Crystal Bend - Historic Cache (taki) Otaki Beach, North Island, New Zealand
By Brett and Allan, now owned by WelkiNZ (Jan 2019) on 22-Nov-03. Waypoint GCH8QJ

Saw a hint it searched all around then Saw another and bingo got it the container is very well camouflage

Nice quick find, will be back to sign. TFTC!

Thank you. Another adventure with the grandson.8yo. 10/10/24

Found with my mates on our caching day out

Pretty big container

Slightly tricky find but got to the right spot without too much of a problem. All good at GZ and TFTC.

Tftc owner! Found on a cloudy, windy, sunny day. Restored, ready for next cacher

Great easy find thanks

Good search for this one thanks

Great location thanks!

Ok there is more than one of the number hint

Out for the long weekend with Geeves90 and Kimmy+co.Tftc

Tftc easy find out for a weekend of caching with geeves90 and hayzz

I love it when you create a list of stops, get to the location and have no idea why the cache was on the list...One of the Project GC boxes ticked anyway.

It was the weekend and as usual we were looking for a place we could explore where we a) haven't been to and b) where we could find a few caches along the way. Otaki isn't far at all and after some map studies we decided on Where to park the geo mobile and walk. It was a fantastic walk we all enjoyed and 0 DNFs.Second stop of the day after we rolled under the electric fence... Only on approach did we notice how old this cache was!! Easy find, bit brambly at GZ but good to sit down for a picnic even. Thanks for keeping this well maintained

Trouve ! / Found it ! 5348me cache trouve.Merci Brett and Allan, now owned by WelkiNZ (Jan 2019) pour la cache 5348th cache found.Thank you Brett and Allan, now owned by WelkiNZ (Jan 2019) for the cache

Great cache and clue to boot

Our first cache with a clue. Awesome fun. Thank you

Tftc

**19,085**A nice quick find here as we work our way towards the beach. TFTC

No pen .. will log another day ! TFTC

Today is a size regular dot-day so I filtered just regulars onto my map and suggested to my team that we head here (or to another one a little further south).So we stopped here and came for the find. Just two of us had this cache unfound, but we convinced the rest to troop along. So found by me, Bruzie, Infoferret, GSEL, and Barefoot guru. Not sure who it was that needed the cache.Annoying this - because I had the map showing only regular caches, I missed that we walked right passed another cache I had not yet found. Oh well, I will just have to come back.Another Regular dot-day dot day ticked off, only... 83 to go. This is going to take a while.

barefootguru (with his Wattmobile), InfoFerret, GSEL and myself (with special guest theSeagnoid) were gathering a few caches after TwigNZ's Get Set Go 5 event, while heading back towards Wellington.tS needed a regular cache for today and this was available (and one I hadn't found before either), so a detour down a road already travelled today and we parked up as close as we could and walked over. Quite a few objects with the hint identifier on it, but eventually the cache was found amongst the dead blackberry and signed. An old cache but I've already found two others from this month. All good here, and TFTC.

First time geocacher with the kids, we found it . There’s a bit of plant growth around the area so had to have a good look.

Just out for a walk with the dog. Another chance to check on the cache. Happy to report that all is in order and ready to be found

Another diversion taken from the highway to collect this oldie, out third such stop since leaving Wellington's fringe. After our last two days, its been good to be non wet. Cache quickly tempted away from its nursing home, thanks for the cache WelkiNZ.

Day 8: We ( TeamARF, Gcoven and myself) have travelled over from Brisbane, Australia to have a visit since we were not able to make it to the Mega. We have spent some considerable time solving puzzles and making plans in preparation. We have a gigantic list of old, interesting, highly favourited, challenges and a few Geo-arts to try and collect over the next 10 days. There is a good chance we got lazy with our logging, or space saving depending on the log size and do some joint variation of our initials - TGJ, GJT or JGT.

Today the plan is to work on collecting things of our list - some of the very old caches in the area as we head back north towards Auckland. We are also picking up a few challenges (will check qualifying once home).

Please excuse the generic log, just have extremely little data to try and survive on it for the 10 days. However, you can be assured that if we have found your cache it was special to us for some reason or in a special location - so thank you for contributing to our holiday.

I will edit logs when back in Brisbane to add more details to those that need more details and of course I will be adding favourite points as I go along.

Another day in the land of the long white cloud. TeamARF, JACSTeam and I had a fab day collecting oldies and challenges. Made our way back north to Taupo and lots of fun and marvellous walks. Thanks to all the COs fur the amazing selection of caches highlighting all NZ has to offer loved the tramp past the horses. Fave point here

Awesome spot! One is not like the other! TFTC

We organised a day caching around this area a while ago and yesterday was the set date and the weather proved accommodating and despite a hint of rain on our journey down we did the Crystal Lagoon walk in sunshine mainly and then we went down to Otaki Township to locate a few more caches down here .
this cache was a must on our list , due to it being the Oldest cache in the area. We read the hint and wondered what it meant and after a few + minutes the penny dropped and we searched ! and searched ..why did cachers say it was a quick find ? We wondered !!! ??? then i finally saw the Hint again further back from the path and now it was a quick find .
many thanks for keeping this cache going it is so 'precious" to our stats etc . well worth a fav point from me : ).

HS spotted the hint on the stone...until she spotted another stone with the same hint. Thanks for keeping this cache alive.

Nice hide, watch out for the thorns

A nice quick find, once the hint made sense. Great to keep the older caches alive. Thanks for placing your cache.

Ms_KR and I are off on our annual pilgrimage to Auckland to visit family. Heading home and we are travelling from Levin to Wellington. A beautiful day, though a triffle warm at times!

Thanks to all CO's for publishing and maintaining their caches. .

Still looking for the 4 dozen beers, and there were no blackberries, and there were several of the same number, and it's our last day in the N Island before the ferry tomorrow and I've got nothing else to say except that it's good to see the old thing still attracting us so thanks COs.

It was fun and the brambles were sharp but we forgot a pen so we will sign the log book tomorrow by tvc11

Took a medium search in the hot sun to find this, though managed not to hit too many prickles. Worked out the hint after the fact. Cheers Brett and Allan, and WelkiNZ!

Prickles! Grass! Sheep poo!

Ah ha cache!

TFTC

Lots of likely places but no luck

It was good fun to hunt for. There were 3 of us looking for it in the dark (after our afternoon walk). If you think it’s not it, it probably is it

Took four hint object, multiple hiding spots, a long hunt, and quite a lot of blackberry to find this long-lived cache, but I wasn't about to give up! Finally found, very pleased to do so. FP from me. All good in container, picked up a TB. Tftc!

Took a while to find this one -reading previous logs helped in the end. Thanks for bringing me to this historic spot and for maintaining this cache.

With trinitynz. Gud description

Released a fox into the wild again
Thanks for cache placement
Enjoying a day out with our new mini cacher

The fox is free and running round
Was a nice day out and good walk with cheeky girl

That was hilarious. I hereby demand that all Geo-rocks be counted by the dozens. Didn’t have pen so took photo. Container is dry and in good condition. Good for a laugh and photo to caching friends.

So after some scrambling and avoiding the priceless (warning . Found yay

Very easy find

So much fun! I forgot to bring a pen as this was my first geocache and I didn't realize we could actually write on it - may have to come back!

Took a bit of time but found after a bit of a search.

Pat found this in the alternate 4 dozen while on our bike ride with tramping friends on a lovely Saturday.
Signed with Patandjohn and Pointofinterest.
TFTC

Quick find thanks.

Found while on a historical places cycle tour of Otaki with gpetone, Point of Interest (PoI) and several friends from the tramping club. A cloudless, slightly chilly and a near still day just ideal to pause and find the caches and visit the places of interest. TFTC

Out for walk
TFTC

TFTC! Found and picked up trackable.

Once you realize there's more than one 4 dozen it's an easy find. I dropped a trackable in, and took out the food (because that's against the rules. I'll throw it out).

Didn't sign the log so took a pic.

Found GZ but had to have a hunt for the right number. Cache nice and dry. Signed log and replaced where found. TFTC.

A few with the same total from the hint. Side stepped the blackberry to locate the hide. Tftc

Out on an adventure up this way today. Many thanks for maintaining this one

Nice trail! There were two. TFTC!

Met some ppl and we found it together (:

It was easy but you do need to know some maths the hint helped

Great find! Watch out for the blackberries and wasps!

Nice litlle walk on a track with some history. Quick find after waiting for some muggles to leave the area. Tftc

Tftc!

Good weekend for it, went for a bike ride with my sister

Found it, took not too long, got unnecessarily scratched from the blackberries, but a good find!!

Nice walk after a few very wet days. Last day of the school holidays and last cache needed to Reach the Peak this month. TFTC

This was tricky one! Took ages.

Easy azz .found on the last day of 2021. Cache is in great condition .. such a lovely walk . Thank u for taking over this cache and enabling us to be able to explore such lovely area

Been wanting to grab this one for a while, but never seemed to be in the area in daylight, until today. Good thing too cos it took a bit of searching, even though the coordinates were spot on. TFTC.

Had the day off work and headed down towards Otaki. Stunning sunny winters day. Never been to the estuary before and enjoyed all the birdlife. Watched shag just resting on a flax bush. Thanks for replacing this old cache. Cache and log all fine. Thanks for the smiley.

Coordinates changed from:
S 40° 45.542 E 175° 6.988

Coordinates changed to:
S 40° 45.522 E 175° 6.955

Distance from original: 194.7 feet or 59.4 meters.

Previous location mowed & flattened. New container and location.

Previous area has been mowed right back and flattened and the cache was missing. A new container has been made and hidden in a new location. Coordinates have been updated, along with the hint. Room for swaps and small TB's. Happy caching!

Went to replace this today with a new container that we had made. Unfortunately the location is now completely flattened and we need to now hide this in a slightly different spot. This should be done in the next week or so. Thanks for your patience.

Thanks Coddiwompler for the reminder. We replaced and enabled a nearby cache today. The container for this one is more tricky though and we will hopefully have it replaced over the weekend or next week.

After 2 recent DNF's we went along to check on this cache. Yes, it is definitely not there. We are temporarily disabling this until new container can be placed.

The area has been mowed down but the looks of things searched high and low multiple times and haven’t managed to locate

Looks like the area has had a clean up with a weed Wacker or similar. While looking a group of 6 newbies turned up and we all hunted. Knew what we were looking for as had seen the photo. But no luck this time.

??

Macfam 41 found it while taking dog fir a walk. TFTC

I

This was one on my challenge list so really wanted to get here. Should have looked closer at maps- ended up parking a lot further away than I needed to and used a footbridge to access the correct path. Indeed electric fence spotted should I have taken the very shortest route. Anyway a lovely day for a stroll

Lost my pen. Mower man must of been thru. Cache was exposed. Put back to right.

Down from Hamilton to collect some TMGT and Jasmer caches.

Another Jasmer month completed, after signing this. I thought I was going to have issues as there were two dog walkers (equipped with 3 dogs each) behind me as I left my car... Luckily they were far enough behind that I could sign and put back before they came into view.... Two young ladies, and they were all pretty big dogs... if the dogs bolted, I don't think either of them would have a hope in hell of stopping them!

TFTC WelkiNZ, the cache was found in good order Signed, sealed and returned to GZ. 12 find(s) of 15 today, making this find #2281

Tftc!

Thanks for the cache!

Was out checking on another local cache today so I thought would do a maintenance and log check of this one too. Cache is still in good order and all ready to be found

Cache was exposed, even had that not been the case it would still have been a quick find.
Fortunately I had finished the task before a dog walker came along.

Nice day for a walk along here and good to find an old school classic. Thanks for keeping it going.

A great view not far from GZ.

Favorite point awarded.

#5 find for us awesome spot

This was my first finding. Thank you for the opportunity

I was really surprised to find the well hidden cache in a place you'd think nothing could be present! TFTC!!

For such an old cache this is in a surprisingly random place. Most of these old ones are in places of interest or have some kind of notability but I could see no reason why this cache was here! Indeed when I arrived I seemed to be in a slightly barren area with no objects that would serve as a cache hide. And yet the cache was there in a rather contrived hiding spot. (Later I read the older logs and see the explanation is that the cache needed to be moved).

The cache is nicely maintained by its current owner and at least made the cache itself a good find. Thanks for looking after this and keeping these "classic" caches alive.

Escaped the holiday traffic queues to pick up some caches round Otaki. This was a good start. A straight forward find in an area I hadn't visited before. Cache is safe and dry and returned as found. Thanks for the history lesson and for keeping this historic cache active.

Today we were on the way from Okahune to Wellington.
And our plan was to find a couple of very old caches.
This was the first one. We had a nice walk to this cache and were happy to find it and fill another blank spot in the matrix.

TFTC saying Sverabe and greetings from Germany
(#1353 @14:00)

Nice find put pen in it

One of six found in the Otaki area after lunch, having already found six along Te Horo back roads before lunch. Good walk to this one on a warmish but windy summer’s afternoon. A quick find. #3124. TFTC.

#1055. My second to last dot day (only today and 29 Feb left) and a beautiful sunny summers day to go for a walk to the river after visiting the Otaki Pottery Club’s annual exhibition just down the road. GB Leader helped with the find, although the log noted we weren’t the first there today.

Interesting reading the history of this old cache. An oldie but a goodie! It was placed 13 years before I started caching.

Another green smiley for the Otaki River. Another dot day done and dusted, and many thanks for the placer and current CO.

took advantage of being in the area and grabbed this cache. Nice and easy and well protected, stamped the log and replaced as found. Thanks CO for the cache.

We intended to go for a walk in Otaki Forks, but unfortunately the road was closed to get there.
Plan B was to come here and look for the old cache.
On the good advice of WelkiNZ we met we will make some caches along the river and in particular that of Chrystalls Bend.

Thank you for keeping this old cache in good condition [^]
Cheers,

---
Thanks WelkiNZ for the geocache [^]
Greetings from Belgium,
Frank et Muriel travelling in New Zealand

Happy geocaching

Nice to return here and turn this into a found log.
Not in the position I would have expected but soon located and log signed