Long Bay (Auckland) Long Bay, North Island, New Zealand
By TimK01 on 24-Nov-02. Waypoint GCAC46

.

Found it!
(More details and photo under my 'maintainence' log)

Across the field to 'the' fallen tree. Mega long grass in places and certainly wouldn't have like to have been any shorter or wearing jandals!!
Located the cache, but the protective bag was ripped and not much good. Poured a litre of water out of the 2l icecream container! Poor contents; old, rusty and nothing worth taking. Could do with a new protective bag and something to enjoy looking at once open...
Had a nice walk back down the hill and along the beach.

Just dropped off some coins

.

Spent the afternoon doing all the park. I've never seen grass so high and thick as that near the cache. After wading to the cache I was finally able to locate it. Quite an eye opening trip.

Lovely walk along cliff tops on a stunning day.Took friend along as intro to geocaching. (Now she wants GPS for her birthday.) Transferred contents into dry ice cream container, but placed inside purple container again. Requires new plastic bag as existing one is disintegrating. Easy find. Enjoyed the view over gulf. TFTC.

Nice walk but grass a tad long.

Another twilight walk with Di, this time on Valentines Day. There were quite a few couples (muggles) moonlighting along the track, but nowhere near the cache location. It is a nice spot and slowly this only public part of the Long Bay Great Park (which is not to be) is looking more park-like. Icecream containers are no good for caches - we dried it out as much as possible, but a snaplock would be better.
Thanks for the cache.

Got there after a lovely walk found the container had some water in so drained it .the water had made the pens able to be used .Made some effort to make a mark in the log.TNLN

10h00 - 30 mins of searching the grass yielded nothing, might have to go back to this one!!

Out hunting North Shore caches with TechnoKitten riding shotgun on Splat... After just finding Long Bay Cliffs we locked in "Nearest" and this was close by...
Mumble Mumble.. often regretting decision to hunt this one we set off cross country on direct line to cache.. The cache page did mention buffalo grass but "HELL!!!!" it was DEEP... poor TK couldn't lift her short hind paws up high enough each step and was often lost to view..
XC with extremely long legs strided towards target.. although often went waist deep into hidden ditch cursing and swearing... It was like wading through deep snow!! often hearing yowls from TK following behind somewhere..!!
Got to GZ and thought.. "Impossible".. it could be anywhere... but after recovering breath we poked around and XC soon came up with the treasure.
Cache was dry outside but couple of inches of water was poured out.. Suggest more waterproof container for a spot like this.
TNSL Left Cards...
TFTC #214
Now we had to wade thru grass again to get back to motorbike gear before approaching muggles.. gasp.. mutter!
Come on Kitten.....!!!

Yowwwwllllllll..... Not a cache for wee folk to hunt... I tripped, fell, sank and was swallowed up bodily, many times into the Knee to waist deep buffalo grass..
UP PERISCOPE !!! Which way Commander I cant see you ???
It is not often XC can get from A to B faster than TK who is usually quicker than a rat up a drainpipe.
Cache container could do with replacement by a nice waterproof Sistema. Removed rotting batteries ... wish folk would not leave these things to fester in caches... no need for them with such good quality rechargeables available these days.
The clue needs a spot of revision as it seems to have rotted off.
Great spot.. TNLNSL

Very nice walk. Heaps of people doing the clifftop part but we were the only ones wandering around the farm. Was beginning to think we might have to log a DNF but finally got it amongst all that grass! Unfortunately I have to report that we drained about a litre of water from the cache container and everything inside is saturated except for the log which is only slightly damp. Urgent maintenance is required. TNLN. Thanks

See log below

A messy (read wet & earthy) hunt in the grass, but perseverance paid off. Nice peaceful spot. TNLNSL, thanks Tim

Heck it was windy - the umbrella turned itself inside out twice before we abandoned using it. Seas furious, winds strong, and buffalo grass wet, but the walk was worth it. TFTC

Great easy find for a newby! Poor conditions but the wet feet were well worth it!
TFTC!

TNLNSL

Decided to do this cache one evening, so left the kids swimming in the bay and followed the instructions amazingly straight to the cache. We did keep to the path until the last possible moment though, thanks to a tip from BenMc. Grass had been recently cut on the path so was very easy to follow. Great views and nobody else in sight.
In: Worlds greatest Mum badge
Out: Nothing
TFTC

Quick in out to start TB on trip South

A quick ride up th hill to retrieve TBs Cache nice and dry

Took the direct route - with friends and family via an alternative path. Return trip gave beautiful views. Kids loved it. Out with Woody and in with a YoYo.

Dropping off TBs and visiting the cows

A Pleasant stroll to the GZ.Took the cliff top track to the GZ.Grass became almost knee high 30 metres from the cache.Cache was slightly damp inside.We took the beach walk on the way back as the tide was out.Great view on an awesome day.TNLNSL.
Cheers TimKO1



[This entry was edited by cj.trex on Friday, December 02, 2005 at 4:31:16 AM.]

2nd NZ Geocache of the day! Found with TubbyHS, nice walk lovely views and easy find with the help of the clue. Uneven ground and long grass made it hard going near the cache. TNLNSL Thanks.

Found Cache at 8:15 at night. A first for us. Rode bikes along the track and then ditched them and headed for the cache. Fell in a few muddy spots.
Heaps of fun

[This entry was edited by jimbob_t on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 at 5:11:51 AM.]

Excellent cache, nice views, good fun in 4ft long grass when your only 3ft in height.(kids loved it)
- Water Balloons
- Bouncy Ball
+ sealed packet of hankies
+ Lipstick container with balloons

Thanks Apeldoorn

3.30pm. Enjoyable walk. Found cache easily once impatience and electric fences were avoided. Cache contents were damp. Perhaps need a more watertight container.
- tennis ball (to send to school in Vanuatu)
+ worm bookmark
M&P.

Decided on the direct approach, bad move, that grass is very hard to walk through. Searched for a good 10 minutes and couldnt find it, so walked back down path for quite a distance to get a good prodding stick. That did the trick had it soon after arriving back at GZ.
Cache waterlogged almost 2 inches in container, log book still dry though.
Find 96, only 4 to go.
-TB Return of the Seth
+Clip
TFTC TimK01

Spent ages looking in totally wrong place, due to incorrsct datum in GPS ,so great joy when found.

In: Ceramic Owl
Out: nil

[This entry was edited by trish62 on Sunday, March 20, 2005 at 8:22:41 PM.]

Made the mistake of climbing thru' the buffalo grass. Ended up throwing kids up and over which they loved. Very overgrown at cache. TB Return of the Seth in TB Little Yankee out (to locate closer too an International Airport) as this cache is literely off the beaten track

10.45am. Nice view, a little boggy in places but a quick find once we got there. No muggles in the slightest bit interested in what we were doing, too busy canoodling !!!
+ Little yankee TB.
- Retro stick of RAM.
Thanks TimK01

What a great place for a walk after work. Fantastic views with only a few people around.

TNLN

Thanks Timk01

Cache not too hard to find and is dry and good condition. Great views on a lovely summer day. Small hint If low tide, go along the beachfront until you can head inland after the cliff.


In: Red Bull Toy Car

Out: Chicken Travel Bug

Thanks for the cache

A bit of a boggy walk and when we got there searched and searched but alas, with very long grass didn't find cache. Because of time limit had to flag it, but nevertheless a great view on a good day.

This was a nice little walk to clear the cobwebs. Pretty walk around cliff top and along track- thankfully a nice sunny day, so not boggy. 3rd cache today, with Tufty. Took cat pencil ornament, left Chicken with Ambition TB.

Decided to leave the Gummies in the boot of the car. It would have been nice to have them but Coldstream and myself must have looked good trying out for the NZ Ballet Co as we were leaping from big grass clump to big grass clump without getting our sneakers wet and muddy.

The view was fantastic though.

In: Chicken with Ambition TB (Coldstream will log this)
Out: Cat pencil ornament

This is the 3rd for Coldstream and myself today.

Meandered around the cow fields a while before finding some paths! Nice park.

+ tennis ball
- US coin

This was a long walk for the last cache of the day. The ground was saturated, luckily I purchased some gumboots from the wharehouse.
I dont recommend using the nature walk as a shortcut.
coords were good.
Travel bug has been taken- don't you hate it when people don't sign them out!!
Nil traded.

Atrocious conditions. Tried to take a shortcut. Big mistake.
Bogged down in mud and cow pats in pouring rain.
At least cache was easy find once we got there.
Jamie beat me to this one.
TNLNSL
Cheers

Success at last - a year after our first visit - luckily the buffalo grass was more bullock size this time.
Met team Sabino there who hail from the US - decided the travel bug would definitely prefer a trip Stateside rather than a local jaunt.
- Air New Zealand mini playing cards IN, US quarter OUT.

Go well team Sabino and don't forget to send the photos and the number of the travel bug which we forgot to note.

Didn't read previous logs regarding condition before visiting. The contents are damp inside the container and the outer sleeve is ripped. Needs a spruce up.



[This entry was edited by St. Ouens on Monday, July 26, 2004 at 1:00:11 AM.]

Finnally found a NZ cache after a string of failures! Took first turn off, not reccommended and walked 10 mins thruogh mud, cow pies, and other cow byproducts. found St Quens in the area who had already found the cache. Great Spot!!! Good reception, clear clues, easy to find, Great view. T:Water ballons, cards, travel bug. L: woody doll, us coins.

[This entry was edited by Team_Sabino on Monday, July 26, 2004 at 6:04:10 PM.]

Not at all what I was expecting, but great view once
there. I took the stay-on-track (muddy as it was in
places) advice, which works well. Outer bag has split
and contents are a bit wet, so next cacher may want to
bring a replacement large ziplock bag, thanks.

First Geocache find. Took some time to find cache, but found eventually

Went the long way, but otherwise an easy find. Great walk with the kids on a crisp winter day.

Out: Canadian Pen, Tiger
In: Water Bombs, Bouncy Ball

Nice cool Autumn day, few boats out in the harbour.
Hint for others: Stick to the track - no matter how tempting it is to leave it - until the last 20 metres, or so. The log is full of sorry tales from those that tried a shortcut. And that now includes me
Once I'd ploughed through the buffalo grass it was an easy find. Cache was dry.
TNLN
Thanks for the cache.

Parked where suggested - long walk in. Track muddy in parts. Went with Ellie Beanz who managed most of it with a stroller but had to stop when we hit the kissing gate.

Out: Long Bay magnet which will look good on our fridge in Canada
In: Canada Pen, whistle, tiger and "Trip Around the World" TB

Unbelievably beautiful vistas.

TFTC

Was one of the Geofellas team, now keeping my own log.

I was introduced to Geocaching by my visiting in-laws from the UK. After a month of Geocaching (19 finds) the in-laws left for home. I couldn't cope, I had to get my own GPS. I went out and got my very own "precious" (eTrex Yellow)

I had the day planned out... I'd put in my HOME way-point, converted all the caches I wanted to have a go at onto my Palm, filled the car up with all the stuff... camera, water, change of t-shirt as it was very hot and off we went.

Got to Long Bay and jumped out of the car all excited about doing our first cache without the in-laws direction and with my new GPS. Everything was perfect.
We set off toward the way-point and as we go to about 400ft away the arrow turned towards a large field... not the way I was expecting, but the GPS never lies so off we went... I'd never experienced buffalo grass before but this was hard work... it came up to my hips in some places but we carried on down the field towards the way-point. Half way down the field I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I took my t-shirt off because of the heat and pushed on down the hill through the buffalo grass (never again). Spent half an hour bush crashing down the hill getting mighty impressed at the trouble cachers took to hide their caches. Finally got to the way-point, well about 3 ft away from the way-point then it hit me. None of the logs on my cache make any sense. I'm in the middle of a very, very dense bush area, and the logs say "what a great view". I can't see more than 10 ft in front of me for trees and bushes. So I check the way-point detail... all correct. I spent the next hour getting very, very, very sunburnt (I'd forgotten the sun cream) and very stressed. I gave up!!! My first ever failure
I came home with the other half without a word being said... I don't think she was to impressed about the buffalo grass hike down hill, then up again!
Everything was right, or so I thought... I'd made a very simple mistake... I'd not set the Map Datum to the correct one.
When I'd corrected the datum and checked my HOME details I found that I was about 200ft out.

I'll go back another day and get this one but here's a lesson to be learnt.
SET-UP THE GPS CORRECTLY BEFORE YOU GO GEOCACHING


+++++++++++++++++++++UPDATE+++++++++++++++++++++

Found it!!! Found it!!! Found it!!!

As you can see from the post below my first attempt was a little off. After setting up my new GPS properly I found the area quite quickly. Waypoint was still a good 30ft out and I got bitten to buggery. Cache is still very wet, threw away old unused note book as it was wet and mouldy. Cache could really do with a make over... Tried to tidy up but fighting a losing battle in the rain. Nice spot, but cache a real let down.

IN:NIL
OUT:NIL

[This entry was edited by msc1974 on Saturday, March 13, 2004 at 7:07:48 PM.]

Found it , took a while to find the cache as didn't look a clues until nearly gave up, but found it finally. Great cache, nice views. Cache rather wet, dryed it out for a bit, some mould growing on book(not log book).
Left: Fancy pencil end
Took: Lady Bug Key ring

not a good place to be if you have hayfever. was with bigfatrob and runzz.

hot day lovely beach great cache.

We visited on Labour Day afternoon - I have never seen so many cars in one place. No people near the cache though - the track doesn't seem to go anywhere interesting.

Found the cache after a short search. We must have went the easy way because we didn't have any of the troubles others have described (in fact we had my wife and unborn child with us, although in hindsight that probably helped as we resisted the temptation of shortcutting and stuck to the beaten track)!

Cache contained half an inch of water. Dried it out as best as we could and put the log book towards the top of the cache (double bagged).

Nothing in, nothing out. Very pretty area, thanks.

Took the fence line to cache but came back via the beach, the tide was out. What a lovely walk.Had a picnic even though we hadn't booked a site!!!
In ladybird out golden stones. Will have to find out what they are called.
Thanks for bringing us here.

Left a dingy Auckland day to enjoy a beautiful sunny afternoon in Long Bay.

Tracks were a bit boggy, and I made the same mistake as Darryn.

Found it fairly quickly, despite my GPS pointing me 20m south of the cache. I put my GPS down by the cache, and had a look through, wrote in the book etc; when I picked up my GPS again, it said I was only 10m away.

Out: padlock
In: Discount card

Tried a different path going out, which looked quicker; it led to a something half-way between a field and a swamp. Backtracked.

Walked back across the beach, very nice.

Got back to Auckland, where it was raining!

Great cache it was my first one! bit hard to find great views

[I found this cache on my second attempt - it is also the first cache I found! I have gone out multiple times finding caches, but could never find them through me being such a gps newbie

Anyway, my first attempt at finding this cache lead me pretty close to it, but I had to retreat as light was failing and I did not think I could get back before it was completely dark.

I ended up going on two detours before this happened and this is what delayed me.

A big hint: ]The directions say 'follow the inland track at the Grannies Bay sign' - well theres two signs and I followed both tracks and both detoured away from the cache. The track they are meaning is once you get to Grannies Bay - follow the inland track. The second track (at the second sign on to farmland) leads you in the general direction - but you end up having to cut across some marshy muddy land - and from other peoples comments this appears to be where alot of people get caught out.[

Left: A retro stick of ram and a pen.
Took: Cable Ties.

Overall an enjoyable cache, with great views.]

[last edit: 7/27/2003 10:42:44 PM PST]

Well worth the climb (the track is good) for the cache and exceptional view from the top of the hill. Watch your footing in the long grass - there are some deeper holes and hidden bits of tree. Took bath stuff and left a 3 metre tape.

Found with little problem, Parking not too much of a problem, but park had filled considerably when I left, Well mown track until the last few metres, but holes lie in wait under the long grass Nil out, Dwarf Geocaching token in. Lovely end to a weekend of intermittent caching. Thanks

Arrived in the late afternoon with my stepfather and brother. I had chuckled a little to myself as due to the patches of muddy track in places I had worn boots and they hadn't. At one stage lost my stepfather in the long grass - he tried to avoid a muddy patch and went off the track and fell forwards into a grass covered hidden hole and disappeared into it completely. Had us laughing hard for a long time. We arrived very close but had taken the wrong track - no worries I thought I'll just cut across this area. Had got halfway when I found a deep water filled muddy hidden hole which soaked one foot to the skin. The laugh was then on me as they backtracked to the other track and entered the location dry.
Found cache and was surprised to see Hairy Little Dwarf had also been there on the day as we had just come from one of his caches - A Game of Soldiers
Great location and a lovely spot
- Nothing
+ Pocket travel game

Cheers and good hunting
Darryn, Alan and Richard

A bit delayed! Found whilst acompanying HLD and GoGranny, but can't remember what went in or went out. Will try to be a little more timely next time

Nice way to spend a Monday. Ahhh, the student life. What a beautiful day and such spectacular views from the cache. Enjoyed the many free roaming paddock Pukekos. Water bombs in and a nice soon to be in a geocache of its own logbook out.

nice overcast day thought id go for a walk found this cache without to much trouble didnt take anything but left 1/2 a dozen barley sugars,energy for the next person , the cache is still dry and the grass is still long

Today Wednesday, is a nice fine day, there were relatively few (200 or so) cars, so no problem parking. I went straight to the site via the track and spent a couple of minutes searching before finding it. The container had a little water sloshing about, due I think to a split in one corner of the lid. I stopped and ate lunch while things dried out. There was no real damage. I tried to place the split corner uppermost to deflect water away when I replaced it. However a new lid/box would be best.

Darn it! I got wounded again. (see photo)

I took one notebook left a couple of eco-friendly fridge magnets.

[When returning, if your tied, and the tide is low, the easy way back is along the beach.]

[last edit: 4/1/2003 7:52:46 PM PST]

[last edit: 4/1/2003 7:57:36 PM PST]

One of those really hot Auckland sunny days where it can dump rain on you out of the blue! I had my brolley with me, which doubled as a depth stick in long grass. Should've read the logs more closely - have faith in the tracks!
Took nothing, but left a 3x pack of log books to encourage more caches
M@ & Bx

Im off to Australia tomorow, so when I saw kANGAROO had taken up residence I poped in to give him a lift over the ditch.

Willbuild
Found it, Went up the easy way , very hot, Great views out over to the islands.
Car park still very busy over 20 buses with school kids, all over the main beach, no one up at Grannies ,
Took the CD-R and left some sunglasses from Tauranga way. also left kANGAROO'

Yay, we were the first to find it. Lovely day, and a great view. I suggest you read the encrypted hint and don't try going cross country as we did. The buffalo grass is over knee high in places and it can be hard going. Finding a park can be tricky too. But it really is worth it when you see the view. Great spot for a cache.

In: Wind-up toy dog
Out: Toy spider

Close second, found a few hours after Andrew & sons.

What they said.. the parking is diabolical around here on a sunny day and I wouldn't recommend trying to cut cross country like we did, we encountered electric fences and all sorts. The buffalo grass is more than knee high, we took a 3 year old along with us on this and she found this very difficult.

In: 4 x AAs
Out: Wind up Aibo toy

[last edit: 11/30/2002 9:12:37 PM PST]