WL#5: A Hollow Feeling (Taranaki) Stratford, North Island, New Zealand
By knees'n'things on 03-Sep-16. Waypoint GC6RCWB

Log replaced. All OK now.

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.Last one for the day. Log needs replacing urgently. TFTC

Tftc

Found

Thanks for the find

Thanks for easy find

These caches should come with a warning that the tracks are not suitable for bikes and you need to be a bit of a mountain goat. Replaced plastic bag. Log is very fragile. TFTC.

Enjoyed this loop walk in the bush, with bkj97. 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. This was our last so back to the campsite for a well deserved beer. Tftcsl

No pen on me today but a nice easy find while we stopped in Straford on our roadie North. The pup enjoyed the walkThanks.

meeting up with a few muggles now on the track.
hemi soon found this one.
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…

Our iPhone gps was a bit slow in keeping up. Although it was some meters out, we knew we’d arrived. Sure enough, the cache was visible but well hidden. Thanks knees’n’things. TFTC.

**17,273**
Last one along the trail, dog was starting to get a bit tired and was glad for the rest whilst I found the cache. Unfortunately for him, it did not take long to find. TFTC

Trouvée

Well rooted and doing well.

TFTC

Luckily the pathways are lovely and dry, thanks to the fine weather. Easy find here. This will be our last search as it's time to head back. Cache is all good. TFTC

Many thanks enjoying the walk

Found it. Summer Holiday 2021

A cool tree and a great placement too. We've enjoyed our trip around the western loop and look forward to exploring more in the future. Tftc

Had a quick jog to get to this one. Easy find. Thankyou!!

Nice to be back by the river. Loving this walk.

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.

Checked, and it is still where I placed it.

This one was tricky and sadly we didn't find it. Made an help call to my brother (also a cacher) but he could not remember this one as it has been a while. After what felt like a long time we had to carry on with our day, but will definitely return for the find another time.

This one took so long.. Only because of my blindness. TFTC

It probably shouldn't have taken me long to find this treasure but I made hard work of it. Despite the drizzly weather conditions (underfoot ones were okay), I enjoyed the wander around the track.

Here we had to search some time but finally the root revealed its secrets.
Thank you very much for this nice cache and for the whole beautiful round!
Paddelhannes + Kanuirm from Bavaria, Germany

n0 5 in the bag onto the lucky last.

Thanks for all the WL caches. I had a good time.

Hier war alles klar. Dfdc

Another great title. Geosense, the title and the hint were better guides here than my GPS was. Giving this one a favourite point for the series. A nice way to break up my drive back to the Tararua . Thanks for all these caches

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

Enjoyed walking along this trail. Thanks Knees'n'things for making it even more enjoyable. This one is bagged. 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.

That last cache (well, the one before) where i gave a favourite just for the cache titles? That was not in my notebook that I am working off to write these cache logs up (the finds were more than a month ago). But now I see in my notebook that at this cache I awarded a favourite for the series. Admittedly I do love bush walks. And river walks, and this has them both. Okay, another favourite!

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!

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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!

Another quick find. Soso swapped some swag. TFTC

Locals on a local walk TFTC gives purpose to a walk with grandkids and dog

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

Rick-a-mortis was here OZR3RZ

Nice cache thank you for the cache

one person went each side of the tree and it was found very quickly
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: 20:25 #6614
Heute: 11. 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 on from the previous cache rather than walk back we took the wet track to the next track to continue the walk.

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. Thanks for the hide.

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.
Found, thanks to Pratchettfan.
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.

Just as we wanted to start our search we noticed two Muggles heading our way. So we stopped and took a drink until they had passed by. This is quite a big specimen and I had to look from multiple sides until I spotted what we were looking for.

Thanks for this Cache!

# 2074

Beautiful views from this walk
TFTC knees ‘n’things

Quick find. TFTC.

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.

Quickly found. Now to move on to the next cache.

Cheers.

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 the home leg off the Weston loop walk Thoughaly enjoying the walk

Easy find. Thanks!

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

Great fun, easy find

Nice hide good day all going well here

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.

Nice hide and out of the rain. Tftc nice bit of forest. Thanks for bringing us here.

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

Quick find on a walk around the loop from the motor camp.
TFTC

Nice find while hunting caches in the area today.
SL TFTC

Last one before my battery died! Tftc

We followed the trail around to here, after picking up the "Hotel Hemideina" cache and then back tracked to the others in the area, because we weren't sure of the best route around.
No problems here, at least the dodgy weather keeps the muggles away.
We left a pet rock - a chicken.
Thanks for setting this up knees'n'things

Found thanks to a peek at the clue

This is better. Success.

Cheers for the cache.

thanks for this serie. its a very nice tour...its a litle bit bad from the weather. raining on this tour. greeting ftom switzerland...

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. A hunt around the obvious tree soon showed a likely hiding hole. TFTC

It didn't take too long to find this dark container hidden in a dark location. TFTC

TFTC

Awesome idea TFTC and thanks for doing something slightly different!

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. Found our way to WL#6 then realised we had gone past #5 so a back track to grab this one. As we approached GZ, spotted a likely hide and the cache was found soon after. Thanks for the placement and this series knees'n'things.

Found it

Nothing like rooting around

well was in town so off on the geotrail i go, very clever set of caches and very well done, spotted this one before even getting to gz, so tucked it away out of sight TFTC

Stopped here for a bite to eat and a drink as I did have that hollow feeling. Straightforward find. Tftc knees'n'things and for bringing me around this walk.

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

We found the river again! Another quick find. Onto the last one now. TFTC

A mysterious find among the tentacles of an old gentleman. A restful hiding place. Thank you for the cache

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

It's been along journey to get this at least today the track is dry NUMBER 1000. SL TFTC.

Nice quick find on Christmas morning as we are heading to new Plymouth for Christmas with the in-laws haven't been to this area before spent the night at the campground alongside this location enjoyed the walk around this location . thank you for bringing us here and the smiley.
Merry Xmas

Checked, and still there. Not quite where I had put it but still in the area of the hint. Now back in its original spot.

????

Love all the rimus around, and the river is so beautiful. Quick find.

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

The short cut across the paddocks from WL#4 was a boot soaking affair !!
A narrow trail through the long wet grass,
while the cows watched on

Just before reaching this spot,
I headed on down the trail to the creek again.
No more wet grass,
just a nice river side stroll again [^]

The name of this cache gave me a pretty good idea of where I was going to find this cache
Yep !! A nice easy find.

TFTC.

Quick find

Another one of my mini cachers found this one. Thanks

I've come back today with the geohound to finish the walk and the geocaches. Parked at Brecon Rd entrance and really pleased to see there is an easement across the farmland. After the recent rain and more overnight it's **really muddy** underfoot today. I've loaded all today's geocaches into the GPSr and the finds are much easier than using the phone app. TFTC

Another scenic spot. Worth an FP from me. Really surprised so few cachers have been this way so far. Dropped off geocoin to encourage more visits. TFTC

Was pretty sure I was at the right spot then something catch the light just right. Steady drizzle now.

Got a hollow feeling by just using the compass parked close and tried to to walk straight there only one problem I was on the wrong side of the river. Went back to the car regrouped read the info then made it all work TFTC

This one took a bit of looking. Good hide. Tftc

Published

{FTF} at 6pm. As I was approaching gz I assumed gz was there but GPS had me some 10m away. Needless to say I searched at gz and finally located it where I thought it would be. Gosh this is such a nice walk, what a shame this is the first time doing it! Tftc