Chrystalls Bend Walkway Start (Otaki) Otaki, North Island, New Zealand
By tmann421 on 31-Jul-17. Waypoint GC79R7M

This is one of a series of caches I attempted during my solo trip to NZ on 18th-21st October, 2024. This opening (lengthy) paragraph is backstory about the trip; specific stuff about this particular cache, and info about photo/s (if attached) will be in the next paragraph. Several other caches were on a list to get but not found due to time constraints, legs hating me, changed plans; DNF's have not been logged, as most were only a very quick/cursory search before deciding to move on with the trip, and a fairer search may have turned up the desired finds. 30 caches were successfully found in New Zealand, from 15 different cache owners, with a maximum of 8 finds from same cache owner; find furthest from home was ~2,650km away in Taonui; a big thank you to all cache owners who put in the time and effort to place and maintain caches found. Due to busy schedule, logs may be delayed a fair bit before posting; I'm aiming to get through all logs by end of November 2024, noting that any mention of cache conditions are based on when I found them in October, and may no longer be accurate by the time the logs are posted. Day 1 of my trip saw me leaving home at the earliest time I've left home in probably 3 years, driven by partner (lilbassgirl) to Melbourne (Tullamarine) international airport, flying to Wellington (with motion sickness issues on the way due to turbulence), then grabbing some caches on the way to my NZ base at Paekakariki. Day 2 was a caching drive to Feilding and back; I'd intended to do the Paekakariki Escarpment track in the arvo, but given illness and dehydration from previous day, I decided against it, and instead spent more time/got more caches than I'd intended where I drove. Day 3 was taking photographs of a steam train (JA1271; with diesel DA1431 {wearing 345 on the sides} at the other end) run by Steam Incorporated from Paekakariki to Longburn, then driving ahead to Feilding to become a passenger on said train to Whanganui and back, with a few hours of lunch and photography, plus a cache/AdLab walk in Whanganui, and more train photos despite the increasing darkness returning from Feilding to Paekakariki. Day 4 saw me returning rental car to Wellington (with some caching/photography detours on the way), flying back to Melbourne (Tullamarine), luckily without motion sickness that time, and being picked up by my partner (lilbassgirl) again. A brilliant, unforgettable experience, and I can't wait to return to New Zealand again (but hopefully the motion sickness on planes can be avoided on future trips).Now, onto this particular cache:Easy to find, no issues inside the container, but there are a lot of creepy crawlies on the exterior. Gloves would have been handy.

Nice find thank you for the cache

Nice easy find thanks !

The weather forecast was not looking great for today, and reality was in full agreement. Really wanted to get out and go for a wander though, so I did. By the time I parked at the start of the walkway, the heavens had well and truly opened up! So, I donned the wet weather gear and off I went. Found the cache attached with about 15 snails and an entire platoon of slaters, I carefully extracted the treasure away from them and took the cache further up the track underneath the shelter of the expressway. I was pretty confident, that there would be no one else crazy enough to be looking for this particular cache while I had it. There was no way I was going to try and sign the log in the open - the log would have been mush in no time at all. Made sure to replace on the return journey. Thanks tmann421 1120

**taybee** is caching again with **taybee nz** for the dayQuick find here today All in good order, sign log book as **taybee (** *joint sign* **TB's** or **taybee / nz )** TFTC Cache was found at **17/08/2024 @ 17:00:19**

Today was a fun day. First it was up to Palmerston North for the event up there. After that we legged it south to get to the event in Waikanae as we were a little late leaving Palmy. After the event all these new caches were posted so off we all went to find them. TFTC

A ~~morning~~ (now afternoon) of caching around the taki and taki Beach area to boost my numbers for the Cosmic Challenge (and to attempt to clear the area between the sea, the river, the province boundary, and SH1).The last in the area with only a single DNF to prevent a complete clearance.All good here, and thank you to tmann421 for the placement of your Traditional Cache.Find #6986 at 4 August 2024 12:18pm

Easy as man. Hid it a bit for you

Good find!

After exploring mostly Waikanae since we moved in the area, we decided it's now time to smilify more of the wider area. Today we tackled Chrystalls Bend and Ashford Park walkways which nearly! formed a circular walk. We found out about the "nearly" bit once we were on the height of the bridge crossing the Otaki river. Let's just say good that nobody was in the quarry today to work so if you plan to walk this way best to go via Rahui Road not the Peka Peka to Otaki path...All in all a very pleasant walk with part gravel part grass all well maintained. Definitely could have taken the little ones bike along. Other than at the lagoon the paths were far enough from the water to make it a safe and enjoyable walk in nature for the whole family.Is that really the right way? Truck signs and a quarry? Yep, it is second cache of the day quickly located by miss 4 year old

A quick find here thanks

TFTC another good cache, thankyou

Decided it was a good excuse to take the dog along here. Quick find. Saw our friend Geckoh was the last to sign.

A nice quick find here today. Tftc

**19,077**When Mr Geckoh returned to the van, he asked "Did you find the Walkway Start cache?" I said yes, but he said he didn't see our name in the log. Turns out we each found a cache at (near) GZ, one on each side of the concrete blocks (his a mint tin, mine a screw top). Both are signed so we a well and truly covered, as to which is the original - who knows!! TFTC

A couple of snails attached to this one. Good find. Tftc

Another cache ticked off, thanks tmann421

#14665

We are heading towards home after a fantastic week caching in the lower North Island. Came over here from the previous cache. TFTC # 20.348

Nice quick easy cache as cache suggests - found on my way back to the car from this glorious walking track - TFTC

Always looking to combine running and caching and what a perfect walkway for doing that. TFTC.

Geowoof + water + rocks being thrown in = ️️️️. Happy woods while KiwiKatieG and I walk along this path to collect some caches. Log in great condition. The container had a few natural attachments added to it (snails). Log signed. Onto the next. TFTC

Short walk to here from the main carpark. TFTC

Easy find and it had some slow moving shelled guardians coming along for the ride when I picked it up. Was a little exposed to covered it back up and on we went. Tftc

Today was a day for a road trip up to Rangitikei and Manawatū, unlocking adventure lab locations and finding caches.

As I was collecting the adventure lab locations for the newish adventure lab in Ōtaki it would be remiss of me to not look for this one. After reading the hint (and the CO's propensity for hiding caches up, up, and away) I was a little worried, but I was able to get my hands on the cache from following the instructions. Signed and replaced. All good here, and TFTC.

First cache of the day, and a nice easy find, although the snails were doing their best to hide the cache. Nice sunny day, walking around in a tee shirt

The boss gave us a day off and as far as I can tell, it was just for the heck of it. Woohoo! Four day weekend! I'm going to Wanganui! Friday - to Palmerston North.
Normally when I am coming past here, it's about 7pm and I am more keen to get where I am going than to stop and cache. But with Friday off I decided to make this a more relaxed trip and was here midmorning. Always wanted to do Chrystalls Bend, and now I have plenty of time

Cool spot by the river! Cool stop from our trip! Thanks

Found it

Not too busy. Even the resident snail had their feet up. Thanks tmann421

A nice quick find. Thanks for placing your cache.

Ms_KR and I cruised around today, picking up the odd cache on our journey to Palmerston North. The weather was good most of the day, and the traffic was OK too.

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

Hard

A nice quick find to start our walk around Chrystalls Bend - another one of those spots I wouldn't even know existed if it weren't for geocaching. TFTC

Out on a bit of a mission with Poppy the Geo-Staffy, tylerdrummond and beautiful Geo-Wife to knock off a few caches around Otaki.
After the short walk from "Chrystalls Bend Walkway Carpark" I stopped to take a quick photo of Poppy the Geo-Staffy. Just as I clicked the button Tyler said "Found It". Well that was easy!
TNLNSL TFTC

Came by and checked on cache - all ok with logsheet in pretty good condition.

After enjoying 3days in Wellington it was time to head home. I hadn’t done many geocaches so thought I would collect some in Ōtaki. And drag the kids for a walk.

A nice easy one for the walk

Time off work, time to get some caches further out Appreciated the parking waypoint though Siri doesn’t know about the new Expressway yet. Quick find. Thanks tmann421!

I was in Otaki today on another mission, so thought I would try to do some of the caches on this walkway. As it turned out, I only managed to do this one, and will need to come back another day, probably when the roadworks are finished, for the others.

Thanks for the cache

Starting the walk for the caches today
A little wet but that's perfect caching weather
Looking forward to this journey on Chrystalls bend

Nice quick find to start my Otaki River walk. Tftc!

Quick and easy find while on our bike ride with friends: 11 of us. Soon signed with others on this nice sunny day.
TFTC

Found while on a historical places cycle tour of Otaki with gpetone, Point of Interest (PoI) and several friends from the tramping club. A cloudless, slightly chilly and a near still day just ideal to pause and find the caches and visit the places of interest. TFTC

Easy find
TFTC

Careful of all the heavy machinery!!

Quick, easy find, nice and hidden

Out for a bike ride on a beautiful day.

While out biking with nanniekerr

From Auckland.
Dankie/TFTC.
Found with VinnigeVoete.

Already found caches in the following countries:
1 South Africa, 2 New Zealand, 3 Australia, 4 USA, 5 Spain, 6 Portugal,
7 Latvia, 8 Estonia,
9 Finland, 10 Andorra,
11 Antigua and Barbuda,
12 Saint Lucia, 13 St Kitts, 14 Netherlands Antilles,
15 Qatar, 16 Mozambique, 17 Swaziland, 18 France,
19 Belgium, 20 Italy,
21 Croatia, 22 Montenegro,
23 Greece, 24 Slovenia,
25 Netherlands
26 Botswana, 27 Namibia, 28 Russia, 29 Turkey,
30 Zambia, 31 Tanzania,
32 Kenya,, 33 Rwanda,
34 Uganda, 35 Malawi,
36 Zimbabwe,
37 Singapore , 38 UK England, 39 Ireland

Found with BoertjieRSA.
Thanks for the cache.

Quick find here! Pity dog owners who bother to bag things then leave them. Many thanks- looking forward to this walk!

Found it - took the trackable

Just dropped off a trackable.

11.50am. Setting off to find the six hides along this track. Easy one first up.
Thank you. David.

Nice easy find. So many cool trucks to look at coming and going from the nearby quarry. TFTC

Heading down to Porirua for the weekend but still had an hour of daylight for some caching. Stopped here for a short walk. Collected the first two caches before it got dark. Will plan to return with a bike next time. Lovely to see all the new trees that have been planted. Cache and log all fine. Thanks for the recent maintenance and the smiley.

Yeow

Thanks tmann421 for the cache. It’s #1533 for us. We found your cache on 1 June 2021. Found in its new location. Dropped a trackable.

Replaced cache, area has changed a bit!

Didn’t find where I thought was obvious

Lovely bike ride in the area.
Ended up with 3 successful finds and 3 DNFs.
Nothing at obvious spot.
Very exposed GZ at the moment.

Nice cache for a quick find - thanks.

Quick find at the start of a walk thanks.

A quick stop off for this one on my way north to the event in Sanson.
TFTC

A quick stop for a cache while waiting for lunch to be cooked nearby. Lots of spots for a cache to hide here. Also lots of truck traffic - definite care needed getting here. TFTC.

Second to last cache of the day before catching my bus back, running out of daylight anyway.

I was taking advantage of the added flexibility accorded by free bus and train travel till the end of the month. All did not quite go according to plan at the end as the trains were messed up but fortunately I still was able to transfer to one quite quickly.

A quick find here, no problems.

Took two trackables to move on as they have been here nearly four months.

Left the one that wants to get to all states of the USA, as far as I know NZ is not one of them (!) and with current travel restrictions it is unfortunately unlikely anyone will be able to get it back to its mission any time soon.

I am hoping to return to do some more of the Chrystalls Bend caches some time.
TFTC.

Just dropping off three trackable picked up in Aussie

Came up to Otaki with the family and stopped here briefly on our way back home, youngest son quickly located the cache and we watched a large group of swimmers, some jumping off the train bridge into the fast flowing current. Cache is in good condition. TFTC

Decided to go for a drive to grab some caches since it was a beautiful day. Quickly spotted signed log and replaced as found. Tftc an smiley and thanks for bringing us to this lovely spot

We intended to go for a walk in Otaki Forks, but unfortunately the road was closed to get there.
Plan B was to come here and look for the old cache.
On the good advice of WelkiNZ we met we will make some caches along the river and in particular that of Chrystalls Bend.

---
Thanks tmann421 for the geocache [^]
Greetings from Belgium,
Frank et Muriel travelling in New Zealand

Happy geocaching

New container and log placed - good to go!

Good to go.

Will replace log when back in the country.

Location in a pleasant walk to Chryatals Bend. The start of the walk gives good view of the new expressway bridge being built. The log sheet has totally disintegrated- water in the cache container.

I was thwarted by muggles when I visited here last year. Today, I had the place to myself and I very quickly sorted out where the cache was hiding.

On my way thought to Wellington for the day thought to get some more caches to help with the 35 to get for the current mystery at the museum challenge. Easy find. Thanks for the cache

More to come later

Quick find once I got the right clue item. Interesting local history; I like industrial history. Thanks for the cache!

A quick stop here for a cache. Had a bit of trouble deciding where to park but thankfully it's not a workday so don't need to worry too much. The hint was sort of helpful but sort of not. TFTC .

Visited to collect TB's to take with us on our trip down to the South Island.

Cache # 4,779 - First cache since I ended my streak nearly a week ago. Enjoying resuming the hobby after an enforced 5 day break! Did with Crystal Fairy and gang today. Easy find, all well, although log could use a replacement soon. Did not bring one with me today, sorry! TNLNSL. TFTC!

Did with The Wandering Dragons and friends today. Enjoyed throwing stones into the river nearby after finding the cache. Thanks!

Cache # 981

Found with TWD, CF and a few others today. They called out "found it" while I was searching a different area nearby. Thanks.

Cache # 1,512

Quick and easy find on the way to a Creation event in Levin. Did with Mycro Man and Ezratar along with The Wandering Dragons crew. T4TC. Kids loved throwing stones into the water nearby.

Did with Crystal Fairy.

This geocacher reported that there is a problem with this cache.

Tick. Container moist. Needs a little tlc. Great walk or ride with the kids this.

How on earth did I miss this last time? Tftc

Find #2997. A day in the Otaki area, primarily for the Festival of Pots and Garden Art. Used the afternoon, on the bike, covering 29km to collect 15 caches on the northern side of the Otaki river. Otaki offers far more than just the shops on SH1. The village and beach settlements are charming and full of history, both European and Maori.

This walkway was an unexpected delight and even better for being cyclable which is obviously a popular option. The prolific plantings spanning nearly a decade have grown remarkably well and will only enhance the area more with time. All credit to all the volunteers and businesses who have contributed to this project.

Found not in the long grass but in a far more likely place. SL TFTC

As promised. We have checked in to the cache to retrieve the TB's to take on holidays.

Found this today as our 1st cache of 2019. Discovered 2 TB's and if these are still here when we go away in a couple of weeks we may retrieve them to take with us. TNLNSL. TFTC.

One of eleven caches located today whilst biking along the riverside track both west and east of the highway. Warm Sunday at the start of summer. Made much harder work of this one than I needed to! Took a few minutes to find. #2091. TFTC.

Thanks tmann421 for the cache. It’s #1028 for us. We found your cache on 22 November 2018. Great cache and a quick find. More importantly, this is a larger container than most in this area of SH1 so it’s good for dropping trackables. I’ve dropped off 2 today that I brought in from overseas. Happy Travels you two!!

(# 4815). Started work early (for me) today as I have a few things to clean up. Then finish up at 10.30. As it was a nice day I decided to grab a few caches in the Otaki area. Started off by grabbing 3 newish caches near Te Horo then did the bridge to sea river walkway then the Chrystall's Walkway. A nice warm day for a bit of friendly (flat) walking. A quick find. Everything in order. TFTC

I had planned to spend the entire Labour Weekend in the Upper Hutt area at the Wellington Mega, however my plans changed so I had to wait to the day before to see if I was able to attend. It turned out that I was able to, so a quick plan for the day to attempt eleven different cache types and early start in Feilding, to try and make the first event of the day at the Cossie Club at 9.45am. A good drive down to Upper Hutt - after the drama of the day before on State Highway 1 and made it to the location with a few minutes to spare to see the line forming for registration.

Heading back home after a successful day's caching and a quick detour off the highway. Cache was quickly in hand here. last one for the day - time to head for home. TFTC

It’s Day 1 of our 2018 WENZ MEGA crusade and Team BOP are well represented by McJandals, NZFlossy, TNXPro, Davidson Clan, FapAndGap & Squirrel nutcase and myself.

We have a huge hit list for this 5 day affair so it's gonna be a little manic. We’ve signed our logs either individually or as ‘Team BOP’ depending on log space, size or condition. A special thanks to all the CO’s and those who have helped keep these caches in good order.

We'd stop so TNXPro could make a phone call - naturally there'd be a cache here as well. Cheers, tmann421, TFTC

Looked on wrong hillock at first tftc

It seemed like a nice day for a walk along the Otaki River although despite being blue sky it was breezy and nippy. The ol' cache sense was clearly a bit rusty since this, the first cache, took me the longest to find today despite not being a tricky hide. If anything it seemed a bit uncharacteristic of this CO which maybe what caused the delay. All good though.

Interesting to see the new bridge construction here and the walkway kind of threaded through the site. Thanks for the excuse to come here.

Nice quick first find thanks to the hint on a wander up the river trail before a lunch time engagement at Waikanae.

This cache was a little exposed on it's little hillock but replaced witha bit more camo. Just a couple of tmann caches to round off the day whilst the family sampled the shopping delights of th retail village on a brief 20 minute stop-over. I made finds on both of the nearby river bridge caches then headed back to collect them before heading the last part of our journey. T F T C tmann421.


Day 7 of 7 and time to head back down the line for a trip back to the Mainland via an early afternoon ferry. I allowed us some extra stopping off (sushi, caching and a little shopping) time on the way back and that enabled a barely affecting 8 ccahes for the day and a few more smiles on my map, and face. Grabbed 6 in and around Foxton, and two more at the ends of the Otaki River walkways. All good finds and all replaced as found. Once I got back to Marlborough it was a return to my self-inflicted slim pickings.
Until the MEGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thanks to all the CO s for their hides.
I have had some holiday leave booked for a while now and we are heading North on the ferry, along with the Cache-Qai, and off to Rangitikei to visit our daughter, her partner and our son. First time this many members of the family have been together for a few years so should be good. The plan was half day in work followed by heading off after lunch, then arriving early evening in W(h)anganui to catch up with kids. We're on the North island for a week so there will sure to be some cache found whilst in the area. My Marlborough and Tasman finds have been inching slowly but surely towards my Manawatu/Rangitikei finds but this trip will be sure to redress that balance again for a few more years I'm sure.

The EtherClan invaded [@TwigNZ](http://coord.info/PRPHK6E)'s castle for the weekend with the aim of heading south to chase a World Turtle.
The first priority was pure numbers to count towards the souvenirs of the current promotion, and the second was a lonely (puzzle) cache that hadn't been found in 1000+ days.
With the puzzle solved, we set off on Saturday morning with Priority 2 set as the start of Priority 1.

We're caching our way back north now, but we had an offshoot for some caches near the beach at Pukerua Bay which caused the wheels fell off our P1 mission when EtherMaster6 asked if he could play for a bit.
It turned into a lot longer than a bit and it looks like the World Turtle souvenir is swimming out to sea without us, but the memories that the boys made skimming stones into the waves and searching for Mermaid's Purses are more important

Thanks for getting me nearer to my next souvenir (although I'm still a long way short from the Turtle...)

We had intended to do more of the caches on this side of the bridge, but the rain meant we had to settle for this close one.
There were workers near by but they couldn't see what we were up to.
We left a pet rock - a snake.
Thanks for setting this up tmann421

On the hunt for some hidden creatures today, after a very late start we still managed 18 and a couple of DNFs, the weather lucky stayed good enough to cache in. thanks for the placement - second time here so glad to tick this one off