Santa's 5/5 Xmas Cache Whangarei, North Island, New Zealand
By GeoSantaClaus on 28-Dec-17. Waypoint GC7GETC

Thanks to Liz for organizing this event to complete her Mystery cache month of January. I now have been introduced to GC9BVGM which I am finding a challenge indeed. Hence I delayed logging this cache until today to fill a blank day in February. One always need support when facing a challenge and this 5/5 certainly was one of those.Needed was the collapsible ladder, the agile tree climber, the support team to offer advice and signed the log paper.

I thought I'd completed my calendar in November 2022. When it didn't show as complete on project gc I looked closer. There was one gap in the top right hand corner - Jan 31st! How did I miss that?? Very annoying!I waited for Jan 2023 to come and I was all set to celebrate this milestone when a cyclone hit. Civil Defense sent out warnings - head home and don't travel!! I was gutted. I had no cache saved in Paihia that I could grab in the area let alone on my 3km commute home. I had planned to go for a nice walk in Russell after work to get a virtual. Another hope dashed. So a year later it was very nice to be able to finally celebrate this milestone. I planned an event nearby before heading over to this cache. Thanks to a friend for bringing his extending ladder so we could explore this tree. My son easily climbed the ladder and I did my bit but only reached the top of the ladder. We attracted the attention of a couple of neighbours and one came over and explained how this tree was significant to him and other local maori. Very pleased to sign off this puzzle that I solved way back in November 2018

Found with the group at the event. not sure how i feel about this one.very challenging to solve and to find. Special equipment and agile caching friends an essential requirement. TFTC

Attended Lis's Full Calendar Event nearby so it was great that one of the group was armed with a folding ladder (very envious of his fantastic TOTT ) The tree was an oldie in the reserve and glad that one of the group attendees was happy to climb up the ladder to get the cache. A local muggle mentioned to a few of the group members the history of the tree.This puzzle was easy to solve once I had a hint from a local geocacher puzzle whizz. Thanks for this challenging puzzle and cache.

Out and about with several of the local geocachers this evening as we needed a brave soul to climb the ladder for this cache. Although an old Puriri tree it wouldn't be easy to access the cache without a ladder, we were also literally in someone's backyard although still in the reserve so there was attention from the locals while searching for the cache.It is likely that the cache was placed well before houses were built in the subdivision as the subdivision is now fully developed with newly built homes all around. In addition a local resident did voice his concerns that the tree had special significance and therefore shouldn't be climbed or interfered with. Possibly this geocache should be archived for these reasons.

. 2215. I solved this puzzle a few years ago after a useful hint but I decided it wasn't worth it after a previous tree geocache and an ugly slip resulting in an injury. I was very happy to support the ladder rather than bouncing around in the tree. I think that this geocache must have been hidden well before the subdivision was fully developed as it felt like we were in someone's backyard with newly built homes all around. If this geocache was mine I would probably archive it. TFTC.

Solved a while back so decided to have a look as we were in the area. Very quickly decided that we lacked the equipment to even reach the first branches! Good luck to anyone attempting this one. Stay safe

Well this had been a journey in the making for some time as for the past few weeks a group of us were working on puzzles in the area for a 24 hour mission (travel time included) to see what we could reasonably grab.

All caches were signed "HOAC" so as to save space in the logbook. So together with HKCB, 11HPG, kiwis69 & Alpenmilch83 we left Hamilton at 6.pm with the aim to do as many as possible before sleeping in the car, grabbing breakfast and continuing on. Plenty of laughs were had and stories told. Thanks to all the CO's for their efforts in keeping these going and taking the time and effort to place and maintain these caches.
this was a colective effort in the best possible way for the solve on this one, with each of the team contributing to the final retreval. Were very please to have our own monkey who did the final peice of the puzzle and get the cache signed. Saw the CO just as we were leaving and he demonstrated free climbing the best. Nicely done

Thanks for the placement, Thanks for the cache

On another HOAC mission, this time with Cats&Dragons, Kiwis69, 11HPG11, and Alpenmilch80. The mission a 24 hour blitz on Whangarei puzzles, plus a certain multi to complete C&D's 5th loop around the D/T grid. Leaving Hamilton at 6pm, with a quick stop in Auckland to pick up A80, we were in Whangarei caching just after 10pm.

During the moonlight hours the plan was to focus on the puzzles around Onerahi, and the Pokemon series, while during thhe daylight the plan was to focus on thegreatauk puzzles plus a few others we had solved. The mission turned out to be fairly successful considering the level on difficultly of most of the hides we were targeting. The logs were signed as HOAC to save room on the logs, a big thanks must go out to all the CO's for their hides.

I had looked at the puzzle before we left and I was nearly on the right wavelength to solve it, and I was just missing it by a hair, however another member of the team twigged onto it and got the solve. Being a bit of a monkey I was the first to put my hand up for the climb, I was hoping for a easier climb however that wasn't quite the case and I was thankful we had brought a tool to help out. However once in the right spot the cache was easily spotted. Thanks for the puzzle and the climb.

A Friday night a bit different. I got picked up in AKL by a car loaded with Cats&Dragons, 11hpg11, kiwis69, HKCB & a trunk full of food, which could have lasted us for a week surviving in Whangarei. Started into the night with telling a lot of funny stories, enjoying laughter’s and geocaching, geocaching, geocaching.... Tried solving the puzzle, but must have over thought the solution a lot. One team member made the correct connection and we had the green tick. Sorry to have added a lot of red once to it as well .
Arrived at GZ and made our way to the tree bringing a ladder which made the climb a lot easier. We just signed the log book when the CO appeared giving us a demonstration on how to free climb the tree barefoot. Well done!
I enjoyed the time out with the HOAC crew and must say when I arrived back home I felt broken, but very happy and accomplished. TFTC and TFTTrip

A trip to Whangarei for the night to collect a few caches is totally normal right? 2 hours sleep is also normal? Our group tonight consisted of Cats&Dragons, HKCB, Kiwis69, Alpenmilch80 and myself. We left Hamilton at 6pm on Friday and we were home by 6.30pm on Saturday. Some great caches were found and some laughs were had and a lot of sugar and caffeine consumed. A lot of planning and puzzle solving had gone into the prep work so we had a good plan of what caches to attack. Logs were signed as HOAC to save room

A lot of teamwork went into this one, both the solve and the find. Glad to finally knock this one off and stop our team members banging their heads against the walls! The final was fairly straightforward, having both tools and a monkey to help with the climb. No free climbing for us as we have age and size against us. Great to see how quickly you could get up these trees Thegreatauk.

Found during our 24-hr Whangarei caching mission. After a few weeks' planning and a lot of nights scratching our heads over tricky puzzles, we (HKCB, 11HPG11, Alpenmilch83, C&D & myself) set off north on Friday evening with our caching wish-list. Our main targets were puzzles, night caches and less common DT ratings with a spot of tree climbing thrown in for good measure. Great trip: really enjoyed exploring new areas, lots of laughs as always and good to find a few caches before we headed back home on Saturday afternoon (although a bit more sleep while we were here would've been nice too!) Most caches were signed "HOAC" so as to save space in the smaller logbooks.

This solve gave us all a headache. We each were hoping to get hints and nudges from others within our caching crew but it quickly transpired none of us were making any progress. Past finders allude to the logic but nothing we tried came up with something that geochecker liked. The red X score was rising as time got closer to our trip. Meanwhile we were all also trying to solve the CO's other puzzles and, as we progressed through those, we got new ideas about how this might be solved. Inspired to retry, looked at this one again and tried something different ... tentatively entered the new numbers and geochecker agreed. That was quite an AHA moment!

GZ was obvious when we got there and, with a bit of team assist, the team monkey made quick work of finding the final cache. It felt really good to finally sign this one off. The CO knew we were searching, having met us at the TB hotel cache, and came to check on our progress with the tree climb. His free-climbing demo made me wish I was several decades younger!! Thanks for the cool (frustrating until solved) puzzle and for the adventure, a fav from me, TFTC

Had a look at this one when it was first published, but it seemed a bit complicated, so I had to pass on the first to find. I put it on the watch list though and when KC got the first green tick with no crosses on the geochecker, I knew it had to be solvable logically, but I still couldn't figure out how.

A couple of weeks ago, B24 also found it with a first time green tick too, so I revisited it again, but still without any luck. It was so frustrating. I knew it had to be logical, but without being able to make that first clue work, I was stuck, so I left it again for a few more days. Then one evening last week as I thought about other TGA puzzles I had solved, something suddenly stood out and as I carried on through the other 14 days, the numbers seemed to make sense. A quick check on Google maps, showed it was a possibility, so I put the numbers in the geochecker and got the green tick first time as well.

On the weekend I went and had a look at GZ and quickly realised that some specialized climbing equipment would be needed. Knowing that DaffyNZ had just such equipment and that he would probably be keen to look for this one as well, I shared a very slight nudge about the first day of Xmas. A couple of hours later, DNZ too managed to get the green tick first time and that lead to a plan being made to attempt the find today.

Once at GZ in glorious weather, we made out way to Santa's tree and assembled the equipment. Before I could even offer, DNZ was on his way up and once at the right height, the pesky bison was soon located. A trip back to GL to sign the log and then another ascent to replace as found and then we could really say, "We knocked the b....... off"

Giving this a fave as my first 5/5 cache, with an initially difficult solve, that turned out not too bad, and an interesting climb to GZ. TFTC

(2986) I have looked at this puzzle several times with no success. Then 0B80B8 pop in and said I've solve the bugger. With a wee nudge in the right direction I soon had some credible coordinates and the checker agreed. Then a time was set to meet near GZ with my large extension ladder to find this 5/5 cache. Once at the correct height I soon had the cache in hand and on my way down to sign the log with Peter. One more trip up to replace the cache in its hiding spot and we had another Auk puzzle sorted. TFTC

Had a look at this one a couple of weeks ago before our trip to Whangarei. Mrs. B. managed to solve it but we weren't quite sure how we were going to reach the cache. We know that the CO is quite the tree climber so we knew it was going to be a challenge. Fortunately we were able to borrow a ladder, which helped with the retrieval. We enjoyed the challenge of the puzzle and the cache, FP added. TFTC

We took a look at this puzzle a few days after it was published, and noticed there were no solves yet. After a bit of thought we tried something, and liked the numbers we were getting. The coords looked possible in Google Earth, so we put them in geochecker, and got the green tick . We didn't fancy travelling on the New Year weekend, so made plans to come north later in the week. But then the storm hit, and with a few other commitments to work around it wasn't until yesterday that we were free to travel. But the cache was still unfound .
Late yesterday afternoon we parked nearby and went to check out exactly where GeoSantaClaus had placed the little cache. When we saw the tree it was quickly apparent that the 3.5m ladder we had brought with us was not going to be anywhere near long enough. We spent a bit of time taking photos and trying to figure out where the cache could be hiding. We decided on a couple of likely spots, one quite a bit higher than the other.
This morning we hired an 8m ladder, and returned to GeoSantaClaus's tree. We extended the ladder and secured it against the tree, and one of us made the climb up to our first (hoped for) possibility. But no such luck, we would have to go higher. The ladder was repositioned and extended further, and up Mark went again. Some nearby workers got curious, and called out if we were after a cat. We smiled and said no - we knew we were looking for a bison. Once at the right height we were delighted to spot the little bison within arm's reach, and it was dropped below for signing. Opened it up to find the blank logsheet, and signed for the FTF . One more clmb to replace the cache, then returned the ladder, mission accomplished.
Thanks for the fun, GeoSantaClaus! Giving this one a Favourite point for the adventure.
Kiwicouple's First To Find coin visited.
(FTF)

Published