To Infinity and Beyond (BOP) Papamoa, North Island, New Zealand
By tryfyn on 21-Jun-18. Waypoint GC7RGMC

Was out on the mountain bike and got detoured off the bike trail, past these wetlands.Instead of continuing the detour down the road, I rode in to the caches amongst the wetlands as I've never been in here before.Managed to ride all the way in to this cache, though it wasn't easy as the grass was long. I liked the story behind this. Cache was found in the obvious spot, but I however the log was swimming inside the plastic bag. Took a few minutes to dry out the log to sign it and decided it would be better without the bag, so removed it. Fav for the story. Tftc

Took a long meandering walk through the wetlands and eventually got to the cache. Love the story behind it. TFTC

Had a nice walk out to GZ to find this cache, enjoyed the wet lands and the bird life. Cool .

Very beautiful location. Loved the story about it and the lovely walk to retrieve it. Thnks for the placement

Cool

Cool

**#14,261**
The last find of our weekend away to the Waikato and back (pretty much like the space Bleep!)
We have been meaning to find this one for a long time but it was usually towards the end of the day when there is no time left to go for it.
This time we had time to spare and were not too tired so parked up in the carpark and made a plan for the find, somehow we stuffed it up and were walking long the wrong path and ended up having to backtrack, soon onto the correct track and the cache was soon discovered.
No problems with the find, very interesting story and video clip behind this hide.
TNLN TFTC

Cool

Found

Cool spot

Cool place

Came over today with the kids to grab the Maketu tour caches and to have an ice cream at Maketu. As this has been sitting on my map for a very long time decided we had to get this as well while in the area. My hairy legs didn’t enjoy the walk to GZ with all the grass seed sticking to them. Great to see you doing some excellent experiments with your classes never did anything like this when I was at school. Tftc

What a great find! The back story to this cache is really interesting, and although we found the terrain to be more challenging than we expected, due to following the loop track instead of going directly to the cache, we did eventually make the find. Great video, too - I wish we got to do these amazing experiments at school! TFTC

What an amazing adventure for everyone concerned!
Ever since I read about it 2 years ago I have been keen to find the cache...
Unfortunately I previously couldn't find the entry to the Kaituna Wetlands !
Even though I'd been before but had been driven that time.
Today was the day!
All good....Walked there a bit of a long way....took heaps of photos...took a while to find and sign .Then walked out the most direct way to carpark.
Had gumboots but was fairly dry so shoes were fine.
Was in the area over 2 hours due to a few wrong turns...but very pleasant.
Only saw one other guy with his dog.
Luckily duck season is over as wasn't wearing Hi Vis!
Many thanks....

Don’t wear ya good shoes!

Decent hide! Good walk in

Great to get out and about today. Great to have a few hours to myself and away from all the covid talk! Nice quick find, was a bit disappointed that I didn’t find Buzz Lightyear though

Quite a workout because of long grass.tftc

TFTC

Easy walk with the fam

Almost gave up! TFTC!

neat

Out and about with CeeVee before the rain. Interesting walk to cache site and cache all good

Out cacheing with CamCat1 again before the rain arrived. Nice walk through the wetlands. Once at GZ it wasn't long before cache was in hand and log signed. Cache placed back as found. Cheers

Enjoyed exploring these wetland. Probably took the long way round to find the three caches but it was a pleasant walk. Caches all fine and only one couple leaving as we arrived. TFTC

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)...

We expected a muddy, waterlogged walk into ground zone. However, conditions were pretty good underfoot, and Gap wore his best caching jandals. The find was quite straightforward, and the business was completed without incident...

I enjoyed reading through the cache description at leisure. Learning from hands-on experience has to be the best way to teach space and space exploration. I am quite sure these students will remember this adventure for years to come. Well done to all those involved. Was Geocaching explicitly taught here? TFTC.

3.30pm - Found suitable parking spot to go find this cache. Greeted by the foul remains of 3 sheep that had been butchered here.
After carefully checking map decided on hopefully the right track to take. Planning spot on and found cache safely on ground. SLTFTC

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.

What a great idea for a cache. We read the discription as we wandered to GZ. Very wet underfoot tonight, and I'm glad you didn't put it where it actually landed. Thanks for the hide.

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.

Thanks to all the CO's for their caches and maintaining their caches

Out and about on a Friday night 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.

While c&d and HKCB strode on ahead, k69 and myself slogged through the muddy puddles and again wondered what we had signed up for. Feet were throughly wet by the time we reached Gz, but on the way we cheered ourselves up somewhat by reading the cache page. A really cool tale for this one. Thanks for sharing this cache and it's story with us.

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 improved and we had a lot of fun dashing about the BOP on a star-light night. A few logs were signed with the team name ‘HOAC’ to save space.

Recent & ongoing rainfall meant this really was the wetlands tonight. Wasn't feeling the love for the location or for our driver for adding this to tonight's list ...didn't we agree park and grabs, given it's such a wet night .... but then I read the cache description while I was walking to GZ and wow, what a great back story! A fav just for that. What are the chances that it would land somewhere reasonably accessible?? Great idea. And a nice easy find for me, coz the others had the cache in hand by the time I waded up to GZ, cache all good, log signed & replaced, TFTC

it has been a long time since I was las out here especially as I had accessed it from Pah Road from the main Te Puke Highway. It hasn’t changed very much and I am sure it wasn’t as muddy - well today anyway. Thanks for the interesting info and write up Tryfyn- amazing how fat it went. I enjoyed the walk to the cache even if I did take the long way - at one stage I was beginning to wonder where I was TFTC

We will remember our 536th find as a cache that had reached outer space which must have really satisfied the people especially the pupils involved in this exercise. To all concerned in this project thanks for producing a cache that was different and unique.

It was midnight when I got the 4 new cache alerts - but was it too late? I put a message up on the BOP Geocaching page but no bites there either so call me crazy but I've got nothing else happening tonight. I grabbed my coat and was off to climb The Mount - next stop was Matua - then I was off to Katikati. Now I'm here at the Kaituna Wetlands!

Well it's been 3 years since I was last out here but with so much space still available I thought it was only a matter of time before another cache was placed but as I read the page I realised this was no ordinary placement. I knew all about these flights from various news articles but never put two & two together regarding your involvement tryfyn. For what may appear to be just a throw down cache this one turned out to be so much more - man it was cold though! Each step exuded a loud crunching sound - the puddles were iced over - and in the darkness this walk felt so much further.

Coords and hint were straight forward and gz became obvious the closer I got. I replaced as found by snuggling the cache back under the vines - then I returned the way I came... so only slightly offended by the previous logs. Possibly a little [FTF] envy? Of all the places to land though - this was very fortunate - kismet if you will. Cheers tryfyn, TFTC.

**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/). Once you're registered and have logged your attendance on the [WENZ Event Page](https://www.geocaching.com/…/GC78NMQ_wenz-event-2018-wellin…) you're all set, see you there.**

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**Early 2015 a group of Tauranga based cachers started a [BOP Geocaching Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/groups/GeocachingBOP/).
189 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.**

Published

Blast blast blast off! Or brassed?. We were supposed to be heading north but that wasn't to be. This morning we had to be up early so we headed for this one. We had followed with great interest the trials and tribulations of these exciting space experiments- aren't kids lucky to be involved in this space exploration. Would almost make me actually attend physics classes!! Anyway our exploration was cutting edge but not the first. The cutting edge was all about the icy trek into the wilderness. The mud was very crunchy underfoot and ice covered all the puddles. At first no new footprints were evident. But wait - what was that? Then as we closed in on gz the footprints were very evident - did he arrive by spaceship??? There was no need to check the log as the activity spoke volumes (a heavy booted being bumbling around in the dark). Oh well one less cache to find when we return. Thanks tryfyn fir sharing this space experience with us and setting up a cache in a well deserved area

Wow what an adventure this cache has had already.

How exciting this must have been for the Otumoetai space research team...we ventured out early morning with an extremely crisp frost on the ground.As we proceeded along the way I noticed frozen foot prints in the grass and mud,...guessing the usual Mr log at your leisure had been out much earlier ...it was a pleasant walk to GZ temp 2deg C ...the GPS soon had us on the spot...I didnt have to search hard as it was hanging out in the open...some one was in a hurry...signed the log and replaced as should be with some natural cover camo thanks Tryfyn great we cache and pleased to be able to say I have touched and signed something that's been nearly out of this world and been on the fringes of outspace so cool .....most enjoyable read and cache