not much room left to sign name but managed to find a empty stop and squeezed my moniker on.

8 July 2023 09:36 Another quick find, many thanks.TFTC marisa&kaleb for placing this cache, number 12745 for me.

Neat little hidey spot.
Got my hand in ok but then bangles got stuck & took a bit to maneuver my hand out ! Lol
Managed to sign log, almost full & in rough shape.
TFTC

Thanjs marisa&kaleb!
Nice to have a drive in the countryside this afternoon
This container was also without a lid but the log was nice and dry wuth the opening facing downwards.
TNLNSL TFTC

Found but too many bugs crawling inside it to log. No lid on it.

It's been an interesting day of geocaching today, complete with three 'failed to be fast enough' to be first to find, one successful first to find, four did not finds, twenty two successful finds, multiple 'can I help you's as I was searching, and a dead car battery with the rescue coming from a fellow Geocacher (it is so much easier to tell someone where you are stranded when you only have to give a GC code).

This was my second to last cache of the day. No problem finding this one, as described. Cache container is starting to fail and is missing a lid, but the waterproof paper is still good, although some of the names are washing away.

Thanks to the CO for placing and maintaining this cache.

I enjoy each and every cache I find, and it is only with CO's placing them and taking care of them that this wonderful game continues.

Quick find thanks

Mr Google has taken us for a country jaunt so we arrived here. Cache well hidden and log was stubborn and "rusty" but all good. Thanks for the placement mar1sa&kaleb

Taking an alternative way home so how convenient..easy grab and signthanjs marisa

It would be a quick grab but my arm is a bit wide so had great difficulty making the grab. Some fine finger work got me there in the end. Thanks for the cache.

Picked up a couple of these planet caches on my way through the area. Well, the next one after Earth has gotta be Mars I guess! TFTC

Having completed my SHEILD tour of the rural area I'm now caching my way back to Feilding.
I needed my baby pliers for this one. Fat fingers were not going to do the retrieval today.
TFTC

Yes I could get way laid along this diversion. Need to get back on track to Taupo. Glad of skinny hand. Tftc

#9085. I decided today to visit the Manawatu to pick up some geocaches. Managed to get 40 done before heading back home to Wellington. My main target was a bunch of Shield series puzzle finals but I decided to grab a couple of the new geotour caches along the way. Heading north from Feilding now. Onto a series of roadside caches. This one was quickly found but had to take off my fitbit to get my hand down there. Not as difficult however as getting the Mars Rover to safely land on the red planet as happened a couple of days ago. Signed the logbook and replaced everything as found. Thanks marisa&kaleb for hiding the cache here.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/02/19/first-images-of-mars-rover-landing-just-a-taste-of-whats-to-come/

Thanks mar1sa for the cache. It’s #1365 for us. We found your cache on 4 January 2021. Do I really have to put my hand in there????

A quick easy find, although we were grateful for our not especially large hands. TFTC

With KR. Deeper on down! Tftc

A nice quick find thanks. There some neat weather posts around this trail!

Ms_KR and I are on our annual pilgrimage to Auckland for a family Christmas. Today we cruised around the Manawatu.

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

Out and about today to celebrate my birthday. A bit of a weird vibe this year, what with all the issues around Covid-19, but with Level 3 in place we had a bit of latitude so long as the Rules were strictly observed. Stay within our regions, and within 75km. Stay within our bubbles. Practice social distancing. Those last two were easy as I didn't see another person all day.

I picked out a few caches to do today that I knew would be reasonably remote, and not likely to have been handled in a while. Most of what I found today hadn't been found in at least 6 weeks, and some of them not since last year. And I had my trusty bottle of hand sanitizer with me.

This was a straightforward find and there were no issues with the cache or the log, which was signed before returning everything back as I found it and moving onto the next.

Thank you for placing this cache.

Continuing the Planetary series of geocaches on the drive back home from a DNF at The Chelty.
Loved the post - almost like a mini-solar system.
Thanks for the geocache.

It’s not often I have the whole day to cache and set off early to try and collect as many Shield caches as possible. On the way there I picked up a few traditionals. Clear hint made a quick find. Thanks.

Nice quick find

**11,948**
The cache was easy located but it was a tight fit for my hand with my watch so had to use the other hand. TFTC

Easy find...TFTC

Light rain today.
Easygind

??

Yay

Out for a day's caching around the backblocks of the Manawatu, mainly picking up the SHIELD series and a few other nearby caches. A total of 7 hours 15min to find the SHIELD series and a few others in between.

All in all, a great day out with SAROC and Yeetrees.
TFTC mar1sa

Today was “SHIELD” day. Yeetrees, -gonefishing- and I were heading up to attempt the SHIELD series of caches on the back roads of Manawatu. It was an early start (5.35am) out of Wellington. After over 7 hours of caching we achieved the series plus a few more. My personal tally for the day – 117 finds. Thankyou to all the CO’s of the caches found.
Apologies for the generic logging.

Cute hide out here beyond the Milky Way, but sadly, it's the last cache stop on the way home from Earth although in fact tomorrow it'll really be 'back to Earth'. TFTC.

Another easy find

Another find in the solar system series on our way home from MEGA.

Up for the Mega for the week, had a great day in the Bulls and the sunrounding areas many thanks to the cache placer's - Bitsprayer

Found this one on our journey home after attending the MEGA in Upper Hutt. No problems with the find TFTC.

Team BOP are still going strong after knocking off 155 caches yesterday.
We have made it into Fielding and concentrating on a few targeted caches or ones in close succession.
Was definitely over this trip. I was feeling a little lost in space by now!
TFTC

4.35pm
Travelled to Manawatu area with BOP members for the weekend.
All logs signed as Team BOP.
Generally caches were good and all but 2 found.
Thanks to cache owners for placements. SLTFTC

Signed Teambop. Came down to Fielding for the weekend with Philip.Perry, Tnxpro, Nzflossy, McJandals, Squirrel Nutcase and FapandGap . Staying at a farmhouse down the road from here. Thanks for the awesome caches
Tftc

Road trip time again! This weekend Team BOP consists of Davidson Clan, TNXPro, Squirrelnutcase, FapAndGap, McJandals, NZFlossy & myself. We had a very narrow list of ‘must gets’ so this trip was essentially a numbers mission. As with these trips, most of the caches were found quickly and in good condition thanks to accurate coords and straight forward placements. We replaced some logs and containers but most had water proof paper and were all good. A huge thank you to the co’s as this was a beautiful area to visit and there was certainly an abundance of geocaches!!

Everything was fine here, TFTC.

On a road trip with Team BOP, having a blast and gathering a few smileys along the way. Please excuse generic logs in advance. Many Thanks to all you cache owners for the placements. Cheers

On a road trip with Team BOP to Feilding. Set off Friday night and back home Sunday. Lots of caches and lots of laughs with great weather and great scenery. Thanks to all the COs for giving us a awesome trip

Team BOP on tour in the Manawatu-Whanganui Region... With Gap (of Fap and Gap), (Mr) Davidson clan, McJandals, NZFlossy, Philip.Perry, and TNXPro.

This weekend had been in the pipeline for ages. It was always going to be a mission for various team members to get coordinated leave passes... We secured accommodation in the rural heart of the Manawatu. This placed us well within reach of a massive trail of caches... We travelled in one vehicle, so our journey was filled with lots of laughs, and good times... Fortunately, the majority of caches were in place and were fairly quick to locate - thanks to straightforward hints and great coordinates. Many of the caches had not been found in a while, so containers were waterlogged, and logbooks were wet... Thank goodness for waterproof paper. A huge thank you also, to the various COs who made our weekend worthwhile... TFTC.

#10,188. Another park and grab on Mckays Line in Beaconsfield. GZ was quiet when we visited. Quick find. The cache was in good condition, with the weather proof paper doing its job well. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Thanks for the placement, and for bringing us to the 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.

*****
Did you know that planning is well under way for a major Event in Wellington during Labour Day weekend in October 2018? Check out the details on the [GC78NMQ WENZ Event 2018 (Wellington)](https://coord.info/GC78NMQ) cache listing, [WENZ2018 website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's page on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/). If you plan to come, please remember to log a “Will Attend” on the [Event Log](https://www.geocaching.com/play/geocache/gc78nmq/log).
*****

(# 4545). Came up to the Manawatu to grab some caches on a nice fine winters day. There must have been a lot of rain recently as everything is waterlogged. A quick find. Everything in order. TFTC

Another couple of dot-days to eliminate so out on another midnight run out in the country to make some finds. After midnight now and this was the next cache on the list to find. Being fine weather the temperature had dropped and there was a light fog along this section of road, although the lights of Palmerston North could still be seen clearly to the south. Another quick find for the evening, although extracting the cache was a bit of a squeeze. Thanks for the series.

Heading back to Auckland from Feilding today. But first we had to make a quick trip around the solar system. Fun little series thanks.
Mars had us fooled until we looked at the GPS and checked the hint. Easy find after that.

Enjoyed this hide, I’m definitely getting over my fear of spiders in these types of hides

I had some spare time while in town visiting some of the rellies, so I thought Id do a few of the easy drivebys in the area. I had a great day and grabbed a heap of caches. Lots of damp and wet caches, but not surprising given the weather. I did find some that had been replaced, but found the original nearby. Signed one or the other depending on which I found first. Thanks to all the CO's for a great day and apologies for the generic log.

Did a tour of the solar system today, and visited all the planets! Fun little outing. Thanks marisa&kaleb.

Continuing with my journey of the solar system on a wet day. Another straightforward find here.

Slowly getting round our Solar System. TFTC

Simple find. THFC

Sometimes I find it quite hard driving and following the GPS at the same time so I pulled over to check how far from GZ I was, only to find I'd picked the perfect spot and It was only 10mts away. So it was a quick jump out of the car to find the cache.
Thanks for setting these caches up M&K

A quick find here on a drive north of Feilding to score some of my as-yet-unfound caches. Signed log, TFTC

Did not spend much time to find

A last chance to try and get my Marisa & Kaleb caches into treble figures this afternoon. If successful that will be 10 cache owners whose caches I've found 100 or more; a target I want to set as a Challenge cache of my own. Plans to grab some Friday morning Dwarves, Smurfs and Herbs were dashed by pesky work plans and the recent deluge that is affectionately know as 'Debbie', wish that Debbie does one.
Rain was pouring throughout most of this evenings efforts but I believe I was successful in my mission, 20 something m&k caches and a bonus Multi cache.
Not a bad drive around the roads, at least no dust thrown up! Managed to find all that I wanted except the elusive 'Pink' and signed most of the log-sheets though a few wouldn't take a mark from the pen, some containers needed draining and some were underwater at their GZs, mostly puddles not flowing water pressed them back firmly to secure. Got some more cars, colours planets and another Mr Bowie one.
T F T C marisa&kaleb, good job on the powertrails and themes, nicely done.

On a wee trip down to the area doing some mini trails, this one fell within range, so we grabbed it while passing. Signed 2BB 1BB for 2 Bulbars and Blenheim Bear. Mission accomplished, this one is a wrap. Thanks for the cache from Blenheim Bear!
This cache posted with CacheSense for Android.

Out on a road trip this weekend with Blenhiem Bear. It was raining as we left home and rained all the way to Turakina then cleared and at the first stop it was sunny and very warm (thank you)
We had a great time and saw many friends names as we signed the logs all logs signed 2 BB & 1 BB for 2 Bulbars and Blenhiem Bear
Thanks for placing all these caches and we enjoyed cruising around the back country

This was always going to be a bit of a caching trip in the company once again of HKCB. Having though about it and done a fair bit of planning over the past couple of weeks this was a chance for a reasonable clean out of an area that we don't normally get to. So with families in mind, rather than setting out on the Friday evening we left home at 2am on the Saturday morning to make our way south before either the heat of the day or there was too much traffic on the road.

Some stats for the weekend
- Distance Traveled = 1457 kms
- Petrol = 3 x Fills
- Time Away from Home = 42 hours
- Straight Driving Time = 6 hours
- Sleep = 4 hours
- Caches Found = 250
- DNF's = 3

So after a straight forward drive down here this was the first that we located of what was going to be a very long day, and followed by another very long day.

While I apologize that these are 'copy & paste" logs, I would just like to say thank you to all the CO's that have have put out and maintained these caches for us out of 'non-locals' to find. It was a great weekend and we traveled though some amazing countryside.
A key learning from the weekend was that a Mazda CX5 is not designed to ford rivers.
So thank you for the placement, thank you for the cache.

On a weekend mission with Cats&Dragons, for a bit of a numbers run along the new trails around the Northern Manawatu area, and anything else along the way. As usual these types of trips mean maximizing caching time and minimizing sleep time. So with a 2am start time Saturday morning we left home and headed South, and not getting back home til 8.30pm Sunday night. Some numbers for the trip as I know we all like caching stats are:
* 1450km traveled.
* 286 caches found (192 on Saturday, 94 on Sunday) with only 3 DNF's
* 4 hours sleep
* With a 3 hour each way drive to the Caching area, so about 32 hours of caching in the 42 hours we were away at an average of nearly 9 caches per hour, this isn't including stopping for fuel and coffee!!!

So a huge thanks to all the CO's for the placements, and for the reason to see some more of our wonderful country, we saw some pretty amazing places. Sorry for the copy and paste logs. We signed the log books HKCD, or HKCBC&D.

It wasn't so much a case of “Trains and Boats and Planes” today, more one of Cars and Songs and Colours, with the odd Planet thrown into the mix. I enjoyed a nice day in the country with the sun on my back. Cheers and thanks for all the caches. TFTC

Found with Spudge and the 2 dogs. TFTC

Found with Polargirl while finding caches around Halcombe.

Another outing with MJMNZ & haydn.seek. Weather looked daunting, but no rain – only wind! An enjoyable day with good company.
TFTC

The weather was right and all was planned..It was an early start as We met at the big town of Halcombe at 7.45 am and then proceeded along Stanway road picking up geo caches along the way, all except Tweet Tweet..... Grrr. but as my foot was not totally healed from Turangi Gaol expedition, it was decided to give that climb a miss so another time! The Puzzle caches were first along this route and then onto the David Bowie Trail, this being the first. Although we did find some of these DB caches up to 10m out sometimes but mostly the hint sufficed luckily. I do find caches that all start with same words difficult on my Gps as it is so easy to get muddled! We then turned into Makara road and located caches along here , then headed to locate some more of the Car trail and then onto some more of the planets- before MJMNZ's tyre got a puncture but with Jono's expert help and the help of a local farmer all was temporarily Ok for us to proceed into Feilding.. Air in the tyre and then it was time to find a café for a much need drink! before splitting up and returning to our own cities. altogether we had great morning and found a satisfying number of caches so many thanks for these trails and all our smiley faces.

Early start meeting in the middle of Halcolme at 8 am !!
Out for a morning of geocaching with JonoS, Haydnseek and myself.
No Rain lots of wind and long grass with the spring growth. At times grass waist high. Enjoyed the space series as all were easy to find with accurate coordination. All in all a good fun day apart for a puncture (a new tyre needed$$$ as a big nail in the tyre and Jono changed it with the help of a local farmer. ) So ended up in Feilding to get air in the tyre and a desperately needed cup of coffee and a custard square. TFTC

#2653 Skaters galore.

More to follow.

Time to log our little trip to the Mega in Turangi. Enroute we detoured via Feilding for the Yumfest dinner, a night cache and a bit of puzzle gathering. Of course there were traditionals, a few multis, some earthcaches and lots of coffee stops to endure. Most found with bkj97, Edvern or the crew we stayed with in Turangi. Now of course the task of logging them all becomes a necessity. My apologies for the "cut and paste" logs. I will add favourites where I think it was particularly memorable. Thanks to all the cache owners for giving us things to do on our journey. It seemed strange to drive back to the Kapiti Coast post Mega without stopping for any caches. Happy caching. TFTCSL

Found with little blue hen on the way to the Mega in Turangi. TFTCSL

Fielding Day 2
They say that life is not all about geocaching, so we did the right thing & spent the morning with the relations looking around town. After lunch we heading back to where we had been the previous day as a stack of the new caches had been published.
Once again it was a great tiki tour of the farming area, lots of lambs to be seen in the paddocks.
Thanks for placing this cache marisa&kaleb

What a lovely evening for a drive out to the beautiful countryside and go see Mars at a closer view, It was a nice quick find here tonight cache was where it should be signed the log and placed cache back where found. Thank you for bringing us out her to enjoy some more of our beautiful New Zealand. Now to head home again and get some tea and a nice cuppa before it gets too dark and cold out here. TFTC.

my second find with watcache. tftc merisa and kaleb.

Nice day trip out geocaching with Just-Lookin.
We really enjoyed driving around these trails - thanks *marisa&kaleb*
Good easy find. SL

A great day out with tmann421 collecting some caches in the area.
A nice quick find for us here and really enjoyed these series TFTC marisa&kaleb

I had parked the caravan up in Marton and travelled over to North Fielding to pick up as many caches as I could.

Cheers for the cache.

The hiding place is just amazing- love seeing these out and about. TFTC

The hiding place is just amazing- love seeing these out and about. TFTC

A good day out for a drive, and some caching. Sunny, but wind a little cool.
All good here, found OK and SL.

TFTC marisa&kaleb

Thanks for this cache...in an amazing hiding place!

We enjoyed a caching expedition with edvern today to find marisa&kaleb's three new trail series: Planets. David Bowie, and Cars. The weather was a bit drizzly to start with but we hardly needed to bother with jackets most of the time and the day gradually cleared. Not surprisingly, the ground was quite mucky in places, but there was generally a reasonable spot to park which is certainly appreciated. The views were lovely, even when rain misted them out in the distance. So an enjoyable day out and we found all the caches - what more could you want from geocaching? Thank you for setting up all these caches marisa&kaleb.
This was #3 on our particular trail today. A good little hide here, not too hard to reach. TFTC

Out with geodatum, our mission being to complete the new trails set up by m&k. We appreciated these caches being located on quiet back roads, usually safe to pull off the road, and not in view of houses. All the contents were in excellent condition with good use of waterproof paper. All were found without any problems. Most of all, this was a very enjoyable drive through back roads, many of which I have not been on before. Even though the day was drizzly at times the countryside was most attractive. Thanks very much for your efforts marisa&kaleb!

Thank you for some more trails that are park and grab - great activity when my son is sleeping in the car. Knocked off four today and i will b back for the rest. TFTC.

Quick find here...but my arm was to short. Got there in the end. Tftc

On a roll.

Over this way to do The Bowie, Car and Planet caches before lunchtime. Was over here early and found this cache fairly quickly - signed log and left as found. Thanks for all caches in these series marisa&kaleb and apologies for the generic posts.

Had to get the kids out of the house so decided to grab a few of these new caches.
Made another quick and easy find here. Not too many people out and about today.
Thanks for the cache and the smiley.

With two more new caches up this way, I loaded onto GPS & decided to re-visit the area. This is another of the caches that I couldn't get on the phone yesterday. A quick park & grab. Thanks for the cache, marisa&kaleb.

As the day progressed we watched Popmac ticking off the newly published caches but some appeared to be skipped? What's with that we wondered? Being a part timer that finishes at 2.30pm it appeared there was still a possibility to get a few first to finds. I am new to first to finds and needed five more to get my bronze badge. So I went and got petrol and my wet weather pants (just in case) and then teamed up with Push 'n East and off we raced. Bingo! A joint {FTF} on this one. A nice quick park and grab. TFTC

Wow, a lot of notifications came through this morning. It was a slow day at work and by mid afternoon I was over it. I've been pulling some long hours over the past few weeks so made the call to knock off a little early to try and grab some first to find to earn the project GC badge. meet up with sunju and made a note of the ones still up for grabs that popmac had missed so we made our way around. Thanks for placing these new runs and the joint [FTF]

Published