All Blacks Airport Challenge 2.0 Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
By antnich on 30-Jun-18. Waypoint GC7RZ1P

StreetWalkerNZ and I volunteered to drop our son off at a friend's place in Parnell, so took the opportunity to find a cache or two in the area and en route back to base.
We had solved the original version of the multi using google to find most of the answers so were disappointed when it was archived, but happy when MK II was published. Even more disappointed when geocaching HQ archived this version before we made it up to Auckland to make the find. Not sure what the problem was, as lots of caches are based or have starting points in airports.
Anyway, knowing that the cache would still be in situ, we made a point of going to GZ to look for the cache, which I'm pleased to report is in very good order in the obvious location. What a brilliant final location, never been here before and enjoyed the viewpoints. TFTC.

#19507. This one was on the must-do list for out trip to Auckland. We enjoyed the short walk to GZ (admiring the views) and made a quick find. TFTC.

This cache is being archived. The CO will receive an email with more information.

Since traveling has been made a bit difficult this year, I took some time to do a bit of digital research to find what I need to solve this cache!

Cache was exposed when I arrived, I covered it back up when I left.

Thanks for the unique and fun multi!

#11,561. Collected the required information from Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport in Longford, Hounslow, United Kingdom some time ago and got the GeoChecker to agree. Having made the long haul from and to the International Terminal in Mangere, Auckland, we finally made it to take the short hike to the final GZ today. It was all quiet at the time of our visit. Good view from here. Quick find. The cache was in good condition, all nice and dry inside. Took nothing, left nothing, signed log.

Favorite point added.

Thanks for the long distance multi and placement, and for bringing us to all these sites, and …

.T h a n k s. .f o r. .t h e. .c a c h e.
.M a u r u u r u. .k o e. .n u i. .a t u. .h o k i. .t e. .k e t e r o k i.

I set myself a personal challenge to see if I could reach 1000 finds this year, having narrowly missed it last year. With a few lab caches to help boost stats I was drawing close on my arrival into NZ, and decided to make this one the target for the magic number. A visit to Westerholm Park yesterday conveniently brought me to 999 finds so with the need to visit the CBD today it was game on to find this one.

As a frequent visitor to LHR T5 I'd spotted and easily solved the first incarnation of this cache and had planned to ask some relatives who live in NZ and are occasional cachers to grab the final for me. However that version of the cache was archived and replaced before they had chance to visit. With me now having a visit to NZ planned I checked out v2.0 but was disappointed to see it was out of play; however the CO had fortunately replaced it in time for my arrival!

Headed out today for GZ, parked nearby and soon had my hands on the container. Dipped a held (and appropriate) TB that I will be dropping off soon. Had planned to grab a couple of others in the area but at this point the rain had started so decided to leave them for another time. FP awarded of course, and TFTC and for the challenge!

New cache placed

Back in NZ from UK. New cache placed. Enjoy!

Back in NZ now after 2 years - I accompanied the CO to replace this MIA container. It’s still in a beautiful place, as I remember it. We were caught in a heavy downpour, so we abandoned our picnic and legged it back to the car! TFTC

This geocacher reported that the cache might be missing.

I’ll check this one out in December.

Logging with permission from the CO. Much appreciated.

This is one I looked at a few months ago, and thought NO Way! I have experienced the delights of T5 a couple of years back when I headed across to the UK, but obviously didn't pay it enough attention (I blame jet lag)... so I had to resort to publicly available information, which gave me a fair bit of the solution, but not everything. My internet browser history for a couple of days was probably interesting though!

So I had to apply a saying from my old friend, Sherlock Holmes... "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" So what was impossible? A few options presented themselves, one of which revealed the elusive Green Tick on the Geochecker.

As the revealed location was close to another planned stop today, I decided i had to search for this. However, the identified location yielded only a painted rock, and no sigh of the treasure. Had Customs confiscated it? Apparently so.

The CO has been very generous and allowed my to claim this as found. Many thanks for the mental Work out, and allowing me this unusual smiley! TFTC.

I have looked at this one several times in the past but always failed to solve as I was trying to place it elsewhere and one of the questions (that is crucial to my thoughts on the placement) had been giving me the wrong answer - still not too sure if it is correct?
After managing to get it sorted recently we took the long way to our friends place for a games night and called by to pick this up. At first there was a couple sitting right by the cache, so we continued on to find another before heading back to this one. All clear the second time around and cache was quickly found. TFTC.

Found with Topster20 TFTC

Found whilst on our holiday to Australia & New Zealand.

The road to finding this cache began all the way back in May 2018. A few months after the original multi had been posted (GC7F35D), we were planning a trip to Australia & New Zealand and decided to have a crack at it. We went to Heathrow en route to going home after a Saturday night out and got the numbers needed for the final coordinates. Unfortunately, a month or so later the cache was archived as it breached Geocaching guidelines. Scuppering our plans.

Thankfully, not long after that, version 2 was released and the information needed was the same as the first including the final location. The game was back on!
Having travelled up from Wellington (to find the legendary GC46), we took a detour here before returning the hire car. A beautiful day and a lovely location. Not many people about which was lovely, that is until a coachload of Chinese tourists arrived. That was our cue to finish our coffee and make our way to GZ.

It's so odd to look at a location on google maps in your home and then find yourself a year (and 11,400 miles) later standing in that exact place. And yes, it had crossed my mind that the cache could have been muggled and not be there. So after a quick look around, the potential host was spotted and it was a QEF. STL and returned as found. Finally! That felt satisfying.

Thank you to the CO for keeping this cache going. It's ones like this that make it so much fun and a challenge to boot.
Found with Swansbrook71. TFTC!

#461

We could find this geocache while travelling through New Zealand. We booked a sea safari in Auckland for the afternoon and we had some extra time to spend in the morning. I made a selection of four geocaches. All were found.
First one was a 5/5 challenge. As I live in Europe it was not that hard to quality for this one. New Zealand is my 16th country.
Second one was the All Black Airport Challenge. Not really a challenge but this must be the longest two-point multi in the world. We could calculate the end coords back in december when we left Europe and today we finally wrote our name on the logroll. Easy find.
Third one was old one Rock on Baby. 4 days and 20 musquito bites ago we weren’t able to find this one and after 20 minutes seaching we left GZ. Today we came back and found it in seconds. Once we found it the hint is very clear.
Last one was Cornwall Hydrotechnics. 4 days ago I didn’t have the tools for this one. Today we came back with the tools and noticed that the construction was upside down and very easy to take. NM here. Great construction anyway.
Thanks for these caches!

I have never been to the distant place and probably won't for some time, so I sent Mr. Google in my place. I got some of the answers, then got help to correct the others.
With some new caches in the area, I decided to include this one to knock it off my to-do list. I enjoyed the nice view from this park. TFTC.

A nice quick find for me as I'd done the previous incarnation of this cache. Jag50 and I were in the area so we swung by to sign the log

Met up with Merlot to find a few caches early in the morning before the sun got too hot. We had found the previous version of this cache, so knew where to look for this one. Lots of sightseers out and about this morning, but fortunately none were near the final location.

A Friend who had been in London alerted me of the first iteration of the cache, and I went ahead to get it solved. I kept the coordinates, and forgot about it.

The cache had then disappeared in the meantime, and the same Friend informed me of its reincarnation, and so, I reworked the answers to check out whether the final was the same. Indeed it was, and I reminded myself that I had to get this one found on this trip.

Came by after some shopping at Onehunga, and the cache was very quickly found at this beautiful but poignant point. Thanks for setting this “cheeky” cross-continental conundrum up, and for the cache!

Found but will not log seeing I got the coords from a friend. Will visit WP2 2019 and then change my log.

I looked at this multi awhile ago, found some info on the Internet that proved useful, then I get some more direct info from a previous finder of the original challenge who told me that this version had the same final co-ords as the original version, he shared that with me, so today I'm taking a bit of a shortcut to get to the final. Gorgeous day for caching today, when I started walking to GZ, I could see 2 women having a big yak-yak of their lives. I ventured further in the hope that these two women were so engrossed in their conversation, they would hardly notice my presence as I came along. Well.... this seemed to work, I sneakily uploaded the cache, signed myself in and downloaded the cache back to it's position. I took a few fotos of the sad location (you'll know what I mean if you solve this multi) then it was time for one more puzzle final before heading home. Thanks for the cache!

Solved version 1. Planned a trip to NZ only to discover version 1 disappeared. After a search located version 2. 25 hours of flying but a quick find at GZ.

Solved and found the predecessor (Version 1) so was just a formality to return today to sign the log. Great multi. TFTC

As a finder of the previous iteration of this cache, I've been waiting for an opportunity to come and find it a second time. As I'm up in Auckland for a week, and this time have my son with me, I'm using that time to take him to a few of my favourite caches around this region, so what could be a more perfect reason to come to this beautiful spot once again?

On arrival at GZ, I was pleased but surprised to see no-one else around as I looked for the container. Glad to see it was exactly where I had previously found it, and it was an easy sign and replace before taking a look around the domain and then going on to the next highlight.

Thanks for keeping this one going.

Found today with the help of TwigNZ seeing as he knew the information without having to go to Heathrow, TFTC

When we planned our trip to Auckland we spotted this Cache and were very intrigued by it. We were at the second stage airport in July, unfortunately, we didn't know of this Cache back then. So we decided to try to solve the puzzle using our memory aided by Google.

After a bit of searching we found the correct coordinates, even though we were a bit surprised by the location. But Google Satellite put our minds at ease.

Today, after we picked up our rental car in Auckland we headed straight for the final location and found the small container quickly and in perfect condition.

Thanks for this Cache!

IN: Favourite Point

# 2003

I saw this cache when planing our trip to New Zealand. Unfortunatelly we had been at stage 2 just a short while before. So we used our memory, some creative googeling, and some good guessing to get likely coordinates. Today, we were found the cache quickly. THanks for this cache!

We were in Niue about to fly home after a great week's caching on the island when we saw this cache had been published. So of course the title caught our eye. We soon realised that our flight into Auckland Airport that afternoon wasn't going to be much help, but decided to see if we could solve this challenge anyway. After some research and logic and Google Earth we came up with some coords that looked likely, and the checker said yes!
Today we finally got the chance to come over and make the find. Very wet and muddy here today after all the rain lately, but the views were great. And we made a quick find. Many thanks.

3rd to physically find this cache which was published while we were with a group of other cachers on Niue. Know both airpoints reasonably well and once I had it pointed out where Stage 2 was and did a little bit of guesswork for the security door numbers the tick was ours. Beautiful place to visit this morning and the views were stunning. Many thanks for this multi.

Well, back in January, I was travelling out to Madrid from London Heathrow and saw V1 of this cache had come up. When I realised what was required, I posted a tongue-in-cheek note asking if the CO was serious! He definitely was, and when I went back to Heathrow the next week to get a flight to Delhi, I decided to get serious too. So I worked out the final coords and teamed up with a local cacher who was able to make joint FTF. We had great fun doing it and it was a shame to find that it was subsequently archived. Anyway, wind forward 6 months and I am pleased that Antnich has found a way to re-invent the Challenge and am grateful he has allowed me to log a find against V2. TFTC and another FP from me. I’ve added a photo of me sat on a plane just to add to the theme!

When I saw this published yesterday I didn't give it to much thought, but had another look today and realised it was the second iteration of a previous multi. When I looked up the original something caught my attention and got me wondering on where the final might be. Using local knowledge I started toying with some numbers, followed by a visit to the second stage on google. My first assumption wasn't quite correct, so took me a few goes on the original geocheck to narrow down my search before I suddenly got a green tick. Decided to head out after work, and arrived near the GZ shortly after it had got dark. However I did remember to wear some good boots so had no problems with the muddy terrain this evening, and following my torch I was soon at the GZ. Easy hint made for a quick find, really happy to log STF on this interesting multi. Gets a FP from me for the neat idea, TFTC

Thanks to LostCourse for replacing the logbook. The cache lives on as v2.0!!

The note below is from the original All Blacks Airport Challenge cache page. It's still relevant for us, as we still intend to come over next April. Thanks to the CO for making the changes that allow this cache to live on.

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So there we were, on the Piccadilly line making our way home from celebrating a friends hen party, when an idea struck us. Why don't we stay on the tube all the way to the end, pop into terminal 5, and gather the information needed for this cache?

So that's how we found ourselves at 10.45pm on a Saturday night at Heathrow airport on a fact finding mission (because that is how we roll).

We must have looked odd wandering around, in a near deserted airport, with no luggage, not suspicious at all right? It must have only taken all of a minute before we were brought to the attention of an eagle-eyed security officer who came over to see what we were up to......so we did what any self respecting weirdoes would do......we got her to help us.
We were stuck on a particular bit, but thanks to the security lady giving us the right digit, we crunched the numbers and earned ourselves the Success! message.

After collecting a few Munzees to boot, we made our way back to the tube for the short journey home.

Part 1 is done......part 2 will be completed next April, hopefully resulting in a smiley face. I can't wait.

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Published

I was contemplating where to cache today when this new version (2.0) of a previous multi popped up. Well since I had found the previous iteration I thought I would have a head start on this one. A quick check of the two cache pages showed that the there were no alterations to the earlier calculations. As such I decided to head for the final once rush hour traffic had passed. Much the same story as last time, I parked up crossed the sodden ground and found the cache in the same place as last time. As the log sheet was half full from the first version, not to mention muddy (?), I took the liberty to replace the old log with a new one that has the updated title and gc number. Oh, and I was first to find (FTF). Cheers for the cache placement!