Baby Girl Smurf (Canterbury) Darfield, South Island, New Zealand
By gracie7 + Mum on 27-Oct-19. Waypoint GC8FNQB

Nachdem ich vorgestern nicht alle Schlmpfe besuchen konnte, da das Wetter mir gegen Abend einen Strich durch die Rechnung gemacht hatte, ging es heute frh morgens noch einmal auf die Schlumpf-Jagd. 25 Schlmpfe konnte ich noch treffen und mich jeweils in ihr Gstebuch einschreiben. Den intelligenten Schlumpf (brainy smurf) konnte ich leider nicht treffen, da meine Lsng des Rtsels zwar richtig, aber eben doch nicht richtig war. Gibt es mehrere Lsungen? Egal; ich hatte jedenfalls die ermittelten Koordinaten nicht geprft und den Checker einfach ignoriert. Das rchte sich nun. Insgesamt also 3 DNFs und 1 falsche Lsung; alle anderen Schlmpfe waren an Ort und Stelle. Eine interessante Runde und ein Powertrail, der fr mich angesichts der teilweise groen Distanzen zwischen den einzelnen Caches, Neuland war. In Europa liegen die Powertrail-Dosen dann doch eher nur auf Mindestdistanz. Ich sage vielen Dank an gracie7 + Mum fr diesen Powertrail mit der Ausarbeitung der Rtsel und auch der Pflege dieser vielen Caches. Die Runde hat mir viel Spa gemacht!_________________________________________________As I wasn't able to visit all the Smurfs the day before yesterday because it got too dark and rainy towards the evening, I went Smurf hunting again this morning. I was able to meet 25 Smurfs today and signed their guest books. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to meet brainy smurf, as my solution to the puzzle was correct, but not the right one. Are there several solutions? Anyway, I hadn't checked the coordinates and had simply ignored the checker. That caught up with me. In total I had 3 DNFs and 1 incorrect solution; all the other Smurfs were on the spot. An interesting round and a power trail that was new territory for me given the sometimes long distances between the individual caches. In Europe, the power trail caches tend to be at minimum distance. Many thanks to gracie7 + Mum for this powertrail, for working out the puzzles and also for maintaining so many caches. I had a lot of fun on this tour!

Last few days in Christchurch after returning from the Dunedin Mega has seen me out and about collecting a few of the caches l didn't get around to finding last week upon arrival..it was a mish mash of solved puzzles, multies and a few trads..this cache also made the cut. NZ has the best hedges

Day 5 of our Enzed adventures with Robmc. We are staying in New Brighton and today we headed out to find us some Smurfs because There is a place. that knows no sadness, where even feeling blue is a happy thing. Another beautiful sunny day to be traversing the countryside. We found all except 2 today.Thanks for contributing to the fun gracie7 + Mum

Day five of our epic New Zealand Adventure with The Morris.Staying in Christchurch and spent the day collecting Smurfs!All the puzzles were solved before we came to NZ.We start the trail about 9:30am and finished about 16:00 (including coffees and lunch)A lovely mild day just right for caching.Most of the containers were in good condition except for a few wet ones.Thanks for this series, Robmc.

Out on smerf trail with Sally on a dull vercast day tftc

TFTC Found with andyfreya. Pic didn't work this time.

Found the baby girl and then realised I had left the pen in the car so back out out again to complete the admin. TFTC # 22,,476

I am spending a few days in Christchurch with That Darn Bear. An extra long long weekend. The household are not early risers, but I am. and I am already moaning about the shortness of the day (and the coldness, but that is a separate matter. Christchurch is way too close to the South Pole). So I grabbed the keys and headed out straight after breakfast, to do a bunch of Smurfs before dawn. In the end I did all the remaining solved unfound Smurfs I had - about twenty, of which only two did not need the torch. Alas still not finished, I have one or two remaining.

Having solved the Smurf series over the past couple of months, and the night before finding them. (amongst many others) a spontaneous trip down was made by Kiwi Does Stuff and team Reschedule to collect the series. We have headed out to set ourselves a personal best for a days caching. The perfect caching wagon (a rental car) has been acquired allowing us to go anywhere with ease.Apologies for the generic log, all caches signed are a mixture of Res, Resch & Reschedule - a big thanks to the CO for creating, placing and maintaining all of their caches. TFTC! TFTP!

Having solved a few Mystery caches in the area, a last minute decision was made along with Reschedule to fly to Christchurch for Queens birthday weekend.A last minute rush at home before flying to solve some more mysterys, but that still wasnt enough, so after finally arriving at 11pm, out with the laptops to solve a few more.Saturday morning we set out with a goal, to set a new personal best. Having seen what numbers others did in the area, that shouldnt be too hard. We had some targets in mind, Eclipse, Skelly, Smurfs along with any traditionals and other random mystery caches we come across.We aquired the best vehicle for the job, a rental car! Overall we thorouhly enjoyed it, but we did not quite complete it all, so we will be back. TFTC and thanks for giving us an excuse to head for Christchurch!

Trouve ! / Found it ! Premire partie de la srie des Stroumpfs aujourd'hui. Un seul DNF dclarer mais je pense avoir mal cherch. Un autre inaccessible car des ouvriers travaillaient juste ct mais ce sera peut tre pour demain.Des caches sympathiques et la plupart du temps facile trouver. Merci pour cette belle srie Merci gracie7 + Mum pour la cache First part of Smurfs series today. Only one DNF to declare but I think I have searched badly. Another inaccessible because workers were working right next door but it may be for tomorrow. Friendly caches and mostly easy to find. Thank you for this beautiful series Thank you gracie7 + Mum for the cache

Today we did a big Smurf check daytrip, we werent too confident we would get them all but we could atleast make a start. We surprised ourselves by managing to find them ALL (bar the 6 we visited last month) and amazingly we had a 100% find rate. We couldnt have asked for a better outcome. (well maybe the weather couldve been cooler )There was no bag on this one so the log is slightly damp. It wont take it long to dry in this heat so we left it here.Super happy this one hasnt been smurf-napped. All good here. Happy Smurfing

This was our last cache for the day, 42 smurf found for my 42nd birthday, nice achievement. The puzzle was easy to solve, the container was fine, the logbook was a bit wet but still writable, and there were no zipbag. Now, it was time to get back home, and start logging all these caches! Thanks for this beautiful series!

Down in the Christchurch area with woolwood9. Day 1, mainly the Smurf puzzle series - a very nice day out. SL *tm/ww NZ**Thank you for the reason to visit this cache and location* *Another good Smurf cache found!*Last cache for us today. Thank you again gracie7 + Mum

Headed to Christchurch for a quick geocaching trip with tmann421.Enjoying the tour around the area finding caches some more challenging than others.Signed all logs tm/ww NZThanks to the owners for their efforts in maintaining their caches for us to find.Wonderfully themed series enjoyed all the containers. Nice to see maintainance had been done recently allowing the finds to be easier for us.

22 April 2023 1:31 pm. Today, it was more along the lines of don't let the baby play in the water. Especially when we tried so many lists to get her name just right for her.
Signed as Team M.I.K (MacPacMum, Ivss_xx & KiwiCampNut).
TFTC gracie7 + Mum

Sorry for the cut and paste logs but there are so many to do. Will note if something needs noting Signed as MIK in most cases or our own.

Out with Macpacmum and Ivss_xx doing the Smurf series in order to reach this month’s challenge for the month. I will need extra after we do all these though. The area farmers are a bit suspicious as several have given us the once over look as they drove past. However the day is good after all the rain. Some extra caches found for us all along the way.

Thanks Gracie7 + mum for all your hard work in placing these caches and the maintenance.

13:29
FITW MacPacFamily, Kiwicampnut, logged as "MIK"

Thirty sixth.
The next Smurfette!? No tripping on the wire and no stepping in a puddle today.

Smurfin' good day to complete the wheel of challenges and to upgrade my Busy Cacher badge!

Kia ora! Paldies!
Thanks for the cache, gracie7 + Mum!
#9564

**#18,091**
We had spotted a few other North Islanders make a personal 24hr find record so we took note of the general caches found and made a plan to try our luck, our previous best was 172, our aim was "more than Yeti", check out GC6PRMW once we have logged them all to see how we did...
Spotted the wire and made sure not to trip, quick find after a short search thanks!

Today I got up early and hit the road to see how many caches I could find between Christchurch and Springfield. The weather was quite good, not too hot and not too cold. I really enjoyed my time exploring the back roads of Canterbury. One of my objectives was to find a few more of the Smurf caches that I have managed to solve since my last trip through the area. I enjoyed solving the puzzles I could solve. Still a few more to go though. Apologies for the cut and paste logs - if anything stood out, I'll note it. Found as per the hint. TFTC, Biggles.

I've flown down to the Garden City with Itchyfeet2020 and NZ_B for the weekend, and what a weekend it has been! Cumulatively we had targeted so many personal challenges, individual caches we wanted to get, 'things' we wanted to do etc, that teaming up with these two caching troopers has been one of the best things I've done in ages. We've achieved so much in our short time here that my mind (and body) is still reeling. I'm sure the enormity will still be sinking in for many days to come.

All our signing of logbooks this weekend has been as T.I.N.T (for Team Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B, and TwigNZ) regardless of how many of the 3 of us are claiming any particular cache (as some of us may have found it previously).

Today was our big day, the main point of the whole trip down - trying to get 200+ caches in 1 day.
This turned out to be a huge success for us, achieved by targeting 3 geoart series (Eclipse, Metal Mania, and Smurfs) to give us as little driving as possible, and any other caches we would be literally driving right past at the time.

We started with the Eclipse series as that was closest to our accommodation in Darfield, then dropped down to the Metal Mania caches, finally moving back westwards so that we would be close to home when exhausted by the end of our day. The driving was shared, but was mostly provided by NZ_B, with an excellent job of route planning courtesy of Itchyfeet2020. A truly joint effort for which I'm very grateful.

Our main numbers for the day are;
Time we started: 05:30 (in the dark before sunrise)
Time we finished: 21:30 (in the dark after sunset)
Hours caching: 16
Total caches found today: 236
Total caches DNFd today: 8

I apologise for the generic 'cut n paste' nature of my logs. If anything individually stands out in my memory about our experience at GZ then I will try to mention it. Certainly the puzzles themselves were a mix of easy and truly frustrating, but between us we got them all solved in the end.

Thank you for setting up this series, and helping us achieve our goal

NZ_B, TwigNZ and I have come to Christchurch to complete a number of shared and individual challenges. Today is the BIG day - a goal of over 200. The puzzles have been solved (thank you CO's), the route has been planned and caches listed in order with hint, side of road and next driving instruction. Start time is 5.30am and we finished at 9.30pm with 230 for me.
We saw sunrise and sunset and had some great laughs as well. I cannot thank the CO's enough. I know you get cut and paste logs but I certianly appreciate the absolute blast of a time thanks to you and my travelling adventurers in NZ_B (espcecially since she had many of these and was the main driver) and TwigNZ. All caches signed as T.I.N.T - Team Itchyfeet, NZ_B and TwigNZ. Thanks again CO's a lot of work goes into these power trails and probably not a lot of thanks or respect for the puzzles - it is much appreciated.

Today I found in 10 hours 60 Smurf caches that are all I have solved, For the rest I would need a hint but dont get. The hint for the 60 was OK and I know already that the 2 ladies like to crawl under trees. I am 1.85 meter and had some problems and scratches. I am wondering that all the smurf survive but the most of them need a shower. All the logbook are ok. There where always space for parking.
Thanks a lot.

The idea of doing 200+ caches in one day had been one that I had considered for a long time, but not something I had made any moves on doing anything about until the idea was raised by others in a geocaching group I am a part of. As we were all based in Wellington, the logical place to try this was Christchurch with it's lovely flat lands, long straight roads, and wonderful art work series. Unfortunately the weekend that worked for most of the group was not one that worked out for me, so instead I came down here a few weeks earlier than they planned to and did the the trip by myself.

I started finding Geocaches at exactly midnight on Sunday. I kept finding Geocaches for the next nineteen and a half hours, when at about 7:30pm I decided that the tiredness was getting to a point where this was no longer a sensible idea. I found:

31 Traditional
180 Unknown
1 Multi

For a total of 212 Geocaches in 19.5 hours. That's a rate of 10.9 per hour. I am pretty happy with that. I focused on the Smurf series, the Metal Mania series (a set of puzzles that I very much enjoyed), and the Glossary of Geocaching series, with a few other sets and individuals in between. It was a fantastic day, very much helped by the wonderful weather and the use of a car that had no problem on gravel roads ('cos it was a rental).

A huge thanks to all the CO's that place and maintain these Geocaches. Despite the rushed day I created for myself, I did enjoy each and every cache I found. It is only with CO's like this placing them out in the world that this wonderful game continues.

#12,218. I drove down to Christchurch yesterday and stayed overnight at my sisters place near Leeston. Today has been chosen for my big day out. I was on the road by 5.30 am and finished right on midnight 18.5 hours later. I managed to find 188 physical caches and 22 adlabs for a total of 210 caches. Overall it was a fun day doing the Smurfs, Skelly and Eclipse tin power trails and a scattering of other traditional caches. Glad I did it and glad I wont have to repeat it. Apologies for the cut and paste logs. I think you can understand it was all about the numbers today.

This was cache No.94 for the day. I had the right idea for the puzzle. Just needed to find the right website. Managed to locate the cache without tripping over. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for the puzzle series and hiding the well maintained cache here.

Found with ZEALOG on a caching adventure

Solved puzzles a while ago. Decided on day trip with Rayzr to collect. Tftc

We discovered this series while preparing our New Zealand holidays back in last September. As one of us enjoys jigsaw puzzle, and both like solving mysteries, we started solving them, hoping that we will have the opportunity to log them too.
We enjoyed solving them, as each was different. Some were easy, some took more time, and a few couldn’t be solved. But it’s to long since, so no remarks in the logs related to the riddle.
We gave us some time during the next three days to find them, in parallel to other visits. Arriving from Timaru, we drove directly in the Smurf country beginning afternoon. The weather was sunny, comfortable temperatures, just a bit windy (especially for our camper-van and the dusty gravel roads).
We were positively surprised by the first box found. Baby Girl Smurf slept in a perfectly maintained box, and all of them found today were so.
The other logs will be shorter, as we don’t like copying big texts.
Thank you for this amazing mystery series
NathanS05

A road trip was required to qualify for GLCS20 so I drove down via Arthurs Pass yesterday.
The Challenge is to make 150 finds in a week of which 20 have to have different D/T ratings.
I cracked 100 finds today. The 20 D/T may take a bit more planning!
A dry afternoon now and nearing the end of my smurf odyssey.

I'll add individual details when required otherwise they were all "quick finds".
Thanks very much Gracie7 + Mum for placing these hides and for keeping up the maintenance of the trail. It made for a pleasurable experience.
Some pretty tough puzzles to solve which has taken me years!
TFTC

Team G0LD: Geocachers 0B80B8, Lis's crew and DaffyNZ are down from Whangarei for a few days. We've all solved the 4 big geoarts so they are the main target for the trip. Of course there were many other solved puzzles that we collected as well. We've finished the Fresh Breath series and are now onto our second big series - The Smurfs. The kids loved doing the jigsaws and completed them many years ago. I had 2 kids going on 2 different computers. We took screenshots after they'd completed the jigsaw and I then had to solve the puzzles. Some were very tricky. Good preparation and a fantastic team to work with made this an enjoyable and successful day. Another massive series with really neat cache containers. Another solve in Dec 2020. With 4 boys I didn't have much use of these names. My 1 girl was off this list. A quick find of this very cute Smurf, thank you

Team G0LD ( 0B80B8, Lis's crew & DaffyNZ ) on a caching mission to Christchurch. We had travelled down from Whangarei on Wednesday avo. Solved puzzles were going to be the main focus of our trip. We had spent a lot of 2020 and 2021 solving over 400 puzzles, so we had a lot on our list.

Today looked like being the best weather for our trip, despite a heavy thunderstorm overnight. We had a Big Day Out planned, with a perhaps optimistic target of finding 300 caches in one day. Working together well as a team, with a driver, a navigator and a jumper, we made good progress, but in the end, the bigger distances between caches, that we hadn't anticipated, meant we ended the day a bit short.

A fun day though certainly, and sincere thanks to the GeoArt & Trail CO's, and others, for placing and then maintaining such large numbers of caches so well. A testament to your dedication to Geocaching was the very low number of DNF's during the day. Apologies for the mostly generic logs, but be assured your efforts were truly appreciated.

Lis made the find here, as per the hint. Cute wee baby.

Northland's Team Gold (0B80B8, Liz Crew, DaffyNZ) are in Christchurch for a few days collecting all our solved puzzles and other cache types as we drive past. This is our "Big Day Out" to collect as many caches as we can in a day. Sorry for the generic logs. Thanks for placing the cache. We are loving every cache we locate that adds to our tally for the day.
Found it. Cute baby Smurf. TFTC

Nicely located after solving puzzle

We had a driver a runner and a logger which seemed apt for the series

In the area getting some caches this is day 2 and getting some smurfs. All good. Thanks

Got to GZ and was initially worried by signs of recent pruning but then I spotted what I wanted.

FITW Albijos

Wrapped up work early today, so we decided to go for some caching.
Hunting down smurfs today

TFTC.

FITW Harisree

Taking break from work and finding few caches around


An easy find with help of hint


TFTC

Solved in lock down 2020 so time SJT_NZ and I picked these up while in the area visiting family. Solved of the series took longer than anticipated for the T/D rating but learnt some new puzzle solving skills so it was only a handful that I had to reach out to a friend for a nudge. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for the series.

32nd cache found this morning with kiscardi It is great to have a weekend away caching. I am a few weeks late logging but slowly posting my logs. I do like to write something different each time but I didnt make any notes so it is a bit hard especially a few weeks after

On a mission today to pick up 200 caches with NZ Bozzy. This is number 32 and cache number 5032 for me. Enjoyed solving all the puzzles and picking up most of the series today. It has been well maintained over the years which made our job easy today. Thanks gracie7 + Mum. Sorry for all the copy and pastes.
Scratched our heads lots with many puzzles and learnt lots of codes.

Found many Smurfs a few years back. Returning today to see if I can get more home. Thanks for this series.

Found as part of team DAAWKS thanks for such an awesome series

On my last seven smurfs. Thoroughly enjoyed the series.

A Labour Day weekend trip for a group of us from the south in leiu of the cancelled Mega was sorted. To try complete the Smurfs Series and grab a few others along the way.
DownsouthInv, AnnieLin, Abbykitt, Wombats_4, and KNCN combined as a group and signed logs as Team DAAWK's
A very long day but we managed most with only a few DNFs. A perfect series to do with grandson who was chuffed at every find! All caches found in good order, thankyou for placing and the effort made, also the maintaining of the caches..A big job!

On a trip to Christchurch for labour weekend.
Thanks to everyone for solving them.
Logged in a term DAAWK.
Abbykity, Annielin,downsouthinv, wombats, KNCN.
Tftc

A road trip in to uncharted territory so why not .
Loaded up the cache mobile and headed up the road and let's see what fun adventures awaite us.
Today we continue our adventures and head towards our targets for the day .
It a smuffi g good day to be out caching. With Annielin and Abbykitt and wombat4 and kncn
Signed as DAAWK

Getting out and about in to the out doors is my happy place so any excuse to go caching.

Life is short. Live one foot step at a time.Never say" I'm gonna "- Just do it!!
Thanks for the hide
tftc

Sneaked away early from work on a quick long weekend road trip. Time to capture some Smurfs!!! Lovely day for it, had fun working on the puzzles
Logged as team DAAWK.
Downsouthinv, Abbykitt, AnnieLin Wombats4 and KNCN

Full log to come

We are on the tail end of a trip to the South Island, a trip that had been cancelled twice because of lockdowns. I knew I'd have a full day in Chch, so I worked on these puzzles starting over a month ago. I got most of them, but got stuck on about 20% of them. I got some hints, pushes, and white canes to get me over the finish line. Thanks to the PFers for all the help.
This was a really nice series of puzzles and caches. I really liked the cache figurines guarding each container.
There were lots of cows on the other side of the fence. It was as if they knew where the cache was hidden. TFTC.

Solved ages ago. Enjoying the caches on a nice drive in the area

I solved these smurfin good puzzles during lockdown. Some of the puzzles took a bit of brain power to solve but I got there in the end. I went out to collect these as I was in the area. The containers were well thought out but they did blur together after the first hour. This series took me six hours to collect in total and I think I ventured into every single (flippin) hedge in the Charing Cross vicinity. Most stops resulted in an "Oh no another hedge". Most hides were easy park and grabs but there were a couple that were more elusive. TFTC.

#6 in the list this morning. TFTC

Team BOP on another crazy mission down to the South Island. Lockdown gave us a lot of free time that we directed into Canterbury’s many Geo-Arts and with the Auckland 2020 Mega postponement, Christchurch was an easy decision. Team BOPs current incarnation is DavidsonClan, NZFlossy, McJandals and myself and we’ve signed all the logs as Team BOP to save time and log space.

So Labour Weekend 2020, it’s a numbers mission, the Cachly cut’n’paste template is sorted and while I unapologetically use this tool I am truly in awe of what goes into a series this large. Some puzzles were straight forward, others required a little more time but we got them all in the end. Almost all the hides were sorted quickly and without fuss but the tricky part about this series was trying to plan an efficient route as this series seems to be all over the place haha.

Thank you so much gracie7 + Mum for placing these and sharing with us such an awesome Smurf collection. We had a great time today, Cheers, TFTP + TFTC

As Auckland Mega has been postponed we decided to do a trip south to Christchurch. Four of us from Team BOP joined up to share a car and accomodation. I always love these weekends as the company is great and makes our days and nights out caching lots of fun. We have done lots of puzzles in preparation and did some long windy roads to get them. Found lots of great caches and thanks to all the COs for the effort that goes into these Please excuse the copied logs and I will try to make some individual notes on as many as I can This sort of trip is where I find the cachly app very valuable. TFTC

On a mission to the south after mega in Auckland was canceled. Team Bop booked airfares and here we are. Thanks all COs for your efforts. Due to numbers please excuse copy and paste logs in advance.

With the Mega Covid cancelled this year a part of Team BoP decided to come south and try get all our solved puzzles, and some others along the way. So here we are!

I am logging using the Cachly app template so please excuse generic logging along the way. It’s just my way of keeping track, but I do genuinely thank each and every one of you cache owners for taking the time and energy to place these cache. Many Thanks for bringing me here. Cheers.

Down in Christchurch with the Squirrel, ABCDF4 and eyespyben. During Covid lockdown, we solved a load of puzzles and decided that this would be a good time to visit. We've enjoyed a few days of good weather and seeing the Canterbury countryside. The caches have been in varying states - some good, some not so much. Our time here has been a blast, and we'd like to thank all COs who have made this adventure possible. Thank you and TFTC.

With ABCDF4, eyespyben, and Gap (of Fap and Gap). Logging all finds as Team HRP (Huntly, Rotorua, Papamoa - Our hometowns)... During Covid-19 lockdown, we solved a truck load of puzzles around Christchurch - Canterbury region. No use thrashing the old grey matter for no cause - We decided we should make good on this handiwork...

There are lots of interesting trails and geoart surrounding Christchurch. What you aren’t told is how far flung some of these caches actually are. Some beforehand advice would have been great, so here are some of my notes... You’re welcome!

1. Mobile coverage is patchy, especially in those quiet, rural areas where it was most needed. Saving caches to offline might show that you are prepared and organised...
2. There are many dusty metal roads on the trails. The car will get messy, and your hair will feel like cardboard at the end of the day...
3. Suitable clothing and footwear are essential. You will climb in and out of hedges, gorse, and other rough stuff. You might get scratched, cut to shreds, and bleed a lot. It’s not advised to wear your brand new jacket on the day...
4. Take lots of food and drink. You’ll probably be head down, tail up and not realise you haven’t eaten until late afternoon. There are very few shops or gas stations out there...
5. Make sure that you secure keys and wallet and know where these are placed for easy retrieval. A full box of pens might be useful too, especially if you’re inclined to free some into the wild...
6. Know the difference between left and right, and north, south, east, and west. Turning right and heading north will not get you to South Christchurch quickly.
7. Look with girl’s eyes rather than boys eyes... Some caches haven’t been found in a while and you might have to get down on your knees to pray.
8. Always be prepared for misleading hints. This is what turns simple caches into D5/T5 hides... “Head height” could mean the cache is positioned at your toes.
9. Have a sense of humour and like the people you go caching with. It’s going to be a very long day, and you might want to hurt someone during the journey...
10. Make sure you can operate your phone/device and it doesn’t crash when you most need it...
11. Learn to cut and paste logs because you’re going to repeat this function so often when logging all of your finds.
12. Above all else, have fun and be kind...

If recent days have been anything to go by, then today's activity is going to seem crazy. We have such a big game to play, spread out over a very large area - An early morning start in the north, with a late finish on the trails to the south... Let's go! We decided to make our way onto the Smurf trail. Despite the timing, we knew we had the bonus of Daylight Saving up our sleeves. We enjoyed the challenge of solving all of these Smurfy puzzles, and the cache containers were too cute. The logbooks were mostly in good condition, and there was evidence of recent maintenance with some. No problem with these hides - Found exactly as hinted. Thanks grace7 + Mum. TFTP and TFTC.

After puzzle solving in the Canterbury region along with EyeSpyBen we were invited to join Fap (from Fap & Gap) and Squirrel Nutcase to a week long caching adventure in the Canterbury area. With flights and accommodation booked were off, all met up in ChCh. and many hard dusty Kms travelled and many caches found, I think the Squirrel has said it all in his brief. Many thanks for the placements and Cos for bringin us to the very pleasant areas we travelled in to your region

After puzzle solving in the Canterbury region along with EyeSpyBen we were invited to join Fap (from Fap & Gap) and Squirrel Nutcase to a week long caching adventure in the Canterbury area. With flights and accommodation booked were off, all met up in ChCh. and many hard dusty Kms travelled and many caches found, I think the Squirrel has said it all in his brief. Many thanks for the placements and Cos for bringin us to the very pleasant areas we travelled in to your region

Quick find, log dry; TFTC

Finally had some spare time to have a daytrip with Surveybase and mop up the caches in the area. Was a great day weather wise and nice to catch up. Lunch at Darfield bakery also a plus!!. Sorry about the cut and paste logs. TFTC's.

Was back in the area with Shannonp1 to mop up the series most were quick easy finds. Apologies for the mass logs... Thanks for the effort that goes into placing and maintaining a cache.

I needed 10 finds today and StreetWalkerNZ needed 6 finds to bring our total find count for 19 July to a nice dark green 26 on our stats pages. We had still 10 unfound smurfs / smurfettes to finds, so it was a no brainer to head west and complete this geoart.
Baby girl was very cute. We had some interested by standers - the miserable looking sheep in the paddock opposite. TFTC.

#18459. Good to have a quick find after a DNF. TFTC.

Quick find on the way home. Beautiful sunset tonight after a couple very rainy days. Thanks!

We have been enjoying these puzzles during lock down. Today we went for the day with picnic to find some of this series. Thanks for this cache gracie7 + Mum.

Up early this morning so went for a bike ride while the roads were quiet! Thanks for the geocache series

24/03/2020
Needed some mental health caching. So that's what today was with mum!

TFTC!

Sorry excuse all the generic logs, but I'm so behind in logging that other wise I'll never catch up !!

Out for a few caches with daughter while we could. Quick find on most, and a pleasant afternoon to drive, chat, cache. Some muggles were having a chat nearby when we came past first time round, so we returned later and found the coast clear. TFTC!!

**Found on our February - March tour around the South Island. Logging back home in Auckland in Lockdown isolation**

After washout weather 4 years ago on the 29th February we have been keen to greatly increase our Leap Day Finds tally in 2020. To that end we made sure we were in Canterbury ready for some quick puzzle trails this morning, and determined to cache all day. Got some likely looking coords for Baby Girl Smurf, but they didn't geocheck. But that is exactly where we found her today, so all good. TFTC

I have a 3 month sabbatical mostly traveling around the planet. My goal is to find and log 1000 caches. New Zealand is my 4th station traveling from south Christchurch to north Auckland, my first visit here, its far away. This riddle I solved already before my sabbatical. This is my sabbatical-cache #350.

Things have gone pretty well so far today. I had found all the TMGT caches I wanted to find. No Traffic holdups like yesterday, and I ended up with a couple of hours to fill in before my flight home. The forecast showers had not yet eventuated so I decided I’d see how many 2nd edition Smurfs I could lay my hands on in the time I had available. Made a pretty good fist of things, and managed to stay dry as well (just).

Cheers and TFTC

Found this one after going to some others because of muggles but it was crossed off the list and off we went.

Fancy leaving a baby out here all alone, we gave her a cuddle and placed back to bed

Out on a smurfing adventure with Corunnaroad and Monson.clan. All were in great condition, and bang-on co-ords. Great job Gracie. Had to come back to this one after going round the block looking for others- waiting for a tractor to move on.

I already solved this series in Sydney and had a lot of fun doing it.
As soon as I arrived in Christchurch the rental car was picked up and I drove straight to this smurf series.
During the search the joy was great - everywhere the matching Smurfs on the boxes - well done.
Thank you for the nice series
Team sissifalke

Had a great day travling from the West Coast back to Oamaru, 3 days of great weather, many thanks for the caches. - Bitsprayer

Travelling around the South Island and finding many interesting caches along the way. Thanks to all the COs for placing the caches we visited. Cheers from OZ!

Spending the day out near Darfield collecting the new Smurf caches as well as a few others along the way. The weather was mild and overcast which made for great caching.
The Smurf series is one of most favourite geoart series - the use of jigidi plus such a variety of puzzles and all around the theme of Smurfs.
Thanks gracie7+Mum for these new series - hints were so helpful as well. A FP given!

I was in need of 5 caches today to raise my total caches found on the 25th January to 26 and thus into a deeper shade of green on GC's Statistics page calendar. So I had to travel out west of West Melton again for the second day running.

I love these jigsaw puzzle caches with a twist. However the twist in this puzzle was such that I was unable to un-twist it without a great big nudge from a family member. Thanks for another great series of mystery caches Gracie7 & Mum.

Signed Team NE -caching with NosyNel. TFTC.

***[======== NZ Mega 2020 ========](http://nzmega.com)***

Planning for the [NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20 years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20 years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* And it's 2020 - all the 20s!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](http://nzmega.com) - you won't want to miss it!

Look out my friend Ethness is in town and we're Smurfing. Thanks gracie7 + Mum for placing this geocache it is find 8149 for me.

Sadly there was no large event in New Zealand in 2019 but there are a few Mega events planned in Australia. New Zealand will have another large event in 2020 in Auckland. 
======== NZ Mega 2020 ========
Planning for the NZ Mega 2020 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 23 to 26 October 2020. Thanks for hiding this geocache.

A few potential resources but one seemed more likely than others thanks to the tiny hint. Thanks for the puzzle and cache.
#5216

A pleasant chase as there was a non prickly entrance to the find. That was very thoughtful!! Enjoyed the little set today. Hated the Nor' wester though. Thanks.

Found more later

I got lucky and found the right website quickly to solve the puzzle. Cute baby girl smurf. TFTC gracie7 + Mum

#9264

The last for the day. I still have 13 more puzzle which have stumped me on the first round but don't worry. "We'll be back". Love the puzzle and the cache easily found despite the road being busy for a shingle road to nowhere. Another favourite point for entire series which is the best fun out of all the geocaching series we have done and the most talked about. Also the series that got Beeba back into geocaching.

Today was a day all about the numbers really, so I headed out to Rakaia for the Thompson Track series and finished the day off by finding a few of the new smurfs that I have solved. In between a few caches in and around Dunsandel.
70+ for the day, and home in time to watch the last session of day 2 of the Boxing Day test. Thanks all COs for maintaining these.

A beaut afternoon for the smurfs, time for a u turn and get back on the circuit. Cheers

It is a nice morning to go smurfing around the countryside west of Rolleston.

My appologies for the cut and paste logs. My thanks to Gracie7 + Mum for these extra Smurf puzzles.

Cheers for the cache.

Tidying up some of the fun Smurf series with drawp. Thanks for some great caches, and always good having a look around the countryside. Co-ords and containers all good. TFTC

Out on the new series of smurf puzzles with Emvy-Us today. Some neat puzzles to solve. Cache all good. TFTC

Out for a bike ride to find the remaining Smurfs. This cache was a quick find. TFTC.

Had arranged a big caching day out with Mr Cuddly Brick and this was the area we decided we wanted to head to. To clear out the new Smurfs caches, and other random caches that we passed. Logs were either signed 2wombles & MCB, or 2CB, or Mr Cuddly Brick depending on who had the pen at the time.

A perfect day for caching. Not too hot and not too cold!

Cache was a quick find here. Thanks for the puzzle, the cache, the SMURF series, and all the series of caches that you have published this side of the island.

A quick find out on a Smurf hunting trip with Busypaws

Went out this morning in brilliant sunshine to do a bit of Smurf hunting. It was fine until we found the last one and then the black clouds followed us home and thunder and lightning and rain greeted us as we rushed to bring the washing in. Thanks for a great series. We still have a few to solve. Thanks Gracie7+Mum

We had limited time to solve these new puzzles when we knew a trip to the area was likely so I set about it with considerable haste. Some were easier than others and some are still to be solved for the next trip.
During our foray we experienced a horrendous hail storm with stones up to 4cm which left the ground underfoot very slippery, especially among pine needles, and meant the odd hailstone fell on us from trees when searching for a cache.
Logs have been signed variously H&H, HZ & HM, or with our full names.
Thank you gracie7 + Mum.

There wasn't much time between the trip to Chch and beyond going ahead and solving as many puzzles as we could. We planned to hunt down the TMTG caches we haven't found yet on a Chch- Greymouth loop via Southland and we're going out of our way a bit for the by-catch What made the trip memorable was the big hailstorm in Smurf Country we could escape largely under a macrocarpa hedge. Not so 2 days later in Timaru where again the golf ball sized hail stones spared my windows but took care of a prolonged stay at the panel beaters to take the dents out. Who says caching is not an exciting past time? Thank you gracie7 + Mum