Utopian Freedom Camping in NPDC (Taranaki) Tataraimaka, North Island, New Zealand
By Phronimos on 18-Mar-17. Waypoint GC728X3

Tftc! Beautiful spot to take the dog for a walk!

Took a bit of ferreting about to get this one done. Looking forward to the only EC this weekend next up.It's head home today after a couple of nights at Urenui beach. A nice long weekend in Taranaki was just what I wanted, too many times previously it's just been a time-constrained day visit and have never really scratched beyond the surface of the area, or the caching. I was keen to head home via SH45 surf highway and a couple of other caches. Also keen to up my cache finds by the CO Phronimos, and this was a Pheeding Phrenzy as I got a few of his, as a CO I'm aiming to get finds by him up to triple figures, today will help with that aim. Phanks very much to all regional COs for their placements and maintenance/choices of awesome places to get people to visit.

Quick find, TFTC

Thanks for easy find

Thanks for the find

Tftc,still there you need to fig a bit

No luck today despite an intensive search

...no luck today, we gave up and protected the nature.team bycycle

It's December, and to help me achieve one of my Geocaching goals I need to log 300+ caches this month, which means an average of ten a day. As I meander my way north to Oakura tonight I took the opportunity to collect a few more from this region.My second time here, last time i wasn't able to search as people were camped literally on top of the cache. It was a lot quieter today and the cache was quickly uncovered.---Thanks to Phronimos for placing and maintaining this cache. I enjoy each and every cache I find, and it is only with Geocachers like this creating them and placing them out in the world that this wonderful game continues.[DGSc-Bulk] tagging to help me generate a list for GC30AD8 - DGSc Challenge

After a bit of digging around amongst smelly weeds it was found!

14/2/23 windy day cyclone Gabrielle

Windy afternoon had to hold onto paper which started 2018.

Got it more by GL than by the hint but still nice hide! Logbook quite wet.
I've found this cache during my third day of the Queen memorial weekend in Taranaki.
TFTC

Beautiful site! However the hint through me off for a solid half hour. Paper is damp with rust spots.
I was also beaten to this cache but two worms and a cockroach (cockroach was inside not in the photo)

Plenty of families around, playing in the stream, but we were out of their radar. Cache left as found. Really is Utopia here. Cache is all good. TFTC

The only Hiace camper here today is me and only for lunch. had to wait for muggles to leave so went to look at the tafoni. They had gone so a quick look. nothing nesting, it has fledged. Left where found as safe there.

#12,810. Park and grab on Greenwood Road in Pitone. Not many utopian freedom campers around. GZ was all quiet at the time of the visit. Could not spot anything where the first part of the additional hints suggested. But still managed to find it after a short search. The cache was in good condition. Although a little damp, the logbook was ok to write on. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Replaced where found.

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

Took a while.

Found

After looking at rocks for the earthcache nearby, we found a lovely bench for our picnic. We then headed to the cache. The first two went into the tree, I looked from outside and spotted it. Both container and logbook were in good condition. Thanks for sharing your spot. A few campervans around but no Toyota Hiace.

Out n about finding a few geocaches we pulled up at gz and no freedom campers, from the car I could see the plants as per the hint but I followed my geo instincts and had the cache in hand in seconds,
All good at gz
TFTC

Maintenance carried out by Juty Bug on my behalf. Thank you JB. He reports **the geocache is there as placed!**
It is camoed, but it is also a 270ml lock & lock container. It’s not a micro! so you’ll have to look harder... “please”.

Had not had a look at the previous activity on this one, so headed out on my geocaching mission after morning rugby nearby. Found one along a bit further, but alas no luck here

Rick-a-mortis was here OZR3RZ

I'll check it out when I'm next up there. Phronimos

Will have to come back to this one . lovely spot.

We took a wee while to find this cache, which has possibly moved, as it is now at the base, not nested. Taranaki certainly seems to welcome freedom campers, more so than in the South Island where problems caused by excessive numbers of non self-contained campers have resulted in many restrictions. TFTC

This was the unfortuante DNF!!! searched for ages!

Little tricky to find. Was about to give up but found it. Thanks

.Great place for freedom camping. I have Zara parked at Bell Block NZMCA park but we often freedom camp. This one is now tagged. Cheers

Day 9 - Sunday 22 December. New Plymouth back to Okato today.

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.

Taybeedragon and I too are in a campervan, however we left Zara down Bell Block way, and are doing flower patterns in Toby. yesterday we did south, today we are going west. Road does not join on the maps, but does join in real life. Will fix the maps shortly.

Day ten of Taybeedragon's and my big 3 week circumnavicaching trip around Mt Taranaki, starting from Palmerston North. Earlier we did most of the coast road up from Hawera, Today we start from New Plymouth and head west to finish it off.
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!

Over grown

#995. Continuing our trek along the coast, this was another easy find, as it was pretty much uncovered in its hiding place. Signed and replaced with a bit of cover.

Ever closer to my 1000 milestone. Tftc Phronimos, 4th of yours today.

A nice quick one after the earthcache down the beach.

Up here for an awesome weekend jaunt with Karma Reprint, Team Gators and TheWanglers and to do a loop of the mountain in 48 hours grabbing as many caches as we could while having a good laugh. Logs signed as some derivative of (KT)^2

Cheers Phronimos for the cache

A planned geocaching trip to the USA was shelved (but is all go for this time next year!) so we came up with a weekends Plan B. Taranaki with TheWanglers, KarmaReprint and KiwiMoose - logs signed (TK)^2 or a variation of. A really fun trip with the forecast rain and thunder seemingly always in the distance but never hindering us. A really fun weekend.
Day 2 dawned with a bit of drizzle but that soon cleared (whilst eating breakfast) and we had a lovely trip missing all the bad weather again. Harwea to New Plymouth the long way. Heaps of history; cool scenery and lots of laughs. Cheers all!
....hay; looking at your cache page pictures...pretty sure that same housebus was there again in a similar spot must be a good spot. Cheers.

Day two Hawera to New Plymouth via Opunake

Great to be out and about, find quickly made. Cheers

A long weekend cache raid to Taranaki. The weather didn't stop us doing anything, and we had fun times. Logs were signed with a combination of KT and 2 depending one which of did the signing. Thanks Kiwi Moose, Team_Gaters and TheWanglers for a choice time.

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

A plan was hatched for a few of us to head to America for a Mad Mission. With life getting a bit crazy a downsized trip was organised as I had sorted childcare for the cachelets. The big America trip is now set for next year. We asked a member of our crew if we could go to Nelson, Dunedin, Auckland, Wellington, Hastings the answer all came back "I don't have many to find there". We left it to that member to suggest an area. He came up with New Plymouth and a loop around the mountain. That's a go from the rest of us. We sorted puzzles, gpxs, motels and a car and hit the ground running. The forecast was doom, gloom, rain, hail and lightning. Oh well, sounds exciting. We had very little of any of the weather that affected our caching and found we had all overpacked (thank God!).
Day 2: Today was a long day in the car 14 hours or so to our home for the night and then an hour or two after dinner before having a beer at the campground. We started in Hawera and went the long way around the coast with many detours. The history was amazing and the the lack of irrigation was very noticable to us Cantabrians. We once again missed the horrible weather!
Nice quick find once I got in.

Thanks for the cache Phronimos.
#6165
Find 31 of 80 for today.
Find 111 of 224 for the trip.

Tftc!

Nice easy park and grab at a spot with a wonderful view. Tftc #cachelife

# 249 Haha Mum tried to do the GSAK thing and stuffed it up! This is my actual bulk uploaded log! I would have found this one with my mum Gr33nslime! Im sure I had fun, i especially like finding toys. I hope to have more finds than weeks alive! Thanks to my mums obsession for geocaching... Cheers for the cache.

# 1416 Came by here today to grab some info for the nearby earth cache and to have a run around on the beach in the wind. Jimmynz, dangerSAM and I had great fun combing the beach for all sorts of bits and pieces and not a piece of rubbish to be.seen which was great. Cache was easily found in the most obvious place looked. All nice and tidy inside with some great camouflage on the container. Thanks Phronimos for this one.

A fantastic spot, and one I shall keep in mind for camping next time Im down this way. Quick find. TFTC (Another late log sorry)

#6466. I flew up to Taranaki this week to do some field work out on the Sugarloaf Islands. After the trip ended I hired a rental car so I could do a bit of caching in the Taranaki area. This afternoon I headed SW to pick up caches on the road to Cape Egmont. Continuing my exploration of side roads along the Taranaki coast. Parked in the freedom camping spot. A few other cars and vans here today. Went for a wander along the beach then up to the GZ. I searched all around the hint object and couldn't see any cache. Finally read everything again and noticed I had missed some key words. Checked that spot and sure enough it had the cache. Signed the logbook and replaced the cache as found. I can see how people thought the log was full. That ink seems to penetrate the paper. I thought it was full as well until I looked closely. Good to have the extra paper available. Thanks for the cache Phronimos.

Quick find on New Year’s Day while out celebrating minicachers 3rd birthday! Tftc

Despite Notes & Needs Maintenance logs posted regarding "log book full" there was oodles of space on the log, but that aside I've added an extra 2-SIDED sheet to the log.

Congratulations on finding my geocache on December 31, 2018 and thereby earning a souvenir. Happy New Year and wishing you continued successful geocaching in 2019
I’ll replace the log tomorrow...

Lovely little beach. Thanks for bringing us here and TFTC.

Log book is full and needs replacing.

Beautiful area. A quick search showed us the cache. Thanks

Log is over-full, and needs to be replaced now.

Easy find, thanks for replacing the container. All good.

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.
Continuing our journey around the mountain it was time to get moving and make up some distance between all those caches. Nice to be back near the seaside, Been along time since have been to this beach

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.

Took a few seconds to locate, as the cache placement didn't quite match the hint.

**This was 1 of 14 caches that was found by me on the 14th of 19 days in New Zealand.**
**Which also was the 67th of 75 days that my travels thru southeast Asia and Oceania would last.**

Here I had to walk thru an field of nasturtium to be able to get to the container. So it took some time as I tried to avoid stepping on the plants.

This would have been an great place top spend the night. But as there was no toilet on site and I was living in an normal car I continued to drive searching for an more suitable freedom camping location.

*During 19 days I traveled from Christchurch to Auckland in an SUV, that i also slept in during most of the nights. 5.956 km of driving did it take to visit the 351 caches that I have marked as found in c:geo.*

*Earthcaches was my main focus during the stay. And I manage to visit 106 of them. So New Zealand is right now the only country where earthcaches are my most found cache type .*

Checked cache today. It had corroded and was extremely difficult to open. Replaced with a larger size easier to open container.

Found at 10:12.

Our second trip to New Zealand. This time we explore the North Island for 3 weeks. This was one cache we found.

Nice place. Didn't camp here

Thank you for placing and maintaining this cache Phronimos

TFTC

to many muggles around, end of the holidays and lots of kids, will give me a good resin to return to this lovely spot

Thanks for placing the cache and bringing us to this great spot.

Out at the beach for a final visit with Dazend. Cache in place as supposed to be although somewhat damp due to the seal blown. Dried out the log and replaced. Will replace the seal next time I'm out here

Just needed 3 more caches for my next mystical creature then I'm done chasing them down as the subsequent one is not practical for me in the time remaining. Heading back up SH45 and noticed this cluster of three (excluded the earth cache due to lower light levels).

This one took a while to find until I checked google for a translation rather than relying on an assumption. resumed my hunt under phone light and soon had the cache spotted.

Cheers

Had a good look and thought we were going to be logging DNF but found it after having another look at the clue! Nice camo! Very nice spot to stop too. TFTC.

We made plans to come this way for a while now to attend the event in Hawera on Sunday. We set of on Friday night parked up at a nice accommodation in Hawera with a lovely view. Then today set off at 9am with a friend 2 Bullbars to get some caches in the area around the big beautiful mountain. What a great day today turned out to be. So nice to come to this area seeing people camped up in their caravan and the family having fun together great to see. It was a stunning day great views. this was a nice cache, cache was all good we signed the log and placed it back where we found, mrs watcache looked for a while no luck then Mr watcache found it straight away, always the way, it gets a favorite for the location. we stopped here and had some lunch.

Not seen today.

Hunted high and low on the coprosma but seems this one is missing.

What a lovely beach along here - great spot for a cache! We enjoyed wandering along here and finding the caches in the area, TFTC

Another day exploring and Geocaching around the mountain with Mr Geco. We found a lovely beach here and went for an explore grabbing the resident caches as we wandered...then enjoyed a real fruit ice cream luvly We hunted and hunted and couldn't see a thing then I looked on the ground and spotted it...re hung it in the best place when I left. TFTC

Got wet for this one!

Awesome park and grab. Tftc

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

I didn't see Dazend toyota hiace van here today but we did see one freedom camper here in a very charming "gypsy" style housetruck parked close but not so close to GZ that it made retrieval difficult. The weather today was gorgeous so I can see why people come here to camp and enjoy the beach.

Did a bit of a loop so I didn't have to crash through the flowering vines (nasturtiums I think?) and could make the approach from the beach - from there spotting the cache was not too tricky. Thanks for the cache, all good here.

I found this cache together with my partner, Pityulino, during our trip in New Zealand. Today we took a visit to New Plymouth and also looked for caches on our way. We were completely alone on the beach, so we did not have to bother with muggles. Approaching the cache site was a challenge though due to the lush vegetation, but finally I had the treasure in my hands.
TFTC and greetings from Hungary!

Found it this cache with Cic
TFTC!

Nice beach area and quite a few people in the area today.
Quick look and there it was. SL TFTC

Got to meet jutybug and sueparr2 while doing this one cheers Peter
Nice to meet you sueparr2 and jutybug

Always a lovely spot to visit, and on this splendid afternoon there was the added bonus of a cache for me. Also good to meet 2 geo- cachers, BenandJen69 TFTC Phronimos

Owing to the cache location being compromised (some kids have built a fort here) I’ve had to move the cache... new location shortly.

Coordinates changed from:
S 39° 7.951 E 173° 53.656

Coordinates changed to:
S 39° 7.980 E 173° 53.572

Distance from original: 434.1 feet or 132.3 meters.

Owing to the cache location being compromised (some kids have built a fort here) I’ve had to move the cache. The new location is the next westwards, shoulder height. Coprosma. Approach GZ from the beach

Relocated. Hint changed

Found with EtoshaMa! TFTC!

Ended up parking right next to the cache. TFTC

Nice spot

Dipped Future SilverFern Player TB while Freedom Camping here last night, but the cache is only a micro so moving it on

Found it, with some help from the friendly CO who happened to be out here. Such a cool spot. TFTC and the pen!!

Found it

Curlz climbed up. That was the highlight of this cache TFTC

Nice and dirty now lovely climb

Beautiful place to visit. TFTC

After finishing work in New Plymouth a little bit earlier than I thought that I was going to be I decided that I would take the scenic route around the Western side of the mountain and pick up a few of the caches that have being placed here since I lasted traveled along this lovely SH45.

After a DNF on GC6R598 - Tataraimaka Hall Cache, it was time to go and check out a couple of caches that are among Freedom Camping spots along Surf Highway 45, this is one of those beaches along the surf highway that I havent visited before, the drive to GZ was quite pleasant and it didnt take as long as I though that it was going to take.

Finally arriving near GZ, I managed to find a parking spot not too far from GZ and was surprise that there were already campers near GZ, there was home bus and a freedom camper already staying near GZ, I wonder how long before the next wave starts turning up. Looks like it was the same bus that was in the cache photos, so funny

Decided to check the area before visiting GZ as to whether it was clear of muggles, once I check and was happy it was time to visit GZ. Arriving at GZ it took a minute for me to track down the hiding spot of the cache and then I was able to soon retrieve the cache, extracted the logbook signed, and replaced back as found.

Thanks for placing this cache here and for bringing me to this spot, really enjoy visiting this spot and checking out this spot, was glad that there werent too many muggles around here at this stage as it could have being a major issue to retrieve this cache, TFTC TNLNSL (12412)

Have been in New Plymouth for the last couple of days for work, but now it is time to head on home. Being a Saturday, I'm on my own time so I can take a more leisurely route - I've been around the mountain caching before, but I see that here has been some new caches since I last did it.

This cache didn't pose much a problem. Spotted it quickly and then had a quick contortion to be able to reach it. TFTC

On my way south I decided to check out this Free Parking area for caravans.

Found the cache but moved further on around the coast.

Cheers for the cache.

Out with Poppa today getting caches as we go around the mountain

Out with Poppa today getting caches as we go around the mountain

Out with some of the whanau and came down here to be by the sea
Many thanks

We decided to walk the dog somewhere else today. Such a beautiful spot. Tftc

Found it, thank you, beautiful day in the Naki , cool cache

Having been up in the 'Naki with MacGyverson for a few days catching up with friends and geocaching as we go, it is time to head down the coastal highway and grab a few new caches as we pass.

I already had the cache up the road but was keen to grab this one too so parked up nearby and off to GZ where after a bit if gazing the cache was spotted - SL as MacGyverson only and left as found. Thanks for the placement at this out of the way campsite Phronimos.

Just looked up and bam found it! TFTC

I used to surf down at Fort St George so knew this spot well and it's still a wonderful place to come back to thanks Phronimos gets a fav TFTC

A good spot to rest and relax, or stop off as a couple of camper vans were doing. Accessing the cache does require a little bit of agility but its handy and out of reach and sight of those not in the know. Thanks Phronimos.

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