Vikings 13 (Hawkesbay) Central Hawke's Bay District, North Island, New Zealand
By watcache on 01-Oct-22. Waypoint GCA10TV

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 This was one of the times we discussed driving time frames. To get to this cache (one of three) would add an extra hour. BUT - in for a penny in for a pound right?? One there cache was easy enough to findLogging 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 ***We debated about the time it would take us to get to this cache, and a few others, and decided to just do it anyway. A quick park 'n' grab once 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 fine one I found the road.TFTP

#22 @ 15:55 This is a 'Big Out of the Way'. I promised myself I'd stop at 16:00 so just the three on this road today.

Another easy find on our trip, 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 wrote in my notes: "Log way away from the others" - Now I don't even know what that means!---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.

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).First of the day.All good here and TFTC.Find #6271 at 9 January 2024 6:21 am

Thanks for hiding this cache watcache I appreciate it. After an interesting Swifty experience we finally reached this cache. It started to rain so we ate our lunch and waited for it to pass.

(# 8536) 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.Got this just in time as the rain was coming in. Ate lunch in the Swifty.Thanks Watcache for bringing me here.

After a tour of an off-road road where the road gang had to get out and make the road easier for the Nifty Swifty to travel over we are now back on track and caching again.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. Picnic stop here. Log signed just before the rain came in. Lunch in 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. After a succesful navigation along the closed road we headed towards this one but unfortunately missed one of the turnoffs so had to back track quite a distance. No problems with the find once we were at GZ 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.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, the heavens opened. It was bucketing down when we arrived at the third to last one! I doned the raincoat and gave a cursory look at the driver in the hope he'd gallantly offer to do this one for me but nope, nothing came! So out I went. I was out there less than a couple of minutes but was totally drenched, much to the drivers amusement. Oh well, at least we were nearly done and could 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 ar

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!The last cluster of three caches. Unfortunately, the heavens opened for a downpour, and rattll got soaked while looking for the cache.

A straightforward puzzle and a quick easy find. The friendly local farmer came to investigate what we were doing, and we had a lengthy friendly chat. He didn't know about geocaching as such, but was aware strangers had been visiting the area, and stopping here. He suggested when caches are placed in remote no exit roads like this, the locals should advised, so they know what is going on. Not an unreasonable suggestion. TFTC

We are back on the trail of route 52 and Vikings today, this is the first of the Vikings. Thanks watcache

#14287

Here we are at the first of these three outliers that Paddle Chick had noticed last night had been missed off the list. All sorted now. TFTC # 19,996

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

It was a long drive from the last one to here.

Cheers for the cache, watcache.

A plan was hatched 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.

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 ones in the series.

Oops. I just realised I missed logging this one. Another quick find here. Thanks again for the spectacular effort making the geoart

My notes say 'Blind George' so I assume there were a couple of looks in the same place. Not surprising we were tiring at this point.

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.

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.

A couple of road changes and we were off to this one, next on our chosen route, for a quick find. TFTC watcache

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. After turning around at the Road Closed sign on Te Uri Rd (as expected), we headed for the southernmost Vikings caches. After some of the other narrow roads we had been on, this was a pleasant drive through the countryside. TFTC

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.

Another long drive in but the roads were quiet and Mrs KC did an amazing job of all the driving today. Many thanks for setting this up

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…

Another lengthy drive to reach this hide, but a straight forward find. Thanks watcache. TFTP and TFTC.

26 March 2023 15:03 TFTC watcache for placing this cache, number 12493 for me. Back on the trail again!

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..

Counting down to get to the end of the series now.. 3rd last one.. T4TC

Quick find outside a popular area then muggled. Signed for the marauding crew as BIC. Cheers 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

**17,497**
Guess we are technically 2TF on these caches - thankfully a quick find as there was a farmer in the shed nearby and we felt quite exposed. TFTPC

*FTF on the 3 caches in this area.*
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 this one found and stamped: *tm/ww NZ*
*Thanks watcache for putting the cache trail out.*

Joint FTF with tmann421

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.

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