WL#2: Branching Out (Taranaki) Stratford, North Island, New Zealand
By knees'n'things on 03-Sep-16. Waypoint GC6RCVK

Mrs Macfam has spent the weekend competing with the geo dog, Southridge Laird of Kinlochaline (Lochie), at the Hawera Dog Obedience competition at the Normanby Domain. Just heading north to my home town to catch up with some old school friends but still have time to find a few local caches on the Western Loop.Tripped over the stump while trying to locate the cache, but got there in the end. TFTC

Actually found a few days ago only just got premium so i can log it

Found

Tftc

Thanks for the easy find

Thanks for the find

A quick find and sign. Hint is spot on. All good here. TFTC

Found with bkj97 as we walked this loop this afternoon. TFTC

Livingk dragged me out for a late afternoon stroll around the loop to stretch the legs. Staying at the campsite meant it was too close to ignore these last few caches for the day. Tftcsl

quick find after kicking concrete stump.
TFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)…

Auckland Anniversary: The Taranaki weather had been particularly good to us this weekend, considering the mayhem it had sparked further up the country. It felt almost anticlimactic to be going home today, but work beckons…

We cruised along the trail enjoying the stream bank setting. We closed in on ground zone quickly, and the hint object helped us to lock onto the cache. No concerns with this hide. Thanks knees’n’things. TFTC.

**17,269**
Got to this cache and found convenient fence batons to hook the dog lead on. Noted the hint but found cache on ground so returned as per hint. TFTC

Cache replaced, with a bit of swag. Container is a bit larger so I've had to wedge it, hopefully it isn't too obvious.

Missing, so I'll replace it soon.

Found the Concrete but not the right fork.

Luckily the pathways are lovely and dry, thanks to the fine weather. Easy find here. Cache is all good. TFTC

TFTC Cache had water in it , dried the container , still useable.

Allgood in the tube tftc

Found it. Summer Holiday 2021

Found on the ground, have tried to relocate as imagine the hint means, and in a place consistent with the fall to the ground. Tftc

Another great hide tftc

Guessed location without hint but still took a while to find it.

A nice quick find thanks. Track was dry as, and the sunset over the mountain was lovely.

Ms_KR and I are on our annual pilgrimage to Auckland for our family Christmas. We were staying in the camping ground in Stratford, and it would be rude not to do some of the nearby caches, so I went for an after dinner walk and collected some of the closest! Please excuse the generic logs, there have been a few finds and they get muddled up sometimes.

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

Decided to travel to Stratford for the groceries today and as it was such a beautiful day decided some geocaching must be done. We found the spot and made some initial searches. Upon looking from a different angle we found this one on the ground. After signing we returned it to a location matching the hint, hopefully the right spot. TFTC

We are staying at the local campground and ended up going on this walk while the kids were enjoying the swimming pool. Quick find here. TFTC

After finding WL#1 on my previous visit to Stratford, I decided I should have a go at finding the rest of the series today. My GPSr hadn't really settled down when I arrived at this site but the helpful hint meant it was a quick find regardless.

In lockdown and this walkway is close to our home. So had both location and time advantage for this one lol TFTC

Thanks to the WL-caches we had a very nice walk this afternoon. Unlike number one this box was found after a methodical search and some stitches by the leaves of the tree, probably as there were much less muggles around here.
Thank you very much for this cache and the whole beautiful round!
Paddelhannes + Kanuirm from Bavaria, Germany

n0 2 in the bag on a hot cloudy day walk.

Initially I had walked passed it, but then the GPS got itself sorted so I turned around and found it. I was JUST tall enough on my tip toes great hide. Thanks. Was a beautiful walk, I heard a tui just near by me singing away.

Wir suchten ein wenig aber mit dem Hint war es klar nachdem wir hetausgefunden hatten was Concert heißt.

A nice walk and then a super quick find here, just as described and GPS spot on with some open sky to work with. TFTC

Out geocaching in Stratford today. Very cool hide in the bush. Our second find today. #176. TFTC

Staying at the Stratford Holiday Park which has a gate entrance to this walkway. Found 2 caches before it got too dark. Cache all fine, thanks.

Wieder zeigte sich dass man durch das Cachen schöne Sachen wie den loop finden kann tftc

Nice hide. Nice hint. TFTC

Out walking along this track so stopped off here to snag and tag this one. Cheers

Day 8 - Saturday 21 December. A long day from New Plymouth to Egmont, then Stratford and back to New Plymouth for a few well earned ZZZZs.

The Seagnoid, Zara, Toby and I are spending Christmas exploring Taranaki via geocaching. Its been an amazing 3 week adventure. Rattls BBQ was a great event, meeting many other cachers. But also managed to fit in a few more events, especially New Years Day celebrating the start of 2020. Lots of caches - over 500. Lots of cache maintenance. Lots and lots of kilometers. And lots of amazing places visited along our journey. Mt Taranaki remained elusive for much of our travels and the caches on it at the top. Loved Pukekura Park Night Lights Show and the the Wooden Mechanical toy exhibition at NP Info centre.

I have never seen this type of container before. Nice, makes a change. Love the bush walk. Saw lots of young supplejack, which is very nice. That means there are no possums here!

Day eight of Taybeedragon's and my big 3 week circumnavicaching trip around Mt Taranaki, starting from Palmerston North. Today is up the mountain and Inglewood and Stratford.
Highlights:
* 3 weeks, 536 caches
* Mt Taranaki had been removed for washing, which was a bit of a shame. Even after it had been returned we were only allowed to see it for it was less than half an hour a day.
* High percentage of caches with crappy coordinates
* Amazing Pukekura Park
* AMAZING Pukekura Park light show!
* Pukeiti Gardens
* Lots of cache maintenance!

***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](https://coord.info/GC87777) - you won't want to miss it!

Found it. Tftc

Found in plain sight on the ground. Put back where we're think it belongs. TFTC

Found on my trip north enjoying the caches in the area. Enjoyed the walk

Rick-a-mortis was here OZR3RZ

Awesome hide

TFTC

After attending the CITO we had a nice meal at Malones then it was time to do the western loop.
Things got a little confusing to start with as we were on the north side of the river but once we returned and got onto the right trail or that should be the left trail we started doing the loop going anti clockwise but after seeing the closest cache get further away we changed tact and went clockwise (silly us ) as it was a loop either way would of been ok but still we completed it and enjoyed the walk around tracks we never knew were there
many thanks

Logtime: 19:55 #6611
Heute: 8. Cache von total 11 Caches.

Nach dem Nachtessen auf dem Campingplatz haben wir noch einen Bushwalk gemacht und dabei diesen Cache gefunden.

Danke und Gruss
simeat und Frau
Switzerland.

Heading out in the company of HKCB for a quick 24 hours down to Taranaki collecting caches around the mountain to try to tidy up the area.
We departed Hamilton at 7pm Friday and made it back home 7pm on Saturday with a haul of 70 caches and 820kms traveled. A great drive through the night, clear sky's and a fantastic day on Saturday to view the mountain in all its glory, a calm sea along the coast. Together these factors made the trip memorable as we could not have asked for better conditions to cache in.
A big thank you to all the CO's whom have placed these caches for us and continued their maintenance.
Second pleasent walk of the morning and continuing in an anti-clockwise direction from the previous cache

Thank you for the placement, thank you for the cache.

In the company of Cats&Dragons for a quick 24 hour blast around Mt Taranaki, with the aim to tidy up as much of the area as possible. Leaving 7pm Friday night and returning 7pm Saturday we managed the loop and found about 70 caches along the way, with a couple of hours sleep thrown in as well. The weather also played its part with fantastic vistas throughout the day of the mountain.

With some well hidden and maintain caches found throughout the day a big thanks must go to all the CO's for the placements. Time for the second walk in Strafford, with a nice blue sky and great views of the mountain. Nice camo here, and pleased it didn't fool me, another find for the trip.

As the weather looked quite unstable, we decided to go geocaching instead of hiking the Mount Taranaki. This brougt us to this two beautifull loops.
The correct tree was quickly found, the correct place took us a while.
Thanks for hiding and maintaining this series.

We picked Stratford as our base to go hiking around Mount Taranaki. When we looked what Caches were in town we were surprised to find two small trails. Since the weather wasn't so good we decided to do our hiking and Caching along those trails. We started with the Western Loop, which we enjoyed very much, so many beautiful trees! Since the weather was holding up we continued with the Eastern Loop, which was more interesting in the second part, than in the first.

It was quite clear which tree to search, but since it was a big one it took a while until we found the correct side.

Thanks for this Cache!

# 2071

Looked in all the likely hiding spots but sadly no cache

Cache has been replaced and is now a black tube wedged in place. Dropped in a personal token as well.

a rather late log from coming home from new plymouth and i have realised these two were not logged. I parked by the rugby field and walked along the track at the back. i searched for a while for the first one and then went onto this second cache and finding the concrete stsump as mentioned in the hint was very helpful. .
thank you for this series of caches along these walk ways but i think i will try to get a map of the walkways here before i attempt any more. as i when oi walked along to the next one i did not know whether to turn back or go one with the hope the track would take me back not too far from parked car. i went back.

Quick find due to specific hint.

Me and scoria were out caching today working on collecting points towards the planetary explorer mission souvenirs.

I am heading to New Plymouth to today to spend Tuesday hunting for caches in the Bell Block area.

On our way up to new plymouth to cap off the Easter weekend and trying for some of the traditionals along the way to boost up our planetary mission points.

Once we had left sorted it was easy

Cheers.

Tftc

Took a little lunchtime walk to get this as I pick off all the caches along these walkways. Explicit hit made the find straightforward. TFTC.

Found it on a nice Walk while staying at the Campsite.
Really nice walking track!

A brilliant place to view the mountain today. Cache a bit wet but log signed. TFTC

Found during our holiday to New Zealand together with GeoFinn. Touring in a campervan through this amazing country; second time here, now with our son. 5 weeks was over in a blink; already plans for a third time.

Travelling, geocaching, hiking, kayakking, swimming, mountains, lakes, geyers, beaches; it was amazing. CO's thanks for your cache, it made our trips even more fun.

Bit of a wet day but nice to be out in the forest. Tftc

Found while out and about with tmann421, just getting around to logging this now

Clever hiding place. Quick find on a loop walk from the camp ground.
TFTC

Nice end to the outbound stretch of our walk - once we found this it was time to turn around and head back as we were off to Inglewood to have a little look at the Fun-Ho museum and then have lunch. Quick easy find, which was good as we ran into a few head winds later in the day. Lovely park here, well worth a visit and a walk. Thanks for placing and maintaining the caches here.

Nice find while hunting caches in the area today.
Good hint for easy find.
SL TFTC

Found it. Beautiful winters day. Tftc

No problems with the GPS here, I guess there's a little less tree coverage.
The very good clue made for a quick find, although it was by feel rather than sight. Log book was signed.
Thanks for another cache on this trail, knees'n'things

A bit of a stretch to find

The second one on this trail for me.

Cheers for the cache.

thanks for this cache...

Another day crafting, and another stop off on the way home to grab caches with Biggelaar Family...Enjoyed the walk with the bonus of a few more caches. The hint led us in the right direction and we soon found what we were after. TFTC

A quick easy find with the hint. TFTC

Nice and easy

Heading up to the 'Naki with MacGyverson for a few days to catch up with friends and geocache as we go. Really enjoyed seeing some new ground and this loop track was again new ground for us. Enjoyed the walk onto this cache which was soon found, log signed and left as found.

Thanks for the placement and this series knees'n'things.

Found it

Nice easy find

well was in town so off on the geotrail i go, very clever set of caches and very well done, the hardest cache on this loop, with the trees and clue did take some time to find TFTC

Only read the first half of the hint (added to since down loading earlier?) Soon found the cache, a little trickier than anticipated. tftc

Found with Trayc.g & TeamAlmawoody, logging now as I have my own account. TFTC

An easy find! No 2 done, onto the next!

Really enjoyable walk through the bush. Thank You for adding to our enjoyable day.

Another summer visit to locate the unfound caches and turn them into smilies. Really enjoyed our stroll around the park and another quick find for this one TFTC.

Another nice hide thanks for the clue, not to be over looked. SL TFTC

Checked, and still firmly in place.

We doing this lovely trail today and looked around for ages gps and clues didn't help us today. Frustrating our only dnf for the trail even the previous logs couldn't help us today

Checked. Was missing, but a short search located it a few metres away. Back in place a little more securely.

Lovely walk but didn't have a clue where it was going. TFTC

Time to go to Stratford and clean up the caches on this walk. TFTC

I awoke to the familiar sight of a drizzly, New Zealand morning
This time in Stratford.
A handful of caches along the river trails had been saved for this morning.

The back gate of the campground led me straight into a wonderful world of greenery and clear, fast flowing streams
The light drizzle falling through the leafy canopy only added to the ambience

Not five minutes later I was here !!
Looking for a cache.
It took a few minutes to locate the correct spot,
but the first 'smilie' of the day was mine
Before 8:00am too !!! [:o]

TFTC.

Nice walk

Nice stroll with mini cachers

Undertaking a little mission with KrystalKath and the geohound. Lovely walk but a bit damp underfoot. It was a bit of a lottery with the phone app. Only found it once I'd entered the coords in the GPSr. Made hunt more difficult by entering coords for WL#6 while looking for this one.
But once I worked that out we found it we did. Signed log and KK had had enough so the rest can wait til tomorrow. TFTC

Another Thursday another visit really branching out now TFTC knees'n' things

Today is the day to walk the whole walkway, having knocked off #1 some days ago. Made a good start with this one, and moved on briskly. Lots of water in the Patea River today, very picturesque! Cache all good despite damp. TFTC

Over-shot the mark and had to back-track a bit. Signed KTNZ.

This was a quick find, as the cache was lying on the ground. Have replaced where I think it should be. Tftc. A great little series.

My 2nd cache of the day and 2nd {FTF} of the day - whoop whoop!! I left work right on 12 in attempt to find this, initially I drove near it but couldn't find an entrance:( ok, will try for another one, that looks close to a road too. Nope no luck there either (in coming back with my GPS later!!), damn it back track again to an area I know I can access and off I set in a fast paced walk, I only have an hour and I've lost 20 minutes already!! Such a nice little walk up these ways but I am ashamed to say despite living in strategy this is the first time up this far, normally when I take my guide unit for a walk we turn right at the stairs and head back but I hope to now bring them here. Thankfully a really quick search at gz and then I was off for the next one

Published