Karamadon - Horizontal Giant Waitakere Ranges, North Island, New Zealand
By tramyard on 16-Oct-22. Waypoint GCA0ZDZ

Headed out here to Whatipu for this Trail, beautiful day for it.We went in further than we needed to. TFTC

After searching around the horizontal giant we found cache lying there not covered with wood. We placed some wood by the cache to match the hint. Tftc

Couldnt find - sorry

Another one that took longer that it should have, sneaky. TFTC

Well hidden, dont be afraid of the bush. TFTC

Not well hidden, was a bit out in public view so we restashed it away after filling in the log.Old log is very wet but the new one is waterproof and dry.TFTC

Located in its cosy little spot. TFTC!

Located well hidden tftc

Our plan for today was to walk the track from Karamatura to Mount Donald. There are plenty of muggles here but once we had left the lower track they soon disappeared. Another find on our walk today.

I'm in Auckland to spend the weekend with the my grown up kids and their families who live down here. Friday I cached the Mahurangi area and got a nice haul. Today's plan is to join the Auckland Geocachers in the morning for a walk in the Waitakere Ranges. Sunday's plan is to watch my Grandkid play hockey then hang out and relax at their place.

I had a very sucessful caching weekend so I was very pleased to see that my May souvenir is in the bag once I have completed my logs.

Signed as Team FLAG: flossieteacake, Lostcourse, Lis's crew and Gorby. A great group walk after the event. Another quick find here, this time by me, after Lostcourse spotted the hint. The log was wet here so Gorby provided a replacement. Thanks _PAX_ and tramyard for all the caches and cache maintenance along this track

With Team Flag. The horizontal giant was easily spotted, and Lis's Crew had just found the cache as yet another group of muggles approached. So far nobody has seemed in the least bit interested in what we were doing slightly off the track.

Can't remember who found this one. I was still catching up from the rear. I see the Fletcher Trk branched off here at one time, I couldn't see it. But obviously it's not meant to be walked on now. Moving on!

Team Flag (Flossieteacake, Liz's Crew, Myself and Gorby) did the walk and this series of caches from the Mount Donald McLean car park down to the Karamatura Valley. It took us approximately three hours, cache finding and general chatting time included. As I recall my contribution to this find was to quickly identify the obvious ground zero. I think it was Liz who actually came up with the goods in the end. Cheers for the cache placement!

A day to myself walking the Donald McLean and Karamatura tracks.

After a couple of more bothersome hides there was little ambiguity around this hint. Just a matter of getting the correct angle to view.

Thanks tramyard
#4478

TFTC

Walked past it as we were too busy looking for the side track and missed everything. Quick find once we went back.

Soon had cache in hand just after more muggles passed us. TFTC

We had the giant in our sights very quickly but unfortunately we were focused on the wrong end. A readjustment of location and we had it in hand, signed and returned

Yay, started to get my mojo back by finding this one easily. TFTC

The geohound got a little excited as she saw me hunting for this one. I think she had 'critters' not caches in mind here . Tftc

We did a nice job here... Just forgot to log them ??

A solo excursion for Mr Coblet
I had the day off work and took the opportunity to head out here for a walk and to look for this new series of caches.
I soon spotted the horizontal giant and took a moment to have a drink of water and a couple of biscuits before looking for the cache which was located quickly.
TFTC

I had the day off work today and it was a nice looking day, so I decided to head out to Huia to hike the Karamatura/Donald McLean Tracks again, with these new Karamadon caches giving me a reason for another visit. As it was a week day, the tracks were very quiet and I only encountered a couple of other people throughout the day. Thanks to Tramyard and Pax for hiding this series! Spotted the hiding pot from the track and ducked into the retrieve the nicely hidden cache.

Easy one here with the hint. Made a nice change not having to grovel around on our knees.TFTC

Lots of muggles out walking this stunning track today - we stopped and chatted with a few of them and discovered that some of them were in training for BIG walks.
Another quick find here with Supernannny before we tried to imagine the height of this giant! TFTC

Enjoyed your Tramoufage Containers today thanks tramyard.

Came out with Jag 50 for this adventure ; and we left a car at each end so we had the Karamatura steps part going down ; not up !

Love what they have done to these tracks!

Nice easy find on this lovely bush walk. Thanks.

Net and I left a car at each end, and started from the top for an easier walk. Nice quick find thanks to the hint

In the absence of a MEGA event this Labour Weekend, Keylev had spent some time planning a Mega Mysterious Weekend for members of Team SEAC (a group of cachers from south and east Auckland who often cache together). Today's plan was to head north, but as we left home the notifications of new caches on this trail came through and we made a quick change of plans. In the group today is HeMaLuDy, Stik-a-Crane, NurseDr, Keylev, UncleSamNZ, Cragger, BrowneHornet, Liverkiwi, B4Dawn, @McArgister.Happy to see another blank log. Thanks for the cache.

Out with Team SEAC for the day looking for caches. Got the message from NZTravellers for a sudden place change as his these FTFs turned up. Made our way out here to begin the trail.Thanks for the cache(FTF)

Keylev comes from the east side but thankfully was searching on the south side so made the find for the group FTF! Thanks for the sleeping giant cache!(FTF) #343

A long weekend and the usual Team SEAC adventure had been planned by Keylev starting to day. The idea was for a convoy of cars to head up north walk a reginal park while grabbing some caches.On my way to Keylev's place this group of FTF's were released NOT where we were going. When I arrived at Keylev's immediately muted the idea of changing plans and heading for these FTFs. Knowing Keylev had spent a lot of time organising todays adventures I didn't want to appear to bossy HOWEVER with the number of FTFs going we just had to. Trouble was people were already in cars heading to the organised walk. A quick video chat with all participants and everyone agreed FTFs were the way to go.So we all changed direction and headed to the start for an eventual day. The logs were signed as Team SEAC including HeMaLuDy, Stik-a-Crane, NurseDr, Keylev, UncleSamNZ, Cragger, BrowneHornet, Liverkiwi, @McArgister and B4Dawn meaning a huge group FTF list for these caches!Keylev found and as she opened she said "oooo someone else has signed this!!!!!!!!!" we hadn't come across any other cachers, we thought, so were a little surprised but it turned out she was just teasing us ALL!!!!TFTC{FTF} 287 for Team NZTravellers

Was just about to set off for an adventure up North with Team SEAC when a flurry of publications flooded the in box....within minutes chatter spiked up, and a video chat started about attempting the FTF's on this group of caches, and with a few of us keen on this option the plan changed, and we headed over to our new destination, which was also 10mins closer....
Arriving at the designated parking spot, we decided to drop a car at the end to enable us to carry on caching the area after the trail completion, but as we drove we noted the increase in elevation....discussed changing our starting point, enabling the trail to be more down hill, but decided that we might loose the FTF potential......

Once back to the starting point, and all participants had arrived, we set out on the trail....and to a blank log book....yahhh....

{FTF} #217 joint with KeyLev, HeMaLuDy, UncleSamNZ, NZTravellers, LiverKiwi, NurseDr, B4Dawn, @McArgister, and possibly a few more...

TFTC.

Labour Weekend has historically been a minimum 3 day Team SEAC all out adventure so a little while ago I started planning some fun for us. Today was all set for a walking day up north but as we were leaving the house the notifications started coming through....quick team lets head in an alternative direction....its a Mega Mysterious Weekend after all!!

After some video calls to ensure everyone knew the correct meeting spot, a quick car shuffle, an additional team member joining at last minute - it was an impressive pull into the carpark for McArgister, we were hot on the trail.

Found the giant easily and wondered which side was south....happened to be on the side I started looking and spied the bark cover...yes...another blank log - fantastic!!

Thanks for the cache and for adding to our weekend adventure.

(FTF) #164

Published

Out with Team Seac for another day of adventures. We weren’t planning on coming this way, we had another full day planned elsewhere, but while enroute we got the alerts of some new caches, and we couldn’t take the opportunity to miss these….so we changed our google maps while driving and found our new destination.

Sorry for the generic logs. Thank you for taking the time to place this cache.

{FTF} joint with KeyLev, HeMaLuDy, Stik-a-crane, NZTravellers, LiverKiwi, NurseDr, B4Dawn, @McArgister. All logs signed “Team Seac” or similar to save log paper.

FTF with Team SEAC while out on a long weekend mega adventure. TFTC