New Zealand birds 14 - The Kaka (Marlborough) Ward, South Island, New Zealand
By capperz on 02-Jun-17. Waypoint GC76KE4

Sitting in water. Log wet but write on paper so ok, just! I don't know whether a puddle usually is here but because the ground was so wet the cache was well buried under the unexpected object. Tftc.#10460

Trouve ! / Found it ! 5264me cache trouve.Merci capperz pour la cache 5264th cache found.Thank you capperz for the cache

Been meaning to get this one for a while so today is the day. Kaka is a lovely bird but my all time fave is the Kereru. Tftc

Having been on call all weekend I was keen to get out and about. Went for a nice long walk and swim at Ward Beach then headed back to Blenheim collecting some caches. Quick grab in the semi darkness. Cache and log all fine. Thanks for the smiley

**20,333**A nice quick stop for a cache - Mr Geckoh located the cache whilst Mrs Geckoh let the dogs out for a leg stretch. The day is beautifully clear but the wind is blustery. TFTC

On SH1 and thought "I can't stop here and climb that bank". Ah, there is a side road.

I'm off doing some caching around Ward and down to Waima River for part of today

No kakas spotted today.

Cheers for the cache, tcapperz.

I didn't want to stop for the day, so this was my just one more, but it turned into my antepenultimate find for the day. Never trust a cacher. Not even yourself. TFTC.

Another lovely day to stretch Bumblebees legs. This was the second stop after thinking and digging up the past. Easy find once obeying the GPS and not going on instinct.

Easy find, am a local and its cool to think this has been under my nose this whole time

Dirty

Another area not visited before and it look like a lot of water yet to drain away. Quick find. TFTC

A diversion on our trip from Kaikoura to Blenhiem - cache found and log signed as SONO - our caching name intials - thanks for the cache

We were in NZ on a holiday hoping to spend a bunch of time geocaching; however, we ended up in ISO due to positive COVID tests! Once our mandatory isolation was over we were able to travel a bit and grab some caches on our trip. This cache was on the to do list for today. Cheers and TFTC.

G’day there capperz, we were in this area today and found your cache New Zealand birds 14 - The Kaka (Marlborough) GC76KE4. Our name was added to the log book at 12:55 pm on 17 July 2022. A huge thanks to you for placing this cache here for us (and others) to find!

We took up Geocaching on 3 March 2013 and this cache brings our total find count to - 13638.

Quick easy find.TFTC

Interesting birdy info, TFTC capperz

A good match of road and bird. We saw a couple of kaka in Pureora Forest Park many years ago. TFTC.

Shocker. I spotted the out of place item whilst Maplerose was rummaging further along the fence.

A quick find at a quiet spot on our way north with angelic_kiwi - tftc

Quick find pretty views. TFTC

Sweet view

Bit wet. Great view.

Found it

Quick & easy find despite the rain

A nice little hide here, very accurate coordinates! Found with Campmotherandken TFTC

Gosh thank goodness no birds not Juju54 favourite animal - TFTC

Windy day quick found

A bit windy for fishing so decided to find this one thanks for placing it

Thought I heard gunfire .... soon realised it was a bird scarer to keep them away from the vines lol TFTC

thanks

Thanks

Went to check out this one after working out the multi-storey in the shade of a tree by the cemetery. Given the look by locals in a car passing by as if people visiting there were strange. Found the cache and all is well with it.

Doing a road trip as I have to wait for my villa to be refurbished. What better way than doing a road trip geocaching. Thanks for placing and maintaining.

Time to head back to a 50th overnight party in our home town Christchurch. This was found with my wife on day seven of our eight day holiday in Marlborough based at Picton.

We're on our way back home to Christchurch with a few stops. This was one of them.
JDScout and I are spending a week in Picton. We have spent this week exploring Marlborough and finding a few geocaches. Thanks capperz for creating this hide. It was find 9523 for me.

======== NZ Mega 2021 ========
Planning for the NZ Mega 2021 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, October 2021

A nice quick find here.

Family holiday time...a couple nights Kaikoura, a couple Picton & finish off in Nelson.....
After a couple nights in Kaikoura its time to head to Picton......
Nice quick find and sign here. Thanks.

These were all pretty cool hides, will be back to do more

TFTCs

Thanks for putting out this cache for woolwood9 and I to find!
SL **tm/ww NZ** (may just be a black smudge on wet or plastic logs)
*We soon had another good cache located, now onto the next one!*

Nice to be away on another geocaching trip with tmann421, travelling to a few places in the upper South Island.
All logs signed tm/ww NZ
TFTC

Did not even want to attempt this one last time I came past as the whole corner was under quite a bit of water. Easy find today, TFTC!

Found with my kids so signed Eva as she found it

A quick sang tag and sanitise here. Cheers

The original plan was to walk Lake Chalis with Raphael, my temporary house guest. But with the rain front coming up from the south we changed plans and came to Ward Beach. Stopped in on TS on the way through Blenheim to pick up my wayward GPS. Then we are off, with packed lunches and handy-dandy wipes and gloves, the latest addition to my caching kit. We have enjoyed our walk to The Needle and the seal colony. Now heading home trying to scoop up a few other caches along the way. Its been a great day out. We finally hit the rain at Tuamarina, so alls good.

Tftc. Easy. Heading to live and work in Twizel!

Nice easy find

Not the greatest to do in the rain, found it, but I no longer have dry or clean shoes

Heading up north for a few days, had a great drive up to Blenheim today 60 caches for the day, road busy and foggy in places. Thanks to all the caches placers - Bitsprayer

I had originally planned a 2 day overnight caching road trip but some family commitments intervened which shortened my plan to a 1 (long) day road trip instead. I aimed for the east coast south of Blenheim and went for it. Although the weather on the day started out a bit grim and grey, it brightened up as the day wore on and I had a great time finding 40+ caches along the way. A slight detour off the main road. Found the cache in the second place I looked. TFTC, Biggles.

I am from Switzerland too and cache away on our journey through South Island .Thans from Swiss guy !

I'm from Switzerland and spend 4 months in New Zealand on vacation. Found this cache after a few minutes search, thanks.

Cool cache

A quick find on the way back from work trip thanks

Found with Tramper Ted after orienteering on Cape Campbell farm. Well placed on an aptly named quiet side road. Thanks capperz!

Found with Edvern on our way to Ward. Like the interesting info on the cache page. TFTC

Coastalmartinis and I along with eltee291 and Hingis20 are heading to Kiakoura. Stopping to get a few (all of them) on the way. Tftc

Found on a trip to kaikoura with eltee291, Hingis20, and crman1. What beautiful views!

Quick find this morning with eltee291, crman1 and coastalmartinis on the way to Kaikoura for the day! Signed the log and replaced as found. Thanks for the cache, capperz!

Found this one today with hingis20, crman1, and coastalmartinis. We are on a day trip to Kaikoura to see the seals, sightsee, shop, and geocache of course. On vacation from VIctoria, BC, Canada visiting my daughter and her family in Blenheim. TFTC

A quick trip down a side road to find this cache. Didn’t see any Kakas today. Signed Team IE -caching with Infoferret. TFTC

13 January 2019 2:02 PM. Very windy here today. Fortunately the cache was a quick find. After a few moments to appreciate the views, we returned to the car and continued the journey north. TFTC

We were heading South for our summer holiday picking up a few caches that interest us or that might help us towards some of the challenges we are currently working on. This being one of them as we edge towards 100 finds by capperz. This is number 99 so getting pretty close now.
As we drove near we could see a farmer working in the corner where we wanted to be, so we kept on driving and waited up the valley further for him to finish what he was doing before turning around and having our turn in the area.
I headed over to make the find, it was obvious that the recent rain had softened the ground and had been over the cache, but it was securely held in place albeit a bit muddy.
Thanks for placing this cache and thanks for the smiley

Only a short sidetrack to add another smiley to the series.
Thanks.

We tried to find a couple of other caches on our trip south tonight, but no joy. Just down the road was this one. Easy find and we were on our way. Just the two for tonight, thanks Capperz.

A trip to Ward after work with my mate Andy. We were keen to go for a look at Chancet Rocks, and with a pretty full calendar at this time of the year the decision was made a week or two back that we would go after work tonight. Unfortunately, the weather did not quite play ball. While the rain held off while we were walking the area, it was cold and windy for this time of year. Still, it was a good walk, and while we did not exactly find what we were looking for we did see a few seals and get some exercise. TFTC.

T F T C. T F T C. T F T C. T F T C. T F T C. T F T C. T F T C. T F T C
---This log is trackable!
-- Feel free to discover.
-- Please mention in which cache you've seen this code:
-- AR9ZB7

No problems finding this one if you actually give it a proper look, unlike me on this one.

An awesome Molesworth Mission trip with Karma Reprint and The Wanglers (signed as K2T), day three today was from Seddon back home to Canterbury via Kaikoura. Thanks capperz for the cache, 119 of 132 for the trip. Cheers

A plan was hatched and the plan set into motion, Kiwi Moose and Karma Reprint asked me if I'd like to join them on a Mad Marvelous Molesworth Mission... I asked them to give me a day or two to get back to them. I was able to get the Cachelets sorted so I was on like Donkey Kong.
Day 1: Boys picked me up and we headed to Hanmer for a cache or two and some mean as burgers for dinner. Popped over the Hill and camped at the Acheron DOC campsite. Enjoyed the many stars, we would have enjoyed more if we were on the other side of the trees, doh!
Day 2: Up and at em nice and early and cached our way to the coast. Weather was good with a bit of patchy rain. Spotted the the High Country Flying Club hooning up the valley, we saw 10 or so light aircraft. We were stopped at the Wards Pass by the Molesworth Station Manager Jim and had a sausage and a cuppa while we waited for the mob of 1000 head of cattle to wander up the pass. Great yarns were told by Jim. We decided on a camp site but it was crap and we headed into Seddon for the night at the Awatere Motor Camp.. that was interesting.
Day 3: Worked our way home via the coast and a few side trips. KM's vehicle had started acting up so we nursed her home and got home just after 5pm.
Great company, great fun and a few caches were ticked off the ol' list.

We signed the log as K²T (Kiwi Moose, Karma Reprint and TheWanglers)

Thanks for the cache capperz.
#5866
Cache 15 out of 33 for today.
Cache 114 out of 132 for the trip.

A quick and easy find on a wee detour. Thanks

Sunday, Seddon back down to Christchurch

The plan: Cache the Molesworth road
The cast: Kiwi Moose, The Wanglers and Karma Reprint
The result: A great fun filled drive, and cache filled haul. TW's log says it all!

Log signed K2T

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

Wet and pen didnt write very well (on waterproof paper). Workmen working on road in distance. TFTC

Earlier in the week we had discussed a visit over the hill to grab the caches which have been published since our last visit.
It was opportune that some puzzles were published Friday morning although at that stage I didn't have time to look at them. It wasn't until much later in the day that I was made aware there was more than the two I had notification of.
My first glance at them told me I had a “hat trick”, cryptic and music which are not favourite topics, and this CO whose puzzles I never find easy. Knuckling down I soon had a good thread going for one of them and with equal amounts of collaboration and head scratching some coordinates/solves began to emerge.
With the chance of a FTF for the month possible we changed our planned “route” and headed off for these instead which we managed to get 4xFTF with runner up in the another two and three still to solve. We would have been more than happy with one FTF but having driven this far it wasn't logical to ignore them.
This then brought us further south than our original intention and to this cache which was a quick find, a relief after having 3xDNF on multis earlier.
Thank you capperz.

After 3x DNF in quick succession it was with relief to make an easy find again. We started the day with 4x FTF and 2x STF and achieved a total of 25 finds for the day. Finally have we managed to put some order into the geo-map around Seddon and Ward. One more bird of the series to go and some strays before heading home for the final of the Super Rugby 2018. Thank you capperz

Lovely day, easy find, Fell in the drain and got wet feet. TFTC

#5888. I was over in Blenheim today at a meeting. After the meeting finished I had some time available before my flight back to Wellington to go for a drive south to have a look at the waterfowl down at Lake Elterwater. There are some interesting rare birds visiting there at the moment (three species of grebes). On the way to the lake and back I stopped to pick up any caches close to the main highway. Carried on down the road after the lake to do this one. Quickly found, signed and replaced where located. Thanks for hiding it here capperz. Time to head back north again.

Quick find on the drive south after spending a couple of days with family in Marlborough. GLB1721 TFTC (4400)

I didn't plan to come this far south today, but there always seemed to be another cache just not that much further on. TFTC

A quick find this afternoon on the way towards Picton and the ferry. The kaka is a very familiar bird for me, I live in the "halo zone" around the Zealandia sanctuary in Wellington and have lots of native trees around me. Consequently the kaka are everywhere! It's quite common to see large flocks of them overhead and they're quite fearless when there's food around and I'm working outside. Signed log, TFTC.

Pretty location here

Pulled up in the car car and looked for the bird....nothing. Our GPS has been playing up all day, and this time despite being 5km's down the road it was demanding that we make a U turn and commence a 500km divert so that we could approach from the north??.. but since we are brighter than that we told it to go jump.. and did our own thing.;.
Anyhow I digress, found cache in likely spot, signed log, tube a tad wet but nothing serious. Log signed and back on our way.( later discovered the setup auto routing had some how changed its self to avoid main roads.. no wonder it was so determined most of our trip to do just that.... flippen garmins.. i find that often happens with the "routing - lock on road setting as well.. as much as i disable it.. it seems to re set its self??) - then as we drove away.. we realised why we had not seen a bird at GZ.. lol.. nice... wonder how many other such places there are..!

A quick easy find of an appropriately located cache, with all the bird information to digest as well. TFTC

#15330. I was thinking kaka probably aren't found in these parts (turned out I should have been looking at road names). TFTC.

Found with StreetWalker as we head home from Blenheim to Christchurch after an enjoyable long weekend.
Another bird to add to the tally. TFTC.

A nice quiet drive out this way to get a couple of the railway caches that have been sitting for a while and another of the NZ Birds series....
Quiet road this one - so a QEF
TFTC capperz

Found it. Tftc

Speedy find and welcomed stretch. Tftc

Wonderful views from here, tftc!

Beautiful view!

Another ticked off on this great series that seems to be spread right across the Top of the South. I remember queuing up for a very long time at the Waimarama Sanctuary many years ago to see several chicks before they were transported down to Stewart Island. They seemed huge big balls of green fluff which I was very surprised about at the time. TFTC # 10,810

Yes, it's great that you have found appropriate spots for 14 bird caches - - - I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few more places out there too. I had several encounters with kaka last month Wellington Botanical Gardens, Ulva Island and Stewart Island where I was fascinated to observe the dexterity of a bird attacking a grape. I also got to hear the range of sounds kaka make. Thanks for the hide .

Quick park and grab TFTC!

Mr & Mrs W swapped children with Melonious and headed off on a caching trip with their Miss 9. The aim - to grab as many caches between Seddon and Clarence while it's quiet (before the road reopens). An icy wind didn't deter us and a 5 hour round trip saw a few more smileys on the map Love the discrete camo here!! TFTC

Found on a drive down to Ward beach to have a look

Another bird found, I think that just leaves one but I'm sure you will find some more places by the time I get that. Thanks capperz

#6502

P&G, no sign of said bird today..tftc

Found with NZDi. As a last minute idea, NZDi suggested we make another attempt to clear the caches between the Awatere and Clarence Rivers, so I ran a quick pocket query and came up with 12 unfound that were getable. There were a few others, but they were inaccessible due to closed DOC tracks from last November's earthquake.

So while I got ready, NZDI packed a picnic lunch and we headed off at a leisurely 9.30am. We stopped off in town to grab a coffee and Chai to sustain us on the trip south, then made a bee-line to the furthest south cache, before retracing our tracks picking up smileys on the way home.

This was a short detour up a rural side road for another of the NZ Bird series. C:geo was indicating about halfway between two likely hiding places, but after both were discounted I raised my eyes and saw a third likely hiding spot and as usual the cache was found in the last place I looked. I had only just replaced the cache when the one car that made up todays passing traffic passed by.

On the way back to the main road I noticed the structure that made up the original entrance to the cemetary had finally collapse as a result of the November earthquake. When we found the nearby cache last year, this same structure was still standing, but was fenced off as a result of earthquake dame from the 2013 Seddon quakes.

TFTC capperz

Found with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

TFTC capperz

Quick easy p&g tftc

Cruising first class with Mr.Marcwood, the target Ward Beach.
Swung in to grab the bird on the way.
Nice one and thanks a lot for the cache.

On another mission from over the hill with bumandworker today. We felt like a beach walk!
We were still smiling when we reached GZ. We'd woken up a stop and go person. She was probably only getting one car per hour! As we came around the corner she leapt up to grab a cone to place in the middle of the road and then went to put her stop sign in another cone. That fell over as she rushed back to grab a sandbag to hold the cone in place. It was like a key stone cops episode.
Bum opened the window so we could share our mirth with her. She took it all good naturedly and didn't hold us up toooo long.
A quick find and sign at GZ. I'm starting to worry that another [?] is being hatched.
TFTC

I was in Golden Bay over the weekend when a rash of new caches came out. Two days later was back in Blenheim, and the first thing I did was look up all the new caches to see if they had been found. Yep, all of them. Well, it was two days later - can't really hope for an FTF after that amount of time. But then the CO wanders into my office to sort out some problems and mentioned that one had not been found yet. Really? I missed one! No wasting time. I need to find a cache tomorrow for my calendar project. I don't need one today, but I can't risk it - I am also working on a FTF streak. So out I came. Interesting how the traffic fades on the road south - it does turn off, it just fades out. One moment there are three cars behind me. next time I look there is just one. A moment later there is none. No side roads for them to turn down. And the reverse coming back. Anyway, found the cache, empty log book. [FTF] streak now 31 months long. Woohoo!!

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