Vikings 18 (Hawkesbay) Tararua District, North Island, New Zealand
By watcache on 01-Oct-22. Waypoint GC9P92K

Incoming cut/paste with any cache relevant info at the bottom When TwigNZ put the signal up for anyone wanting to do the Viking in a day, my hand shot up. So did LNM1961s. TwigNZ wanted to complete this Geoart in November to continue a challenge streak, LNM1961 needed only two more to complete the 60, and I had solved about half of the puzzles and wanted to do my first Geoart and go on an adventure. So armed with a general mapped plan, some termoss (Thermii? Thermes? ) of coffee, snacks, a full tank of gas, beaut weather and determination to follow the Seagnoid/Etherlords Viking-in-a-Day mission, we set off from Palmy at 0700. 425km, mild to middling hay fever toward the end, and travel weary but triumphant, we arrived back 14hrs later. Some roads were definitely dodgy, with slips, ruts and one lane, a lot were gravel, and sometimes an hour driving between caches. Sometimes we had to backtrack and re-think a route, or cursed the lack of reception - but mostly we were admiring stunning Tararua views, rural life and gratitude to be in a beautiful country and able to do this caching hobby. The whole day was good for the mental health and soul Company couldnt have been better, and big thanks to TwigNZ and LNM1961 for the laughs and stories, and to watcache for the effort putting this Geoart together for us to enjoy. Mihi nui ki a koutou All good with cache and log. Busy road for this time of the morning (0845). Nice and sunny Logging all these as my #562 hide as its easier Mihi ki a koe, watcache, mo te keteroki All good Busy road for this time of the morning (0845) Sunny

Apologies for the generic "cut 'n' paste" nature of this log, but any pertinent comments specific to this cache can be found in bold at the bottom of this log.Crikey, where to begin with this Geoart series? Well I guess you start at the start, with the solving of the puzzles. When a whole bunch of puzzles gets published en masse, the only thing you can do is roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. Luckily work was fairly quiet when these came out, as I do have to admit to sneaking regular time solving these during working hours before heading home and getting really stuck in.So then, I have some 60 sets of solved co-ordinates, but they are not exactly just up the road from me. But I'll get around to finding them soon...or so I thought. Almost 2 years have passed since then, and many of my friends have gone and found them. Wanting to find this set during November to help me with my ongoing streak mission, I put a general call out to the geocaching community on facebook, and got a few positive responses. I was in favour of doing the whole thing over 2 days, but few others were. Could it be done in 1 day? Others had succeeded, so that became the plan and once I'd figured out a date, those positive responses were whittled down to 2 others, one of whom had completed the entire series bar 2 caches, and was happy to come along just to get those 2.And so to today. We set off from Palmy at around 7am, wondering when we might get back. As it turned out, we did succeed in getting the entire series in a single day, albeit a day that was 14 hours long and covered approximately 425km home to home. But we had fantastic weather for it, and fantastic scenery, and the 3 of us made the most of each others company, energy, and camaraderie to ensure a successful day both in terms of caches and enjoyment. My thanks goes to both jeanjeanie and LNM1961 for joining me today and making the day so much more than just a numbers run, and then to watcache for creating the whole series with all the effort that goes into such an endeavour ***Another decent sized cache (most of them were). Many of our hunts today would have jeanjeanie heading to one spot with me heading to another nearby. Let's just say that my ROI for effort was better than 'break even' :p No problems to report here, and the log soon had 2 new names on it before everything was placed back as found, and I bum-slid (is that even proper English?) my way down the bank to the road***

I came up to palmy to see a friend's daughter in a dance competition then decided I should make a go for the 100 cache August souvenir by completing the Dannevirke helmet.Etherlord and I teamed up for the helmet. It was a marathon 13-hour epic - 7am to 8pm, but all found in one day. The vast majority were nice and easy. The only real problem was traveling the closed road - a major slip that had us hugging the bank, and some deep ruts on the other side that really should have had a 4wd, but we managed fine. It was a long day and we switched driving a few times. That was definately a good move!Some of the caches warrant their own favourites, but one is definately warranted for the art as a whole - I will decide on which one after I get them all logged (probably cache #1 if it meets minimum spec).All caches signed as ECATS - for Etherlord Clan and the Seagnoid.

the Seagnoid started searching the hint item on the high road. I was about to descend to search the other hint item on the low road when he called out that he'd found it. Phew! ---the Seagnoid and I are attempting to complete the Viking Helmet GeoArt trail in one day. This is not a small undertaking given that the 61 caches are spread across multiple roads that don't directly link together, one connecting road has a closure due to a slip, one cache is ~10km up its own road (with no others along the way), some have DnF's, there are many other unfound caches along the way to distract us, and it's a lot of time, driving, and kilometers.But we did it! We found all 61 of them in 13 hours, with the only downsides being a frustrated EtherLady and cold dinner waiting for us.Thanks to the CO's for their part in today's adventure Log signed as ECatS (Etherlord Clan and the Seagnoid

The caches all seem to be of good size and almost all the same. I like the placements close to the road, but there are also some that require a short walk and hunt. TFTC.

A bit of eeny neey to work out which post but got there in the end. TFTP & cache

Great to have completed the jigsaw puzzle to get the cache in this series, we are working off the list this afternoon. Signed and replaced as found.

I'm on a wee road trip to southern Hawkes Bay (or is to northern Wairarapa?) on an attempt to clear the Vikings Geoart, with a bit of freedom camping down at the coast. (Apologies for the generic logging)Today it's the run up from Wellington, over the track and up to Dannevirke before heading out into the back roads.Yes, parking is tricky but the cache quickly found thanks to the geotrail.All good here and TFTC.Find #6232 at 8 January 2024 12:47 pm

Found an off the road carpark further along the road and walked back to the cache. Cars certainly do speed along this road -good to have one of us doing traffic H&S.The second day of our short tour - the plan being to find the last 27 the Viking Helmet series. Three Wellingtonians and one South Islander out together to find the Viking helmet; of course that is a recipe for fun. There is bound to be a lot of laughter as we travel around the countryside in the Nifty Swifty. All logs signed is MINNz whether we have found them earlier or not.Kia ora rawa atu for the cache watcache.

(# 8574) Off to Dannevirke to retrieve the Vikings geo art series after solving in. Teamed up with NZ_B, Itchyfeet2020 and Nosynel. Signed the logs collectively as MINNZ. Today we awoke to a beautiful day. Can certainly put our rain jackets away. The plan today was to gather the remaining 27 caches.There was a need to pre plan the route for efficient route management as there were tentacles everywhere. There was a lot of hilarity over the day and a half where no one was immune from the banter.Parked along the road at a safe parking spot and walked to the GZ. Several pairs of eyes soon spotted the container.Thanks Watcache for bringing me here.

It's Viking time! Day 2. Out to pick up the 27 remaining after yesterday. Today is a lot sunnier than yesterday - yah. Four of us have teamed up to create a yellow Viking helmet on our maps. Caching with NZ_B, Mr-Mcgoo and Nosynel. I had great fun solving these upon release as i love jigidu's. Definitely some more interesting navigation involved to try to get the most out of our two days. A super fun time was had, all logs signed as Team MINNZ. Thank you for the fun watcache. Three of us went for a little clamber here and spread out. Glad we didn't need to go where I was looking at.

I wouldn't have had such an interesting trip without your geocache. Thanks so much for hiding and maintaining this cache. I logged the find in the shade of a tree.

It's December, and to help me achieve one of my Geocaching goals I need to log 300+ caches this month, which means an average of ten a day. I started off well, but had a glitch in the middle which has left me behind on my target. Yesterday I left home heading towards Hawkes Bay, to see a band play, and had a good days caching in the Wairarapa. Today as I head off to finish part one of this trip I need only 56 more finds to reach my goal. I have a list of caches to look for, and this was one of them. Part of todays trip was to gather up some more of the wonderful Viking series in the hope to complete the artwork on my map (I didn't get them all). Much like last time, the rain on the gravel roads slowed me down. All good here, although the parking was tricky. --- Thanks to watcache for placing and maintaining this cache. I enjoy each and every cache I find, and it is only with Geocachers like this creating them and placing them out in the world that this wonderful game continues. [DGSc-Bulk] tagging to help me generate a list for GC30AD8 - DGSc Challenge

Another one and off for a wee drive to the next

Out for a drive with KingSportS to get some of the Vikings series. Solved them all and managed to get 15 today. Well be back to find some more another day - too many for a day trip from Paraparaumu.

Xmas caching roadtrip time again & where else would we go but to watcache geoart country.We left the motorhome at the camp in Dannevirke and set out in our Xmas decorated Jimny which made for easier parking. No problems with the find, but ROS is complaining that there is no time between caches to drink his coffee TFTC

The presence of vikings in the area had been noted quite some time ago, but using the campervan as a battle vehicle didn't seem a viable option, so a plan was hatched between matagouri and myself to use his smaller vehicle and to hunt down the vikings over two days.All of the wet weather lately made things interesting, scrambling up banks, over drains and searching through the long grass. It wasn't long before the legs and feet were sodden, but that didn't matter as the pleasure of locating each of today's vikings out weighed any discomfort from soggy shoes!There weren't too many issue's finding them. Even the one that had wandered quite some distance off course was eventually rounded up.So day one is done and dusted with 30 vikings snaffled. I'm looking forward to getting the rest tomorrow. Thanks for going to trouble of setting this great piece of geo art up

Rattll and I have teamed up to complete the Viking series in Central (southern) Hawkes Bay. Based for a few days in Dannevirke, we've split the series into two parts. The weather was decidedly damp on our first morning, so we made sure that we set out with wet weather gear. Didn't help much, we still got wet pretty quickly. By we, I mean rattll, as I was the driver, she the one that hurled herself out of the car as soon as it stopped to ferret in the undergrowth. Most of the caches were easy finds, some a bit trickier, in which case we both got to hunt. We didn't have any DNFs. The weather improved as the day progressed, although the car kept the thick covering of mud that it picked up on the backroads. Unless there was a particular point that I want to raise for a particular cache, this description will apply to all in the series, as there are too many in a short time to write custom logs. Tftc and thanks for the series, Watcache!The log in this container was wet, and rather fragile. Replaced with a fresh w/p sheet.

The aim for today is to do all the main road one's done today then get the bike out and start on the side roads tomorrow A FP for good parking spots

A straightforward puzzle and a quick find after a wee scramble. The log was a bit wet and tatty. TFTC

Isis58 and I are on our way from Masterton to Dannevirke today in the hope of picking up as many 52 on 52 and Viking caches as possible. I apologise for the cut and paste logs, I was doing the driving and didnt have much time to make any notes at each stop. Thanks watcache

#14252

Followed the geotrack for this one which took us right to the cache. Can't get better than that. TFTC and all the effort it has taken to put this geoart together watcache, TFTC # 19,961

I was out with Yeetrees signing off the Viking GeoArt series today.

Oh, that one.

Cheers for the cache, watcache.

Team BOP hatched a plan months ago to pick up this series and finally the long weekend came.
The whole trail took us 8.25hrs and we covered 220km. I highly advise people to start with a full tank of gas, or top up at Porangahau like we had to as the fuel consumption was terrible with all the stop/start in those hills with the extreme wind we had. A 4wd vehicle is highly recommended also, as stopping on the soggy side of the road could be difficult in a car.
Thanks for the big effort in setting up the series.

With Matariki being a new holiday, part of Team BoP hatched a plan to collect a geo art series in the wairarapa and of course others along the way there and back.


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.

On a road trip with part of Team BOP and enjoying ourselves It is the first time since covid and just like old times Done all our solving for the Viking trail beforehand and put them on an offline list To collect this trip and a few others. Weather quite windy and few showers Lots of fun to be out again. Thanks to all the COs

Matariki weekend and a team of us from BOP have ventured south for a caching weekend. The team consists of TNXPro, NZFlossy, McJandals and DavidsonClan. Logs signed as Team BOP.
Weather cold wet and windy but that won’t stop us on our mission.
Ngā mihi for the cache hides.

6th of the attack the Viking morning cache drive. I had solved these fun puzzles before coming so decided to try half of them today. My muggle dad joined me for the adventure.

A quick find and so far a great morning's caching! All quickly found. TFTC.

Lis'screw and I are on a mission on two days in late April to collect the Vikings puzzles that we solved earlier. It was a bigger mission than anticipated due to the condition of some of the roads. There was a lot of backtracking and going around the slips and damage but we got all bar one in the end. We dressed ourselves appropriately (not for public viewing) and had loads of laughs and many adventures out in the Wop Wops. Most were nice easy finds. Thanks for placing the series and TFTC.

I've just been on a great geotrip with my friend thedbees. We went to the Palmerston North area to collect the Stickmen and Viking puzzles. We then went down to stay with a geocaching buddy in Greytown. She kindly drove us around that area before we set off to Levin via a few more specifically targeted caches. On our way home to Paihia we collected the mini Jasmar year challenges.

Today was the first of two days planned to collect the Viking series. I do like geoarts and jigsaws so this was a winning combination for me. Sorry it's taken me ages to log these and for the copy and paste nature of the logs.

I don't remember these well now but we had trouble with parking on a few of these. Looking at the map this might have been one of them. Glad to get the smile though. Thanks for setting up this geoart

We were very happy to accept an invitation from capperz to join him on a raid into Southern Hawkes Bay Viking territory today. We'd have not been likely to go on our own. Many thanks capperz.
The puzzles themselves were quite straightforward but took a while to work through. It was great to see they were based on local scenes.
We were well satisfied with our "spoils" for the day: one new AdLab, one Virtual, one Multi and two Trads, plus 45 Vikings vanquished. We signed logs GC (geodatum, capperz).
We were glad of the fine, mild autumn day for our journey as some places would be not so good in wet weather, eg: damaged roads from Cyclone Gabrielle (still some roads closed, although we got around - thankful to have guidance from Squirrel Nutcase about conditions), one road surface was bad enough today as it was.
Thank you watcache for setting up this great looking piece of geoart. It must have been a lot of work. It is very much appreciated.

Parking isn't possible right here as there's nowhere to pull off. We drove on , turned at a safe spot and then drove back and a bit past before finding a place to pull off the road. Capperz walked back for the cache retrieval. TFTC watcache

Had noted the commentary re poor parking here and did a recce on first pass. Turned around and came back up again for a second bite and tucked in off the passing lane and headed across, and up. All good here and replaced as found.

Day two of a local road-trip weekend in the company of Manawatu cachers; Today it's Geodatum. I'd solved the Vikings series of puzzles out Dannevirke way and wondered when I'd get a chance to make a dent. I messaged the geodatum couple to see if they were keen on a roadie and Yes was the reply. I passed on the list produced by a recent finder(s) and some of the final GZs along with an 0900 meet-up in Ashhurst. An 11 hour day in great company of M and G and 57 finds was the total for me; a couple of Multis, an Ad Lab series, a couple of Trads both listed and Archived as well as a 'couple' of puzzles. We explored the back roads of Southern Hawkes Bay and enjoyed some of the gravel roads. Just the two cyclone damaged places, both navigable by the Dualis. Thanks to all COs, bust especially watcache for his awesome Geo art series, that must have taken some serious effort, well done.

Jigidis and Geoart. This series had caught our attention shortly after publication. We had intended to be down at the end of February but the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle upset that plan. A new plan was hatched with Team Welsh.
Today is day two on the Vikings trail with Team Welsh. We drove a lot less distance than yesterday and found three times as many Vikings (43 today) in just half a day.
Finding somewhere safe to park while attempting this cache could be rather tricky. With four of us in the car, two jumped out to look for the cache while the driver went off to find a turning spot before coming back to collect us. TFTC

Today was the 2nd day of our Viking adventure, left earlier today (7:45) and planned on doing the southern ways working our way down to the loop and picking up what we could on the way that was on the correct side of the road. Mrs KC did another day of epic driving and we were back at our motel for morning tea and then back on the road to complete the series. All up we were finished by 2pm. Great way to spend the day.

This one involved dropping the men of the teams off while Mrs KC and I did a u turn to head back up the road to find somewhere safe. They managed to find it ok and we were able to direct them a bit from the geo trail we could see from the car. TFTC

avelling with Squirrel Nutcase this Easter weekend.plan was to collect the Viking trail this day.caches solved route plan made.the only error was that we forgot to down load caches to my phone in particular.we had no great issues finding most caches and a few road closures in our travels.these didn't stop our quest to complete this series.TFTC

Easter Saturday morning in Viking county to find 15 caches for my personal challenge. A favorite point from me. Thanks watcache for the cache.

With Gap (of Fap and Gap)… We’re on a big Easter weekend excursion visiting Vikings and anything else in between.

Easter Saturday: We solved this series of puzzles soon after they were published. The plotting and planning followed, but Cyclone Gabrielle threw a massive spanner in the works. What would road conditions in this lonely rural setting be like? Then reports and photos began to surface on the FaceBook caching page. We believed that if there was going to be a time to visit, it might be sooner rather than later…

Besides the many roadside slips, we found two sections where roads were closed - for very obvious reasons. No one is policing the road closures, and locals are still driving through with caution. We did too.

Our BOP friends were among the first to complete this series, and it took them roughly nine hours. This gave us a target to work with. We were on the trail by 8:15AM, and stopped the clock at 5:30PM. At least 30 minutes was spent loading the entire area to an offline file, and we added a few extra hides to our list…

This cache had the most atrocious parking options in either direction. Gap was forced to disappear with the car while we tackled the hide. Luckily, it was a straight forward find. Thanks watcache. TFTP and TFTC.

25 March 2023 2:34 pm. On the road for the weekend with BFG & CF to chase down some Vikings & anything else we fancy! Logs signed as BIC to save time. Many thanks watcache for creating this cache, number 12506 for me.

A weekend away with Infoferret and Barefoot Guru (Signed all logs as BIC when all 3 of us hadn't found the cache) - Objective : The Viking Geoart Series. Left early Saturday and started the series around lunch. Grabbed a few and then hit a "Road Closed" followed by a few more, but were weren't going to let that stop us. Some "Closed" roads were "Open" and perfectly driveable whilst others were "Closed" (and potentially drivable in a 4x4 at your own risk). We managed all the series in a small Toyota Aqua. Most farmers in the area were very friendly when we bumped into them. Day 2 was much of the same of Day 1, but we had to do about a 100km detour to get around a "Closed Road" and that consumed the majority of the day leaving very little time for any other caches. Glad we have completed the series now..

Wasn't particularly happy about the lack of parking on this one. Thanks anyways...

A dodgy park & grab. Team sign as BIC. Thanks for another jigsaw & mystery watcache

We were on babysitting duties for a large part of the day and then around 1.30 decided to tackle what we could of this geo art, we only got stop by a closed road which meant a very large drive to get to the other lot so left it for another day. Thanks for the placement of the geoart we enjoyed the roads.

#12,635. I have been working on the Viking geoart series for the past month and finished the last puzzle last night. With a sunny day forecast for Hawkes Bay I set out at 7am and made my way via Masterton and Route 52 to Weber. Did a few caches along the way and got here at 12.45pm. Managed to find 36 of them over the next 5 and half hours. Some of the roads have been damaged by washouts and slips and clearly had been closed until very recently. But I was able to access all the southern caches today. It was good to see the diversity of images on the jigsaws and they really did range from some that took only a minute or so to solve to those that took over an hour.

Parking was awkward here. Had to turn around in a safe place and come back to find a place off the road. The cache itself was in a bit of an unusual place but quickly found. Signed the logbook and replaced the cache as found. Thanks watcache for the effort taken to draw up the geoart and puzzles, and hide so many caches.

Decided to drive up from Wellington after the Waitangi holiday weekend was over, then stay a night in Dannevirke and do this series in two hits. The first was the afternoon of the first day for the southern section, scoring 37 caches down past Weber and then back to Dannevirke. The next day was taken for the remaining 23 caches of the northern section, then on to Porangahau and back via Route 52 to Masterton. With one or two exceptions, all the caches were very quick finds with distinct geotrails marking the way to them thanks to all the recent activity. Coordinates were in general very accurate. Lots of back country road driving, with numerous washouts and slips from the recent rain. Fortunately none of the roads were impassable, although having a decent large 4WD vehicle made getting around much easier than it would have been in a small car.

This cache was a quick find with the geotrail showing me the way. Signed log, TFTC

I joined up with gonefishing to do a roadtrip to find the Vikings Geoart caches. Two great days of rural caching that saw us cover a lot of kilometres.

It was really pleasing to find all of them to complete the artwork. A couple of the hides were a bit tricky but with good teamwork we finished with a clean sheet with no DNF’s. A shoutout to gonefishing for a great display of tireless driving.

A most enjoyable two days, the weather played its part as well, the forecast heavy showers and thunderstorms never eventuated, and the mercury hit the low 30’s at times today.

Thanks for the effort put into setting up the trail. Cheers and TFTC

Found on a roadtrip to compete the Vikings series and pick up some other nearby caches such as the northern end of 52 on 52. Fortunately I had boxhill riding shotgun with his superb planning and navigation skills. He managed to come up with a good trip plan to visit all the far flung caches and remote road ends, while I practiced my rally driving skills.

It was a fun mission and we were really lucky that the forecast rain kept away, so we enjoyed humid temps up to 30 deg with plenty of sunshine.

TFTC watcache

**17,447**
Another one that required a bit more creative parking, cache another quick find and then off to the next one. TFTPC

Nice day away with woolwood9 targeting the Vikings series of puzzles and a few other caches along the way.
Nice to also get *9 First-To-Finds.*
We did over 680km and there were some pretty rough roads.

We attempted all but one cache in this series today - with the threatening rain we gave away the very long drive to one cache out on its own!

Soon had another one found and stamped: *tm/ww NZ*
*Thanks watcache for putting the cache trail out.*

Weather looking pretty bad now - the rain has arrived!
Not many left to collect but it is really coming down.

Headed out this morning with tmann421 to pick up the Viking series. The weather forecast was for thunder storms in the afternoon so we had a very early start to avoid getting wet.

Fortunately all was good and we managed to stay dry till the last 5 caches.
Lots of driving on some pretty damaged roads but luckily all passable.

Enjoyed the day and all the caches found
Many thanks to the cache owners for all their efforts.

6th {FTF} @ 13:23

Published