Are your Stars Aligned? (BOP) Omokoroa, North Island, New Zealand
By kahluis, Macwatt on 14-Aug-17. Waypoint GC7N131

After a recent DNF I met CO at an event that night so it was back today to actually find and sign the log. All the stars were aligned today. Thank you for the placement.

My fault as when I got to GZ I spotted what I thought the hide was but was now empty. After speaking to CO at an event later I was informed that the hide was different. So will need to return another day.

A joint effort solving this. Got to GZ & quickly spotted something I thought needed checking. Fav point for this cache container. Tftc

Another joint effort solving this puzzle. Out tonight to hunt it down, soon located at GZ. A really cool cache.

Got the weekend off
Decided to head over this way
Did this puzzle sometime ago great to get the final
Nice find
Also still nice and dry

Off on a weekend away with ABCDF4
Nice hide thanks to CO

Well what a crazy day its been! Yesterday I decided I wanted to get this one today. Had to hold off all day with two tsunami threats from two separate earthquakes, as I know gz is sea level. After I get the all the clear message, I rush down before all the schools get out and the area gets busy with muggles.

The walkway along the waterfront is almost done, looks so great!

**12,568**
As we were in the area, or at least close by, we thought it would be rude not to collect some of our solved puzzle caches. A nice stroll to GZ, Mr Geckoh quickly located the nicely concealed cache and we filled in the log while enjoying the scenery nearby. Thanks for a fun puzzle and a clever cache hide. TFTPC

Checked and adjusted. The nature of this hide means you may need a bit of leverage with a tool or pushing out from behind if there has been a bit of rain.

This needs urgent maintenace to free the cache from it holder. The wood has swollen and jammed it in place.

Bit of a mission to Align the stars to solve this puzzle a few weeks back. So very pleased they did as Tufty and I with extra tott help from him managed finally to sign this off. Interesting hide indeed.

Out and about with butchie bum today signing off a few solved puzzles and the odd trad that gets in the way.

Our stars were aligned today, especially when I went back to the cachemobile to get my toolbox so that I could remove the cache so that we could sign the log. This one definitely needs maintenance.

Cheers for the cache.

On our way back to Whangarei after a few days caching in Tauranga, trying to pick up as many of the solved puzzles and special caches as possible from my list. The weather today was the best we have had this trip, but that's Murphy's Law, isn't it.

This puzzle was a bit tricky and although I virtually aligned my stars correctly, I couldn't get the green tick until a nudge from the CO gave me the info I needed to make a small realignment and then success.

A side trip out to Omokoroa was then required and a short walk to GZ, where the cache was soon discovered. However the camo itself may have expanded a little and there was just no way I could move it to get access to the log. Took a photo which I can send if required. A nice clever hide which gets a fave from me. TFTC

Apologies for the late log.
We solved this about a year ago, but hadn't had the opportunity to make the find until it fitted the current geocaching.com challenge. Careful reading gave the clues we needed. We found the cache quickly then had difficulty extracting the container from it's hiding place, as it was tightly jammed. It took us several minutes and much patience to get it out then back in after signing, so we were grateful to have a few tools with us and also that there weren't many muggles around today.
Thanks for the puzzle & the cache kahluis!

Out caching this morning with Linda#1, Winston4ever, & Toycruiser. We drove down today from Sacramento to specifically target all these multis and puzzles! Thanks for the fun!

Its that time again and we are back in the bay for the holidays. A few solved puzzles was the agenda for today before it gets too hot. With the arrival of our son 6 months ago, we just haven't had the time to find geocaches of late. But today is the first day of the new year and an important day that only comes around once a year for one of us. What a better way than to start off the new year enjoying a walk with the family and find a couple of geocaches!
A tricky solve but we were awarded with the find - our first for 2019. Clever camo and placement. TFTPC!

I found this one with the help of my mummy and daddy on a hot and sunny day. I watched from the pushchair while my daddy signed the log for us.

Heading to Tauranga with Merlot58 for a daytrip, we detoured to Omokoroa to visit a friend. It was a stunning Summers day and we needed to stretch our legs before continuing our car journey. We had some help in solving this tricky puzzle, which we wanted to collect while in the area. It took a bit to extract the cache, but MrJAG patiently gently wiggled and wiggled the cache out from its hiding place. TFTP

This was a tricky puzzle to solve, I got a wee nudge as to the direction I needed to go but had some hiccups along the way with some conflicting information which gave me grief and lots of red crosses. Eventually I had success and as were were on a quick day trip to Tauranga we stopped to collect the smiley here. Mr Jag showed lots of patience as he gently worked to free the cache. FP given for the challenging puzzle and cache

From memory, it took a few goes to get the coords correct, but it was a long time ago that i solved the puzzle and i didn’t write a cache note for easy reference.

Being school holidays, i decided to take the kids and dogs for a caching outing. This was our first find after many distractions. Once at gz, it was a quick find - but a very good hide. Wi2ard’s small fingers came in handy when it came to log extraction.

Thanks for the puzzle and cache.

Found with mum. Awesome camo! Tftc

Found with mum, tftc

Since the weather was improving we decided to make a trip to Tauranga for an extended weekend so we could pick up the caches on our growing solved puzzle list.
This was our first find of the trip. We had enjoyed solving this puzzle the night it was published, and recall that we were in fact First To Solve it. After the drive south it was nice to stretch our legs a bit. Once we reached GZ we spied something of interest, but it wouldn't budge. On closer inspection from a different angle we could see the lid of the container, so knew we had to extract the object somehow. After quite a bit of levering the camo came free, much to our relief. Thanks for the puzzle and the clever hide - adding a Favourite point.

Tonight was only planned earlier in the week when the weather looked to be fantastic for a little detour to the BOP.
So in the company of kiwis69, HKCB & 11HPG11 we set off from home at approx 6pm and made it back home at 4am with only rain for about the first hours of the nights adventure.
There were quite a number of different caches collected in the progression acrodd the countryside as we were all working to collect some more caches all of course for the "Hidden creatures" challenge for the month.
Some of us had made great inroads to this and with only a few days to go I need all that I can as always a late starter.
and now its time to head for home
Thanks to all the CO's for their caches and maintaining their caches

A few of us managed to get a leave pass for tonight, as the numbers for the Hidden Creatures souvenirs. So after a quick call around Kiwis69, 11HPG11, Cats&Dragons and myself decided another night assault in and around Tauranga was a good idea. The general plan was to start at the Southern end and work our way North, and hopefully be home in time to get at least a few hours sleep.

With the rain easing a few hours into the trip the night turned out to be rather successful with all caches attempted being found, for a grand total of 22 to add to the creatures tally. A big thanks to the CO for the hides.

Was on the right track with this puzzle from the star but even then it took me a bit longer to get the stars to align. A puzzle I really enjoyed to solve. Nicely hidden at GZ though getting the log out proved to be difficult as the wet weather had lodged it tight. Luckily there was just enough room for us to unscrew the lid and retrieve the log.

Out and about on a Friday night/early Saturday morning mission to collect some more caches and work our way closer to some more hidden creatures. Tonight our group consisted of Cats&Dragons, HKCB and kiwis69. Signed logs as HOAC or with our names where space permitted.

All quiet here tonight and glad that we could search and extract the log without worrying about muggles. Another nicely done puzzle and final cache. Thanks for the puzzle and the great hide.

Out on a nocturnal mission with 11hpg11, cats&dragons & HKCB to grab some caches towards the “hidden creatures’ challenge ... unlike our northern hemisphere counterparts, we’re contending with winter and long dark nights but, heh, that just adds to the challenge! We started early evening in fairly heavy rain, wondering about our sanity, but thankfully the weather has improved and we're now having a lot of fun dashing about the BOP in the early hours of Saturday morning. We most definitely had stars to guide us tonight - amazing star gazing as we made our way here.

I struggled to get into the right groove to solve this one, HKCB was more patient & got there fairly quickly and was then kind enough to give me some tips on what I needed to do. It was good to be here at night and hence less likelihood of prying muggle eyes because the log was really tricky to extract. Got there in the end, thankfully. Great camo as we've come to expect from this CO, log signed & replaced, thanks for another cool puzzle, TFTC

What a great puzzle, - enjoyed working through it, and managed to sort out the solve after some research. Arriving at GZ today, found an obvious hiding spot - with nothing in it. Had it been muggled? Nothing else was standing out... but, hang on a minute, this is not quite right; and on further investigation the log book was soon signed,

On the way home after a day out with part of Team BOP - it had been a great day and I have to confess that I was asleep in the back seat and was not even sure where we were when I woke. Dragged out into the cold for a brisk walk to GZ soon cleared my head. I enjoyed the puzzle and the fun we had in solving. And as usual a great hide up to the usual sneaky standard of the CO's TFTPC

2.10pm - We had solve on board and parked near GZ. Walked to cache only to think who was more surprised, CO or us. CO was doing cache repairs and had container in hand. Able to refit cache. Good camo. SLTFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)... The plan was to take the ferry to Matakana Island, but time constraints and procrastination interfered with today's plan... Onward with Plan B!

We over complicated this puzzle on the night of publication. A good sleep and a fresh brain helped to crack this one... We arrived near ground zone and spotted a couple heading down the path. We didn't pay too much attention, and strolled down the track behind them... From several meters away, our focus began to clear as we identified the COs. We were very impressed to learn that they were doing a check up/maintenance run in the area. Everything here was in excellent order and another clever, well placed hide. TFTP and TFTC.

I had 14/15ths of this a few minutes (of arc) after publication but my optics were slightly misaligned and I couldn't get a clear image. A quick chat with the CO and I was able to take a more accurate sighting and find the missing piece of the constellation. Today, I proceeded to the observatory after work and was quick able to observe the slightly occluded object. The final observation required a deft touch and more than a little digital manipulation to obtain the required image. TFTC. Another fun cache on a bright, though quite chilly, afternoon.

Solving the puzzle was a tricky challenge. Getting the logbook out of the stuck cache was more of a challenge, but trying to put it back took more patience than I had. DC managed to get it back, but looks like the cache needs a bit of maintenance to loosen the swollen cache from its surroundings.
Thank you for the all round challenge.
Tftc

Had a we bit of trouble with this puzzle as my research into the exact time came up with several times depending on weather i used mordern or ancient time gave me different answers eventually worked it out. Arrived at GZ quickly located cache but guess the D 4 relates to the retrieval of the log or maybe returning the log sheet? Anyway i must have more patience than Tnxpro as I eventually got the log sheet back into the cache container and the lid back on. Not sure it was intended to be that hard to retrieve if not you may want to visit the cache ,With all that said I did enjoy this puzzle/cache FP from me.

Love this theme! I was right into this stuff when I was a teenager and could feel it all coming back as I worked on this puzzle. Thanks to the CO's clever hints I was able to get onto the solve straight away but there were two little signs that weren't giving me what I needed! Luckily the Solution Checker doesn't add up the red crosses... does it? Cause I tried and tried until I finally figured out where (or is it *when* ) I went wrong Sorted.

I arrived at GZ and started my search. Nothing looked out of place - everything was rock solid in fact. Eventually I spied the hide but had a hell of a time getting into it. Now I'm finished and I start heading back when a fellow cacher sends me a picture of my car lol McJandals has arrived!

Cheers kahluis - Great puzzle, an easy favourite and the [FTF] is just a bonus - but I have to say, I can't really afford to be driving out here everyday!


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What are you doing Labour Weekend 2018? Wellington is set to host New Zealands largest Geocaching Event of the year! Check out the details on the [WENZ Website](https://sites.google.com/site/wenzgeo2018/home) or visit the event's [Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/groups/590545297801072/) then log your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page.](https://www.geocaching.com/…/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellin…)

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**Early 2015 a group of Tauranga based cachers started a [BOP Geocaching Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/groups/GeocachingBOP/).
177 cachers currently make up this [Closed](https://www.facebook.com/help/220336891328465#What-are-the-privacy-options-for-groups) group where we organise various geocaching events and excursions as well as share information and friendly banter. Please check us out if you're interested.**

Just retired for the evening when notification came through, had a quick look and got a little head way with it but I was too tired and decided to sleep on it. This morning had me rushing around doing things then rushing back to the computer, I knew I had a busy morning planned, after dropping off hubby was able to reschedule a town appointment for earlier. Got the tick of approval and headed off, got to GZ and saw a familiar geo vehicle, damn I knew I should have cancelled my appointment!! Oh but how lucky was I to have PP there as I couldnt budge the cache, eventually had the log signed, missed on the prize by 20 mins. A clever puzzle and hide, many thanks you two, A FP, cheers.

Tricky puzzle!

Published