Vikings 10 (Hawkesbay) Tararua District, North Island, New Zealand
By watcache on 01-Oct-22. Waypoint GC9PRXC

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 Up a bank and followed a sheep trail along the fence. All good with cache and logLogging all these as my #562 hide as its easier Mihi ki a koe, watcache, mo te keteroki

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 ***A bit of a scramble, but nothing major, to make the find here.No issues to report with this cache, and the log soon had 2 new names on it before everything was placed back as found***

Quick find once I spotted the access way. The wid has dropped too which is nice.TFTP

That took WAY too long! But got it eventually. TFTC#19 @ 14:45

An easy find on the high road. Thanks---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)

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, Palmy to Palmy. 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.

After rounding up the troops P&E and 2 Bulbars started their journey at900 hours heading east after leaving the Makotuku domain headquarters where they are stationed for a few days.Their assignment is to find the geocache and sign the log without being spotted.It wasn't much further down the road so after some discussion between driver and navigator they decided to go back and space the cones out so they could drive through. The cache was found and signed as required and they drove in to the surprise of a fawn deer on the road Assignment now completed they again hoped into the cache mobile and headed in the right direction for the viking series hidden in this part of the country Many thanks for placing this signed by TYPEC

After talking to the local postie,he okayed for us to carry up the valley so we did,found the cache in good order tftc

We took a little time to find the corner for this one . A couple of months ago we set aside this day to visit some of the more northern Viking caches with D's bro in law who was very happy to take out his 4WD on new roads he had not been before and this suited us fine as neither of us thought taking our smaller cars on these back road buffered from the CYclone Gabrielle last year was a good idea, and yes we did meet several signs saying road closed but we were able to navigate them all at a careful pace and caution. WE did not have one Did Not Find altho' one was nearly until D had a second look and located it . some required a little bit of a scramble up the bank etc but none were too difficult . Thank you for these puzzles and then the day out on the trail .

I volunteered to scramble up the cliff to search for the hint item. I love it that the hosts are basically similar- I recognize what I am looking for. I love this size cache! Tino pai, Watcache for the thought and effort you took to make this series fun and enjoyable. Big Sis and Hubby thoroughly enjoyed the day out. Maybe, one day they will become geocachers! A favorite point from me

We are out and about tiki touring on our way back from Hawkes Bay, so thought we could try and endeavour to complete a few more of these elusive Viking caches. We are on a time frame to be further down the Wairarapa for dinner, so will see how many we can complete today. I have enjoyed solving all the jigsaw puzzles, but I havent enjoyed the driving today. Too many ks between caches at times, on gravel & windy roads, a few closed roads, plus many stop / go signs following on from Cyclone Gabrielle with road wash outs being repaired. Today we had to also wait for 3 flocks of sheep being moved, 1 herd of cattle being relocated and numerous wandering lost sheep, 3 farmer chats, checking out if we were lost, and then explaining a bit about geocaching to them. Luckily we found all that we looked for today. This is our 3 day venturing out on this series, so hope that we can mope up the outstanding caches that remain. That will be another time, later in the year. Fine dry weather is a requirement for caching in this area. Many thanks to watcache for setting up this geoart.

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 clearing the second half, starting from Prangahau, up over Te Uri Road and then back home down through the Wairarapa (where there's a couple of new challenges to grab on the way).Looks like this is the last one I can drive to from this side.All good here and TFTC.Find #6278 at 9 January 2024 7:24 am

I wouldn't have had such an interesting trip without your geocache. Thanks so much for hiding and maintaining this cache. No E to stretch the legs

(# 8542) 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. The afternoon in particular was interspersed with showers but didn't deter these intrepid cachers. The plan today was to gather the caches furthest away from Dannevirke finishing the day with Vikings 46.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.Thanks Watcache for bringing me here.

They decided not to take the short cut back to the car! Pity as it would have made a great photo .Let the fun begin. 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.

It's Viking time! Four of us have teamed up to put a dent into this series. Caching with NZ_B, Mr-Mcgoo and Nosynel. I had great fun solving these upon release and today it is time to collect. 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. Nosynel and I got the fun up to this one. Didn't take the most direct route despite requests from the car!

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 once we reached GZ TFTC

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. Day 2 of the Vikings was, for the most part, warm and sunny. However, the route chosen was less straightforward than day 1, negotiating the maze of hill country back roads. As we did for day 1, I did the driving and rattll directed me to GZ, then jumped out to make the find. Today, we saw lots more evidence of the damage inflicted by Cyclone Gabriel than we did yesterday, including slips, washout, and, at one point, a road closure that forced us to retrace our steps and take a long loop north. By the end of the day, we were both tired, and looking forward to collapsing with a cold drink.Unless there was a particular point that I want to raise for a given 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!This was as far as we could take the car. A large washout of a culvert closed the road. We walked the final 200m to the cache. From here, we had to retrace our steps and find another route.

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.Onto day two, which involved a lot more driving, especially when we came across a road closed sign. We ventured as far down as we felt comfortable driving and then made the call to back track and take the long way around to get the rest. It was a very hot and muggy day today, and we thought we'd get away with not getting rained on but wouldn't you know it with only 3 caches to go. Another day done and now we can head back to base for some fish n chips and a cold cidar!Thanks for going to trouble of setting this great piece of geo art

A straightforward puzzle but another worrying terrain 3, however we found an easy, gentle path up and the cache was then a quick easy find. TFTC

We are back on the trail of route 52 and Vikings today. Sorry about the cut and paste logs. Thanks for placing the geoart watcache

#14293

The gate up here was broken - looked as if some livestock had pushed it down in an effort to get out. TFTC # 20,002

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

Oh yeah. Up there. Hey it rhymes.

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.

The road was signposted as closed though here, but it was clear enough for a 4wd to get though. It 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.

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'd then gone 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 which I was also keen to get.

Today was the last of two days planned to collect the Viking series. It was a very long detour past the longest place name to collect these last 4 in the series. So pleased we could actually get to this one - we'd started to wonder with the 'road closed ahead' signs appearing. Glad it was a quick find here. I was so relieved to find all these last 4. Thanks again for the 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 Fap and Gap 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.

Glad to have the intrepid capperz do the retrieval at this T3. TFTC watcache

My notes intimate that a bush was bashed here, or something similar!

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 our first of two days on the Vikings trail with Team Welsh. We drove a huge outer circuit, larger than would normally be required thanks to the road closure for slips on Te Uri Rd. Only 15 outlyiing Vikings were found today (plus a few other caches).
We quickly got into a routine with Mrs KC doing the driving, Mrs TW doing the navigating and our male counterparts jumping out to make the finds. We should have known from the T rating that this one required a little more effort! Mr TW made the scramble up here.
Thanks for setting up this series.

A few months ago when this geoart was published they were all duly solved and then shelved as no plans to come down this way had been made at the time. What with family visiting and the once in a 100 year floods hitting Auckland twice within a short period we weren't going anywhere in a hurry.

Move forward a month or so and Kiwicouple and ourselves planning a week down this way to primarily find solved puzzles. We have allowed 2 days for this geoart series and with Mrs KC doing all the driving, a full tank of fuel, food, water and GPS'rs loaded we were prepared for most things.

I think this was one that needed a bit of a scramble so we sent Mr TW up as he is a bit of a mountain goat and soon had the cache in hand. 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

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…

A scramble to reach. One of us tried a direct path; the other was much more sensible. Thanks watcache. TFTP and TFTC.

Another day out grabbing the rest of this series, weather played ball, the slips in the area are pretty shocking and just shows how bad it really is out this way, there were some road closed signs and 1 area at this this point need a 4x4 to pass, but thank you for the geoart we plan on getting the last couple by bike.

Walked to this one with BFG & CF.

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..

As we had to park up we walked to this cache and grabbed it whilst it started drizzling. We were continuing onto the next one when the owner of the farms in the area stopped by and after a chat he gave us a lift back to our car and told us the road was reachable from the other side, but required a 100km detour to get there, but we had other caches to do, so off for an hour drive..

After Vikings 12 we abandoned the car, skirted around the slip, and were embarking on a hike to gather the last few caches up here. But the station owner just happened to come along in his 4WD. The 61 year old sole owner was taking a load of pumpkins to feed his pigs. We (also) chatted about the road and the slip here is the worst of it, so we changed plans, returned to the car, and went to attack the remaining 3 caches from the other end. We were stymied by a further closure off the main road, so it was a 2½ hour detour! Anyways, this was signed as BIC, thanks watcache

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.. 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

**17,493**
Re-checked the terrain rating as Mr Geckoh had been searching in the wrong area. Soon had cache in hand. 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!
Second to find on all in this area.

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

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.

[FTF] @ 21:55

It's been a busy few days. Last Sunday I went down to Christchurch and did a 19.5 hour Geocaching mission, logging 212 caches in one day. I had no sooner arrived home to try and catch up on some sleep when this lovely piece of geoart appeared, with its 60 jigsaw puzzles to be solved. That kept me busy for most of the evenings this week. As I had to head up to Wanganui for this weekend (as I regularly do), I snuck away from work a bit earlier than usual and detoured via the larger Dannevirke area (and I mean that in the widest possible terms) to try for a few of these.

It was not the most pleasant of evenings, with light but steady rain the entire time, and a lot of gravel roads to travel. However, it wasn't cold, and once I detoured off the main highway I only saw one other car the entire night - it happened to coincide with the exact moment I decided to change out of my wet clothes into some dry ones, which must have made for an interesting sight for them.

Anyway, I managed to log 19 of the Vikings caches, 18 as the first finder. I DNF'd 3, but I didn't spend a lot of time searching for them, and all were tried by torchlight in the rain so I am sure they are there, somewhere.

A huge thanks to watcache for placing and maintaining these Geocaches, and for another awesome piece of art that I am sure will provide many Geocachers many hours of enjoyment. Despite the rushed evening 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.

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