Iwo Jima (Rabbit Island) Rabbit Island, South Island, New Zealand
By SoBad on 05-Jun-17. Waypoint GC76R64

tftc

Still here, though all the felled trees made access a little tricky for the kids. Thanks

Looks like the smaller trees have recently been felled as needed to climb over the fall logs to get to GZ. Cache was lying out in the open so tucked under the nearest s+&!p with some nearby camo, although I would doubt a Muggle would be walking here

Cool little adventure. Tftc

Cannot see anything from road and there is lots of brush and trees on way. Some recent pruning also added to the route's challenge. Quick find at gz and a friendly weka came along to say hello. Tftc

A bit overcast today for a day at the beach. Some of the grannies want a cache hunt so off we went. Nice hide and another done.
Cheers.

Fun find with the kids. We didn't quite follow the easiest route in the end - but was a cool spot. TFTC!

GPSl led me on a merry little chase, but low, there it was. Log battered and getting full but still OK tftc

While KR was off on his bike I thought I'd tidy up the nearest few on foot. I did feel slightly vulnerable wandering in too many directions and did I really want to go thru that stuff? Ah, think Iwo Jima and press on for an easy finish. Then I had time to get back and sit on the beach. Tftc

A nice quick find thanks. Fought my way to the summit, only to find I was not the first finder today. Ms_KR had come from the car and made the find while I was off on my bike!

Ms_KR and I are off on a wee road trip to Nelson. Today we had another great day, cruising from Kaiteriteri, Motueka, Rabbit Island and on back to Nelson.

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

NeRe found it

Found!! TFTC

Find number 6 today. A bit scrubby here but cache all good. Nice to see a log sheet with so many names. TFTC.

A bit of a Bush bash & had to pass a sign that said - keep out, logging in progress...but others had found the day before so we sneaked in...nobody here.TFTC

Nice spot, cache in good order, TFTC

Wow we made it . Bit of a trek to the cache. Thanks anyway.

Spending a little time around Nelson, we thought catching the ferry from Mapua and riding bikes around Rabbit Island was just the thing for a beaut day like today. Many caches have sprung up since I was last here caching, so nice to have the opportunity to clean out a few.

Bit of a bush bash to get to this, but nothing too hard. Managed a nice easy find here.
TFTC

A bit like a jungle. Soaked from yesterday's rain.

I had some time to come over to find this cache while my muggle wife walked along the beach. The cache was exposed from a particular angle, so I made sure to hide it with some camo. TFTC.

Found with Vandersnz while on a Sunday bike ride

Found while out biking with ReichertFam

This was out in the open but I have placed it back where I think it should be. Tree trimming has been happening here recently so it was nice that they left it TFTC

In the South Island from Tauranga on a six week holiday and now following the PWGT. I hope to have the tour completed before I get home. Today is a day in Mapua to gather a few extra smileys decided to go bike riding with DEE + ME. Thanks to recent pruning was able to follow route.



I am logging using the Cachly app template so please excuse generic logging along the way. It’s just my way of keeping track, but I do genuinely thank each and every one of you cache owners for taking the time and energy to place these caches. Many Thanks for bringing me here. Cheers.

A bit of a scramble but found it. TFTC

Found on a quiet day, it took a few minutes to zero in on it but we got there, thanks

My mother and her family (Hammonds) spent a lot of time at Rabbit Island while they were farming on the original road (Cotterell Road) to Rough and Rabbit Islands - even before the original wooden bridge via horse and cart. There were no pine tree plantations so the sand hills during the time Iwo Jima flag period were enormous and fun to slide down on sacks. Thanks for the walk.

Off track adventure smells like kiwi xmas in here. Tftc

Took a while to find the correct approach route , but it matched the description, nice explore. And thanks for the history!

Quick find. Not easy to get to. TFTC

Yeah, found it. Unfortunately no pen, but took a picture as a proof

TFTC. Had to work for that one. Quite an expidition. Was Putin the open, so rehid where I thought it may have originally been

Lots of undergrowth to push through, but gps got us right there. Thanks

For real????

But why????

It is there


TFTC

A bush bash, and while we thought we found a geotrail up, it ended in a dead end and we followed our tail for a while. Soon zeroed in and found the cache exposed. There won’t be too many people up here to muggle it, but it is safely tucked away for the next finder. TFTC SoBad.

Today, Jo and I are in Nelson targeting anything that will allow us to go for a bike ride. We planned it a while ago as, because Jo works Saturdays, lately we haven’t had the chance to go caching together much.
But there was an elephant in the room - the weather. There was something like 19mm of rain scheduled for just a few hours in the afternoon today and not a lot else in the forecast to write home about either. Still, this didn’t put us off, and if it turned really bad we can just do some park and grabs, right?
So we got away early, got into Nelson and the weather had held off. It was much worse on the way over actually.
So, a few caches on Rough Island first, and still no rain. Optimistic, into Rabbit island we went and this is where it all turned a little bit King Lear Act III
Everything got soaked in the next few hours, and I remembered just how frustrating it can be using a phone (in a waterproof pouch) to go geocaching when the outside is so wet you simply cannot navigate the map on it and any raindrop is likely to send the map somewhere else. Add to this a couple of spills - the best one right over the handlebars when the front tire dug into some deep sand. The next best, a branch through the spokes.
Still, Jo could not be fazed and we soldiered on through it. Eventually we got a decent haul of 30 odd, had some fun and some character building as well. Hey, at least it wasn’t cold. Thanks all COs.

Bush bashing! And as usual - the way in is much harder than the way out .
Last cache of the day for us before heading back to the car. There, we realised that this track is closed to the public. Ups...Thanks

Found on the 24th with camp mother and ken, late log due to only just getting premium upgrade now

A reasonably fine spring day and a dot day !! so we decided on a walk round part of Rabbit Island to pick up a few of the caches that have sprung up in the last few years With tree felling on the main walk entrance we opted to start through the bike park - soon at GZ and a cache in hand log signed - thanks for the cache

Another dot day has rolled around. This time we are off for the day it is fine so a day to do a few more than we have lately. Arrived on the island to find a few alterations to our plans but nothing too major.
Having a nice stroll along these paths and have a quick find to fill today's main mission, accomplished . Now we can enjoy the stroll on the island grabbing some caches that have turned up over the last few years.
TFTC

I cycled around Rabbit Island this morning. The one thing you have no control over when you plan these things is the weather. Today the gods smiled on me, it was perfect. All good here. TFTC

Thanks Siddles for the find - TFTC

The sign said "Danger - Keep out" so in I went and the gps took me right to it.

Back on the main track I needed to be on for an efficient circuit and hid the bike in the trees. Headed up to the summit and soon had the cache in hand. Did indeed feel like a conqueror after all that flat thus far. T F T C SoBad

After my trip around Rough Island I moved the car outside the gates down by the bridge and set off on bike for a 4 hour trip around Rabbit Island with the hope of getting all I sought. Was mostly successful in this aim and had an enjoyable time, though the temperature fell rapidly around 5 PM as dark approached.
A long overdue trip over the hill with a bike was the aim for today and my intention was to make the most of a forecast sunny day, time on my hands to get out and about, and a plot to grab my remaining unfound caches on the Western side of Rabbit Island, as well as a 'few' others. All up was a successful day but started with a few too many DNFs; poor searching, poor GPS response, cache not there. All good and retained my Geocaching licence and some great scenery and caches today too. I was aiming to be at the Mapua end of Rabbit Island by low-tide to make a find there and as it was my timing was impeccable and I completed my loop in good time arriving back at the 'outside the gates' parked car just on 1729 (1 minute before Winter 'closing'). A great day and good to be back over this way again.

I tried to find this one some weeks ago but approached from the wrong side. A bit easier today, bush bashing was still involved.
Second person to sign the log today so someone must have found it earlier today.
Nice area for a bike ride, just as the owner, I came walking though.
Thanks for placing a cache here!

Out today on my bike. What a fantastic day for a ride around Rabbit Island and with so many fantastic caches to find its looking like a fantastic ride. Thanks to everyone whose caches I found apologies for the cut and paste. You made my ride very interesting with some quick finds and some not so quick and a couple of frustrating ones as well. TFTC

out and about on a lovely Nelson day

This was our last cache we did on this Island and we were happy to be closer to the car than another cache. Phew. Tftc!

Bravely going where no man is meant to go. These are the travels of the Singleminded Cacher. Tripping, falling, clearing blackberry (not likely), climbing Mt Iwo Jima in search of another cache ... and succeeding. TFTC and history lesson SoBad.

Found with NZDi. Yesterday afternoon NZDi suggested we go to Nelson for the day. She had a couple of shops she needed to visit but it would give us the afternoon to do some geocaching. After a small discussion of our geocaching options, we decided to take our MTBs and do some more of Rabbit Island. This is still a target-rich environment for us despite three previous visits, similar to the Wither Hills Farm Park in Blenheim.

So last night I sat in front of the computer and developed a plan of attack which should have given us between 20 and 30 finds depending on our success rate. What we didn't know from our desktop planning exercise was that some of the caches we were targeting were in areas made off-limits by logging operations. Despite this and three or four DNFs, we still managed to get 18 Rabbit Island caches plus a bonus seasonal cache closer to town. I also managed to halve my remaining number of caches to get 1000 B&W caches from 22 to 11.

The bonus of finding an opened unsigned gate gave us access to four caches we thought we were going to miss out on when we started today's mission. This was the fourth of them, and I am thinking when it was placed the juvenile pines and mature broom that make accessing the cache tricky, were seedlings or absent when the cache was placed. So while NZDi looked after the bikes at the track, I bush bashed my way to GZ going blind as I put my mobile in my pocket to keep my hands free to part the scrub. My dead-reckoning navigation was pretty good because when I got to where I thought GZ was and checked c:geo, I was only 3m away from the cache. I turned and looked in the direction c:geo indicated and immediately saw the cache out in the open exposed to all who were in sight. I'm guessing this would only be other cachers. After completing the paper work, I replaced the cache as I thought it should be, adding a bit of natural camo for authenticity.

I've added a photo of the memorial at Arlington Cemetary so as also no to break copywrite rules. We continued along the track back to the car and had to jump over a gate that had a nasty sign saying "No Unauthorised Access'... Oh well, at least it didn't say 'No Unauthorised Egress' .

TFTC SoBad

Found while caching Kaikoura with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for further details.

TFTC SoBad

It took a bit of bush bashing to grab this one...and then I fell in blackberry...as I was searching for the cache in a number of possible hiding spots I saw it out in the open...rehid a bit better. Tftc

Found but didnt have a pen. Took photo of previous signature. Motgran

Found but didnt have a pen. Took photo of previous signature. Motgran

Turning a three day into a four day with a quick jaunt on the bike out to Rabbit Island. Kids would only let me look for one before we headed further around. Thanks for the cache.

3 down one to go a quick fine and back to the car we needn't of hurryed as there was a party going on so the gate wasn't shut when we go to it . Tftc bumandworker

I needed a few caches today and with the days getting a little longer I figured Rabbit Island after work might just be possible. A nice quick find and on to the next one. Thanks SoBad

#7855

found with cousins Caleb and Rowan - we weren't sure if we were allowed in the area or not but very quickly Rowan found it! tftc

Found while out for a ride

Great find

Cool

These bike track keep turning and going in different directions. I eventually ended up there in a less direct manner than my return. No trouble with the little climb at the end.

Nice little detour on my morning stroll. Followed others trail to keep my feet reasonably dry. Thanks for the info, the wee adventure and TFTC!

Thanks for this cache, SoBad. I have been to Arlington & seen the memorial there - very moving (can't find my photos on a newish laptop, may post a pic later). I think it is a WP for one of several Virtual caches there.
Climbed up & found the cache with no difficulty; a bit of an accidental slide on the way down!

TFTC

rising sun

Had a wonderful day Geocaching with sidewaze
Wasn’t long before we spotted the cache, signed the log now on to the next one.
Thank you SoBad for the cache

Found while doing a bit of exploring on the Island. .Thanx4tc

Taking advantage of some traffic detours, we chanced upon this one as a park and grab! TFTC.

Heute sind wir nach Rabbit Island gefahren, um dort die Caches zu heben. Bei herrlichen Wetter haben wir uns auf die Suche begeben. Diesen konnten wir gut finden. Danke fürs Legen.

Today we drove to Rabbit Island to raise the caches there. In glorious weather, we went on the search. We could find this good. Thank you for laying

The hill wasn't as daunting as its namesake, and a quick find with TregearP.

All in good order, signed log and replaced as found. Thanks for the cache SoBad.

A nice day for a bike ride with SJT_NZ, headed out relatively early to beat the crowds and the of the day. A quick find and flash backs of the famous photo as we reached the GZ but neither of us had brought a flag.

This one has been bugging me as every time we go out there, there is a great big sign saying no access, logging operation, cameras operating, no entry, fines imposed etc and today was no different. With a lot of people finding this cache we thought we may be able to approach from the mountainbike park and get to it without going into the out of bounds area. We wandered along the mountainbike track and eventually hit the fence. Yep the cache was on the other side. Well, we're here now so we went for it and made the grab then scrambled back to the legal side of the fence. tftc

What's with Rabbit Island? I had this place ticked off, now it looks like nearly every cache I have found has been archived and it looks like I have hardly been here at all! Taybeedragon and I are here with out bikes for a fill in the gaps day.
Having cycled widdershins around the west end of the island the dragon and I cut across at ABC Soduku and made the mistake of heading west along the centre trail (if you can call it that). We should have headed east first to grab this one, then turned around to go west. So we got to the west end, followed the coat trail back, and hopped back to this trail to find a hill that deserves a flag.
And I must admit, a perfect place for a cache!

Working only 50 or so metres away so easy park and grab for me. Tftc

In the blazing sun it was not the pleasant way to scramble through the vegetation and take this hill. No flag available so just signed the log. Tftc

Another nice day in Nelson so it is time to get a few more caches off my to-do list. Caches like a couple of CANZs, a Wherigo or two, some solved Puzzles, and the odd Trad thrown in the haul.

I climbed the hill to put my mark on the little flag (logsheet) up there.

Cheers for the cache, SoBad.

School's out and with taxi duties completed for the morning, I decided to throw the bike on the car and head out to Rabbit Island to grab a few caches.

I knew roughly where I needed to be heading, but suffered from temporary WWII land-mark amnesia as I set off looking for a bridge. Close to the GZ, it dawned on me that the bridge was that over the River Kwai and Iwo Jima was somewhere completely different.

Thankfully my general GZ awareness took me to the right place and everything fell into place.

No problems with access it seems now (I certainly didn't experience any on this part of the island) and I was soon raising my own flag of capture.

#1775

Saw latest log

Sneaked over the fence like Ms.T B D no logging here now all good .TFTC.

The Seagnoid has snagging solved puzzles and an odd multi on his radar for the weekend in Nelson. Zara was in the body shop Thursday so we are here early. Rabbit Island is on my radar today. So lets go! Leave Zara at the beach checking out the sights while I start walking.
Another snag and tag. I see this has been disabled. I approached it from the other way and had to climb over the gate to get out!! Cheers

The gate has a very clear sign forbidding access at present. We will check and enable when access is again available.

We have been advised that this cache may not be able to be accessed because of new signs in the area. We will check it soon, probably tomorrow, but until then it might be better to look for a different cache.

Nice wee scramble
Lovely to hear the sound of the waves.

Fun time finding this with Team Bisley. Holiday fun with the kids.

Quick find while out on a morning bike ride. Nice to meet with the Harrisgang after locating the cache. TFTC

It seems this is a popular cache with two names on the log for today before our late morning visit although the Island seemed to be very quiet, not even any activity at the Conifer Park car park and no bikes to be seen. This off course meant we had no problems with muggles as we found the cache and signed the log, while feeling a little bit exposed.
Thank you SoBad.

Today was the second time for me at GZ. The first time I was here for work and decided that if there was a writing utensil in the cache I would sign the log. There wasn't. Regardless, I would have made the trip one more time with Holymu. It was very quiet with no muggles or cyclists. Just one runner as we walked out. Took TB. Thank you SoBad

Husband sent off across country for this one. Also great to meet Kiwiexplorer and Kiwi Grandad who were caching while on a morning bike ride.

Always enjoy Rabbit Island and after finding the cache, took the long route back to the car on my bike. Thanks SoBad!!

It was a gorgeous winter’s day today – perfect for a picnic lunch out on the Island. Lots of people parked also having lunch or sitting reading in the sun but the beach was practically deserted. After lunch it was time for the assault on this cache. I can’t remember ever hearing of Iwo Jima before but it was so peaceful and serene on the walk to GZ that I couldn’t help but think of how that probably contrasted to the day those flags were raised. Thanks so much for the interesting description and the history lesson. I am forever grateful for digital photography where I can take endless shots without worrying about the cost of printing a film full of rubbish. TFTC # 10,718

Out for a local jaunt on a cracker day with Mr.Marchwood.
Easily found and signed. Also picked up the unsigned log for OKINAWA....but not the container....will we be back?
Interested to see brand new (locked) gate and fencing.....it sure seems this spot may well be closed soon to public.....no signage today though.
Thanks a lot SoBad

Found on a nice walk out this way. Dropped off 2 tb which I have had for too long

The perfect way to end the day was to go for a walk at Rabbit Island. We were chatting as we walked when I asked GK to check how far away we were - we were within a few meters - tiptoed our way through the wet grass and made a very quick find. Thanks SoBad for the cache

After a flurry of caches published overnight i had time after golf to head out and find a couple.
Just what I expected GZ to look like from the cache name.
TFTC

FTF! An early morning visit after failing to grab an FTF elsewhere. I had assumed the gate here would still be closed but I was obviously late enough that the caretaker had been out and opened it. That made for a much shorter walk. After a bit of a scramble I got to raise the victory flag on this one. Thanks for the history lesson as well as for the cache off to find the photo now but pretty sure I know the one you mean.
Thanks SoBads for the cache.

Second to find as the darkness turned to light - - - my mission so different from the one referred to in the cache description. How lucky are we! Signed the log then wandered out onto the beach to play with my new toy. TFTC .

After a DNF on another new cache, by the time I got here I was 3TF. Time to head home and try to solve another minimalist puzzle I think. TFTC, Biggles.

Oops. Didn't expect so early finds and forgot to drop in trackable.

Published