PWGT5 - Mata-Au (Clutha) Balclutha, South Island, New Zealand
By mrandmrschosen1978 on 03-Oct-20. Waypoint GC90X0A

We hope you enjoyed exploring this region of the South Island. Pokai Whenua GeoTour: Rima has now ended. Thank you to the community for all the great logs, photos, and Favorite Points over the last 2 years. It has been so fun!

Number 5 for the day.

Down for work so time to cache a bit. Did as many as time allowed.

Did the loop walk around the airfield collecting caches along the way. Thanks for the mix of puzzles and trads to keep things interesting.

Fascinates me how the river turns back on itself.

Good

Boy it’s getting hot. TFTC . I made the series for Northland.

Found it

Nice easy find but beware of some prickles growing around. Cache contents lovely and dry. Thanks for the placement.

Kahurangi. How good

Ruru-NZ and I are on Stewart Island doing the Geotour caches as a priority but any others found are a bonus for me.

Last tour cache for Ruru-NZ and a milestone too so well done. Now I too need to finish with a further 17 tour ones left for this section.

Kiwicampnut and I finally managed to coordinate ourselves having been over to the island we are finishing my PWGT5 caches and making good progress on hers.
And just like that, I am done. PWTG5 completed and will soon be sent off to get the coins matching 3 and 4.
And by happy coincidence this is a milestone number being 3400.
Its been an adventure travelling the island with Kiwicampnut 3 times in the last 13 months.
Lots of interesting places, wildlife seen and laughs and giggles along the way - its why we geocache!
Thanks for the cache mrandmrschosen1978
# 3400 22 October 2022 10:47 am

easy find

Kia ora for the cache.

Found

Our last PWGT find of the day.
We parked about 500 metres from the cache and enjoyed walking along the river to GZ.
There were a few muggles out walking and running but there was plenty of time to find the cache when the coast was clear.
Thanks mrandmrschosen1978 for this and all of your other PWGT caches. We really enjoyed finding them and visiting the places they took us over the last couple of days and appreciate all the work you put into setting them up.
This was our 146th stop on the Pokai Whenua Geotour and our 26th on PWGT5

Nice wee walk watching moto x bikes tftc

Tftc great view of the railway and river. Onto the next cache

Quick find before I scurred to IVC to book a flight. TFTC

I remember looking for a cache in this area a few years ago where the clue was "base". By the time I got there the trees had been reduced to very fresh stumps and there was no sign of any cache. Today I scored the newer cache. I grew up down stream of here on the true right of the Matau branch. Lots of work was been put into narrowing the entrance of the Matau and straightening the Kohau by reducing the flow down a side of some of the Islands within that branch. Thanks for the cache.

Some interesting information about this mighty river, and a quick easy find near its bank. TFTC

Re-logging for my purposes.

I took a much-needed caching trip down south with WilbyWarrior today to snag a bunch of caches in Balclutha, and a few elsewhere too. Found as we continued along the river bank grabbing everything on the way. We found this one with very little issue - it's been kept in pretty good nick, not surprising for a geotour cache. Cheers!

Found today, full log to follow within 40 hours

Day 5 of our mission to find the South Island PWGT caches and this was the first one today. We parked the car and enjoyed a very short stroll to GZ, where we had to pretend to admire the scenery as a muggle approached with her dog just as we were about the begin the search. The cache was a quick find, once she had gone, and the codeword was noted. Thanks for the history mrandmrschosen1978 and for the cache.

This was our fifth day of caching in the SI with Flowerydaze looking for PWGT's. The only difficulty here was trying to find a road that would take us close to the cache and once that was done all went very smoothly. All good here nice and dry, TFTC mranmrschosen

Easy find TFTC good view of the river

Quick find TFTC nice water view

Found during a day exploring the Clutha area with my family, TFTC

Good find with my family on a day out around the area, TFTC

Nice wee hide, enjoyable walk out here. TFTC

This was a fun one to find

Plenty of muggles near the car parking area, but no one to be seen near GZ.
Thanks for setting this up. Only a few more to go for this set.

Found it today with Cyclicalcaching, on our PWGT roadtrip, nice and easy find beautiful sunny day, great spot

The river was nice to walk along and watch the speed of the water go by!

Thanks for the geotour cache!

Such a good day, and an easy find

Just passing. Put in couple tbs and swag. All good here

We travelled the Haast Pass this morning, ending up in Balclutha for the night. Our main focus for today's leg of our journey was to collect the PWGT5 caches along the way. After checking in to our accommodation we had time to come and look for Mata-Au. We had expected a walk, but noticed a gate was open and a couple of vehicles were coming and going, so we drove in and parked very close to GZ. A quick find was made, then we headed out again, only to see the last vehicle leaving and locking the gate behind them. For a few awful minutes we envisaged being stuck here overnight, but fortunately the occupants of the car had noticed our frantic waving, and kindly returned to let us out. Guess we were supposed to walk after all!. Thanks for this little adventure!

Staying in our motorhome at the A & P showgrounds alongside several others. Geopup Finn and I went walking along the river to hunt for this cache. Quick find between muggles on bikes or running with dogs. TFTC

Out biking the backstreets of Balclutha and using the geocaches as stop off points.Tftc

We can call our road trip a succes. This one is the last for the day and the last of section 5 (excluding Stewart island). Now off for a campground for a well deserved break, before hitting the road again. Again both container and logbook are in good condition. It was great to see the Clutha river again, but much bigger. While walking to GZ, three dogs came running at us, little cacher was terrified. I screamed to the lady that he was scared of dogs, she answered they were just greetings us. Some dog owners don't understand some people can be scared of dogs and get terrified when dogs come running, barking and jumping around them. It took a while before we could get started and walking again. Funny later we saw her reassuring her dogs, as another more aggressive dog was barking at him, pulling in his leash...

Almost stumped but cache soon in hand .tftc

TFTC mrandmrschosen1978.

Day 6 of the Loopppiiieee Tour (top to bottom, east to west) and day 1 of the Southland Loop. ItchyFeet2020 and JustLookingOO have joined us. We are targeting the TWGTs for GraciesGPSfun; as well as the PWGT, CANZ, D/T and some oldie caches for us all, as well as driving many kilometres AND, just as important, seeing the sights of the South Island and having a lot of fun.

Day 1 of our PW road tour of the south - chasing Rima caches. Road tour with graciesgpsfun, Ethness and Justlooking00. Google wanted us to go over the river and walk across the bridge, but we are to wise for that ole diversion and followed instints to stay on this side. We were not stumped and cache duly found. TFTC and the great view of the river and bridge.

A nice wee stroll to stretch the legs - on a girl's roadie chasing the PW geotour caches in Southland. The river was a beautiful aqua colour. A quick find at gz. TFTC

Arrived at Balclutha around 5pm and parked as close as we could to the cache. After walking about 400 metres from where we parked we spied about 3 hint objects and found the cache in the second one we checked. All good here, TFTC.

Thanks heaps ️

AliGle and I were doing a bit of a tour around the south of the South Island in a Jucy Camper over a few weeks. Day 5 we spent exploring Dunedin city in the morning, before heading down to the Catlins this evening. Took the short stroll to GZ and made a quick find of the cache here. TFTC!

With Vistra on holiday in the South Island. Picked up our camper in Queenstown and tootling around bagging geocaches as we head south. Grabbed this one on the way to our campground at Kaka Point. TFTC

Found with Piwaka54 on a leg stretch from the car. What a mighty river despite the power schemes. We saw and were sad about old Cromwell around Christmas so hood to come down here. Thanks so much for placing the cache as part of this series.

Found with Nutty Nora

Our first stop today

This was my last cache on tour number 5. Sadly JD has a few more to get. It was done in three separate trips, four if you count the Stewart Island part.
This cache was found on our second summer campervan trip. JDScout and I plan to do three this summer. This trip is from Christchurch to Bannockburn to the Catlins and back.

Thanks for hiding this cache mrandmrschosen1978, for MinistryofEducation I appreciate it. It has helped add an extra layer of fun in our holiday.

15:34
I managed to park a bit closer than the given waypoints, unknowingly, as that is where the GPS lead me. Only marginally though, instead of 500-something, I had to walk 400-something meters to the cache.
As I was nearing the bridge, a group of people popped out from under it and were walking away from it, but towards a different direction than where I was coming from. But they looked back and stared at me A LOT. The distance was too great to actually engage; I assumed they were cachers, but upon arriving at GZ, there were no other entries this year.
I will be left forever wondering, and so will they...

PWGT progress - 20/150
Rima - 6/25

Kia ora! Paldies!
TFTC, mrandmrschosen1978!
#8564

#10,377. I have finally made it to Balclutha and checked into my accommodation. Headed out soon after to grab some takeaways and decided to eat them at the showgrounds. After that meal I wandered around the tracks to GZ. The Clutha is certainly an impressive river with a lot of current and depth. Not something I would try and swim in. Good to read more about the river on the cache page. After reaching GZ the cache was a nice easy find. Signed the logbook and replaced the container where found. Collected the code. Thanks mrandmrschosen1978 and Ministry of Education for hiding this geotour cache here.

Awesome find

On a tour of Balclutha and the surrounds. Tftc

Enjoyed the walk along the mighty Clutha. The volume and speed of the water is impressive. But what a bunny problem there is here! Never seen so many in such a small area. Thanks for the cache and all the info, Norfolk buddies! #7319

Heading down to Invercargill for 4 days of work, be rude not to grab a few caches along the way!

Having completed the drivetest, I wanted to stretch the legs... this was on my radar anyway, so it all fit quite nicely. No issues making the find. Great read on the page, learning where all this water comes from... there's a hell of a lot of it going by too.

TFTC mrandmrschosen1978, the cache was found in good order Signed, sealed and returned to GZ. 2 find(s) of 3 today, making this find #2984

Easy

????

Very quick find after a pleasant walk.

Awesome find

A long drive south from Chch to Invercargill, I had a couple of planned stops. Pill box cache by the Rangitata river, kfc in Oamaru, and this cache to stretch the legs, and to rest the eyes from the road. Google was directing me to the other side of the river, was keen for walk not a swim.
That's when I spotted the parking waypoints.
"Glenn" and I hunted the cache down, cache signed and code word retrieved, although I think this is geotour find #2, so I'll probably never finish
Thanks for the walk and the history of the river.

A bit of a road trip to gather some of the GeoTour caches (although I won't be making it to Stewart Island this week). I hadn't planned to do this but the flooding further north put the idea in my head - and here I am.
Thanks for this cache, mrandmrschosen1978 - I haven't spent any time in S Otago for decades and it was interesting to see where Inchclutha starts.

On a trip south with P &Vee,
Decided a walk was needed. Found with a little negotiation with P &Vee.
TFTC

Found with vdh56 on a trip to a 5th party

GPS got a little muddled out here so I ended up checking multiple possibilities before setting eyes on the right kind of hide! Great spot and I think this might be my first for this particular tour! Thanks heaps...looking forward to collecting the rest of them!
Having stayed overnight in Waihola I decided to do the Balclutha Parkrun this morning...so before I leave here, I'm going to collect a bunch of caches & smilies.
Tftc!

Kei a māua ko KR, ko tērā te whakaputunga whakamutunga o te wahanga tuarima. I timata māua haerenga mai i Wānaka ā te pito ā naienei ki te wahapu o te Mata-Au. I hoatu taua awa he mahi mo ētahi o aku hoa. Ko te take o rātou mahi ngaro ko te pāpuni. Ki tõku whanau i hoatu te pāpuni he mahi. I whanau mai aku tamāhine ki te taha o te awa kei Clyde. Ka noho tonu ngā ātete: hands off Beaumont . I maumahara tonu te whāititanga o te huarahi o te awaawa, whakamataku e!?
That's the last section 5 for KR and myself. We started in Wānaka and finished here at the end of the Clutha. The river gave jobs to my friends and the dam took their jobs away. The dam gave our family a job. Our daughters were born in Clyde. I still remember the protests of hands off Beaumont and the scary narrowness of the old Cromwell Gorge road. Kia ora for the cache.

A nice quick find thanks. And that is RIMA complete. Excellent. Thanks for your work on this tour.

Ms_KR and I are on the road to Southland to finish off the Southern PW GeoTour. Today we cruised to Dunedin, hoping to finish off the Rima PWGT caches. (we did!). We had showery weather, but mostly it was dry, and saw some awesome sights

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. Cheers.

A quick find for us today after a nice walk along the riverbank. All good with the cache. TFTC mrandmrschosen1978.

A trip has been planned for 4 days away (1-4th May, 2021) to collect all off “RIMA” – part of the Pokai Whenua Geo Tour in the bottom third of the South Island including Stewart Island. This time round, there is myself, rustynz, Rebel98, FMZ and his skeleton called Bruce. We have picked up a car at Dunedin airport and will return there.

The last PWGT cache for us in "Rima", that is good news. That means a souvenir will be coming our way. We parked as close as we could and walked about 360m. As were getting closer to GZ, I spotted a likely hide and by the time I grabbed the cache, the others were still looking at their phones, I called to them I had it in hand.

Thank you mrandmrschosen1978 for another cache in the series, and a FP as well.

A short walk to the bridge and gorby soon had the cache. This was to be our last pwgt geotour cache for this visit. Happy to be signing the log and taking if pictures.

It's been a busy 4 days of caching for this westie group. Thanjs for the hide.

A caching adventure with rebel98, gorby, fmz and bony bruce

Foubd with rebel, rusty, gorby and boneybruce. We parked as close as we could, and took a straight 3-400m to GZ. Quick find when we got to gz. TFTC!!!

Out on a mission to collect all the PWGT caches with Gorby, Fnz, Boney Bruce and Rustynz.

Nanzie and I are on a whirlwind trip of the south island collecting geotour caches. When we left Dunedin I set the car GPS to these coordinates. I don't know Balclutha and we soon discovered that you can't always rely on the GPS to distinguish a road from rail bridge. We soon found the right way and a short walk to gz. Quick find then started to walk back to the car when I remembered we needed the codeword so ran back for that. Thanks for your contribution to the geotour mrandmrschosen1978

#11059

I enjoyed reading this article about the southland rivers another PWGT5 to mark off our list . mrandmrschosen1978

????

Continuing on our PWGT journey visiting the bottom half of the Mainland this weekend. Thanks to all the cachers for their efforts in setting up the GeoTours and sharing the history of New Zealand.
Early start this morning on the 6am flight from Tauranga to Dunedin via Auckland. Rain greeted us at Momona but looks like it will clear up for the rest of the day. Kept driving as close as we could and after a short walk another codeword was added to our list TFTC

23 April 2021 18:33. Headed out towards Balclutha after work today. Parked by the go-cart track, a quick and easy find even in the dark. TFTC.

A wee detour to get this on the way home after spending a nice relaxing weekend in Kaka Point. Lots of bikes at the nearby track and a quick find TFTC

I'm enjoying a holiday in the South and today I'm exploring Balclutha and the Catlins. I wish I had more time to see everything! Like others before me google maps tried to get me to walk across the river, however I cottoned on to that pretty quickly and soon found a way here. Tftc!

We were on a whirlwind trip around the South Island in pursuit of the PWGT caches. We had an unplanned and unexpected two days on Stewart Island so we were a bit behind schedule but not so much that we didn't have time to complete our mission.
Google maps was quite interesting here as it suggested we start our walk on the other side of the river, now we are fairly good swimmers but there is no way we would take on the mighty Clutha. So I gave directions and we soon ended up at the correct start to the track. There was a lady walking down the track when we arrived and thankfully she kept walking and kept the cache area clear for gk to find the cache.
The wind was howling and it was cold, so gk was walking fairly quickly to try to keep warm.
The cache was found, the log signed, the codeword recorded and it was returned to where he found it.
The a quick jog back to the campervan and we headed away to see if we could find a first to find.
Thanks for all of the work and effort you have put into creating the PWGT caches in this area, and thank you for the smiley

Found also found it hard to work out where to get in but always love a challenge
Travelling the south Island collecting geotour caches and if I was lucky some normal trads too - thanks for the cache everything all in good order.

Last time I was down here the gate was open for some racing. Parked up and walked today following a couple of dog walkers that were ahead of me. They were out of sight beyond the bridge when I arrived so able to sign the log without anyone seeing. TFTC # 16,705

In the South Island from Tauranga on a six week holiday and now following the PWGT. I hope to have the tour completed before I get home.

Was a bit unsure of trailhead but got there in the end.

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 caches. Many Thanks for bringing me here. Cheers.

**13,082**
The blasted GPS wanted us to drive over the rail bridge, fortunately we had already look this cache up when making our plan to come down here so we knew approximately where to turn off to get within walking distance of the cache. It all worked out nicely and only saw two potential muggles on the return from nabbing the cache. Thank you for the time and effort taking in placing this cache. TFTC

After my concert plans got canned I had the amazing opportunity for a crazy spur of the moment trip to tackle PWGT Rima and take in the wonderful sights of Otago and Southland. Feeling very fortunate to be able to do this given what the rest of the World is going through with Covid. Much of the South Island is breathtaking and this trip did not disappoint. Thanks to the Ministry of Education for creating the GeoTour and to the COs for their time on the write ups and for placing the caches. It’s great to see our nation’s rich history highlighted <3

This cache was an easy find thanks to the hint. A nice wee stroll and soon had it in hand. TFTC

*Found on a nice day going from cache to cache with woolwood9.*
We soon had the container located. SL: **tm/ww NZ**
Thanks for putting this out for us to visit!

On a three week trip to the lower South Island with tmann421 hunting caches.
Enjoyed the trip around and the challenge of the finds.
Signed logs tm/ww NZ
TFTC

Mrs Hazzer and I went on a roadie to collect some souvenirs, seeing as we can't travel to these places in real life currently we made the most of our own backyard instead. A lovely spot down here today

This weekend's crazy road trip takes me to the bottom of the South Island. Flew into Dunedin Friday afternoon, picked up a rental (it's the fastest car in the world) and off I went to investigate many sights and places I've never been to before.

Many thanks to the Ministry of Education for conceiving, planning and organising this fantastic Tuia Mātauranga Pōkai Whenua GeoTour experience, and to all the COs for volunteering their time to place and maintain the caches.

This was day 1 and find 1. No problems after we abandoned the GPS in the car that tried to take us through the river. Cache was found safe and dry, TFTC.

On a roadie around the area collecting PWGT’s & Natural Wonders. Had a lovely walk to cache. Not too many people out & about. Cache quickly found, sign & replaced. Oh & also the photo opportunity. Thanks to everyone for organising & placing these caches. TFTC

A nice wonder along the river bank...this was abruptly ended..I had too rush as thunder storms were approaching..with loud claps and bangs from above..the cache was quickly locate code recorded ..and back to my cover as the rain let loose...thanks the "chosen ones" for the history and tidy cache.11

We parked fir the night at the Showgrounds. How convenient that this cache is only 700 odd meters away. We went cross country which was not the fastest route. The thunder rumbled ominously above us. We were fascinated by the large sandbank and all the birds taking refuge here. Thanks for bringing us here mrandmrschosen1978

Up early this morning, time to go home. Great to stop and snag this one
Tftc

On a early morning drive home from our adventures yesterday. Nice view of the river.
Tftc

As we where close by at kaka point last night we got up early and headed to the big smoke to pick up this one as we made our way to get the geo tour cache in the area .
So at gz 3 set of eyes made the find with not to much work.
With cache in hand and paper work done we where on our way.
Breakfast is the next thing before we head for home as we have to be home before 11am
Cache all in good order
On with our mission as time is ticking .
Great to learn about the history behind this cache the geo tour is a great learning experience.
Life is short. Live one foot step at a time.Never say" I'm gonna "- Just do it!!
Thanks for the hide
tftc

Off on a weekend travelling up to and around Balclutha grabbing caches here and there plus hunting up the new Challenge Wonders Souvenirs. Close by in my travels was this PWGT cache.. so off for a walk with the pup along the Clutha. A quick find on a warm-ish day. Thank you MrandMrs for all the work involved in these PWGT caches Fave-ing️

We're hunting Tour caches and anything that's not slowing down our objective to much. It is our last day before heading home again and we're looking at eastern Southland and South Otago to finish Rima area 1 and 2. The carbon footprint of us chasing these caches might well be frowned upon by many. This cache is going to finalise PWGT5 Rima. I have to look into updating the car nav when it suggested swimming the last bit to reach the cache. Map reading got us to the parking area suggested and a pleasant walk got us over the line. Thank you mrandmrschosen1978 for the history lessons on this Tour and taking us to special places.

After finding the caches in western Southland yesterday we are making an even bigger carbon footprint looking for more in eastern Southland and south Otago today.
This was our last 'tour' cache for the day, a wee stretch of the legs before returning to our camp at Lumsden.
Thank you mrandmrschosen1978.

Satnav had me thinking I was a train but sorted that out to get on the track. I've walked and cycled a lot of the Clutha. Missed this bit of track somehow. Nice leg stretch.

Hallo mr and mrs chosen ... i enjoyed finding your cache although finding the road to get to it was rather amusing was worth the effort as it was a perfect opportunity to get my feet wet and skip some stones with the grandson TFTC