Karamadon - Easy walking Waitakere Ranges, North Island, New Zealand
By paxilein on 16-Oct-22. Waypoint GCA10VP

Headed out here to Whatipu for this Trail, beautiful day out here.Right corner for us as we parked in the summit carpark. TFTC

Immediately knew where it was. Really easy. Tftc. I hope we reached the end of the stairs because our legs are buggered. Tftc

Just had to work out which left

Is it left from this direction or the other? Had me wondering for a few moments. TFTC

Quick find. Nice day for it.TFTC

Found this one after a nice we walk over the boardwalk TFTC!

Fantastic boardwalk and whole track is amazing tftc

Quick find just before the muggles arrived. TFTC

Our final one for today, off to pick the kids up from school. This was lovely change with flat tracks, easy walk easy find. Bit damp log but easy to write on. TFTC #298

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. There was a muggle sitting here as we made our way to Mount Donald Mclean carpark so we decided to take a look for it on our return. Took a seat to rest our tired legs and made another easy find. Not sure we are too eager to get back up again but not fancying staying here at night.

Kids really enjoying this trail of treasure!

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. Lovely boardwalk and definitely easy walking while we were on it. I didn't see many big trees left in this part of the reserve. With one person looking on each side we made a quick find. Thanks _Pax_ and tramyard for all the caches and cache maintenance along this track

To quote Gorby it's "Easy when you know where", so Team Flag made a quick find here when we worked out which side was left.

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. Walking on these boardwalks is pure hiking luxury. Anyway, as we got to this ground zero, after taking a short rest back at the old junction. I checked our left and had Gorby check the other side. He came up with the goods here. From here we knew to always invert left and right given we were travelling in the opposite direction to the placers. Cheers for the cache placement!

Can't remember who found this one. I was still catching up from the rear. Off course left might be left coming up the hill or might be left coming down the hill, either way I found this one I'm pretty sure, nice to find my second cache today.

Good find

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

After a sit at the former track junction (now boardwalked into history) my flat and down-hill leg began.

The 'flat' is nice for the feet. But the track's getting busier now so I needed to time my search.

A quick find as it turned out.

Thanks _Pax_
#4481

These were pretty slippy today - nice quick find! TFTC

Found by me again
TFTC

Nice quick find, enjoying our caching adventure with beconaze. Lovely track to walk TFTC

Yes these track upgrades are pretty good. Lots of nice Kauri to look at around here

Nice quick find here. Phew. Nobody about. TFTC

Walking from the top of Mount Donald McLean and down to Karamatura Valley near Huia was certainly easy walking for me considering how unfit I currently am. I was very well aware of the steep decent that soon lay ahead but I'd much rather walk down than walk up it!

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.
The boardwalks along this track are great but I found that on the way to this cache the wood suddenly changed to no longer having grooves for grip so after the recent rain they were wet and a bit slippery. I guess they ran out of the more expensive wood.
I had no problems but something to be aware of for future explorers as you wouldn't want to fall and hurt yourself this far along the trail.
Once at GZ I had my hand on the cache immediately.
I hadn't intended to go any further but was enjoying myself so much I couldn't resist continuing for a bit longer.
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! The boardwalks certainly make the walk through here easier than it use to be, although the track doesn't have as much character now! A quick find in the obvious spot.

Had a fair idea where this might be so a quick find with this one. Nice piece of boardwalk through here. TFTC

Trying to keep up with Mrs Jag!

Lovely easy walk along these board walks for sure !

Easy find here thanks Pax....

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.
Really liked these boardwalks along this trail. The cache was located in the first place we looked. TFTC

Lots of muggles also enjoying this track. Some with heavy packs.Nice new boardwalk.

Net and I left a car at each end, and started from the top for an easier walk. A great job has been done in the refurbished track. Quick easy find

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.Definitely happy to have some easy walking here. Pleased to see another blank log.

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)

Oh how I do love a boardwalk! Such a lot of effort has gone in here. Group FTF and on we go! Thanks for the board silly cache!(FTF) #340

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!There was now become a habit of loud congratulatory noises when the empty cache was found. Mr NZT started the rest of them off this time when I made the find!TFTC{FTF} 285 for Team NZTravellers

Published

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} #214 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.

Certainly along the boardwalks were a little easier but I did wonder how they chose which bit got a boardwalk and which was left as gravel....anyway didn't have too long to ponder as there were caches to find!!

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

(FTF) #161

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

I was there with CO when cache was placed
Thanks for a fun Pax
Where we will go next ?

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