Minden's Hidden Reserve (Bay of Plenty) Te Puna, North Island, New Zealand
By TgaWookie on 15-Feb-04. Waypoint GCHP63

30. november 2024 16.16# 4989Another Oldie for our Jasmer grid First time we have seen a kiwi plantationFirst time in New Zealand and obviously we should try to find some cachesFound with our youngest daughter - 'gida' Geogreetings from Denmarkviridis / Peter & Charlotte TFTC

Maybe its my phones gps and the damp and my eyes. Dnf today

There was a cough from Mr-Mcgoo which meant only one thing. He and Itchyfeet2020 were extremely happy.Day 3 of The Wellington Anniversary Weekend tour with Mr-Mcgoo, Itchyfeet2020, TwigNZ. We are targeting specific caches -oldies, puzzles we have solved and ones with a D/T of 2.5+/2.5+ for the [GC30AD8](http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC30AD8) DGSC Challenge (West Coast) challenge. Of course, there will be days of laughter, no doubt at my expense .During our time here, all found caches were signed as MINT, regardless of whether 2, 3 or all 4 of us have found it previously, or with individual names for Challenge Caches according to whomever was claiming the find.Kia ora rawa atu for the cache TgaWookie.

(# 8641) As it is a long weekend in Wellington I took a caching jaunt up to the Waikato and Bay of Plenty with TwigNZ, NZ_B and Itchyfeet2020. Stayed in Tokoroa which was the centre of the caching universe for this weekend. Day 3 was going to Tauranga and Rotorua.We came here as this cache is almost 20 years old. A nice little walk then a dive into the bush. Was very lucky that the cache was spotted almost immediately. Could easily have taken much more time.Logs were either signed MINT (being our initials) or Mr-Mcgoo.Thanks TgaWookie for bringing me here.

Team MINT (Mr-Mcgoo, Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B & TwigNZ) are up in the central north exploring. This cache was top of my hit list today as it fills one of three last months (left in NZ) for my Jasmer. I somehow managed to convince the team to drive over to Tauranga for it. A lovely walk and MrMcGoo seems to have kept his mojo from yesterday as he went straight to it. Yippee - that's the year 2004 complete, thank you. Thanks for keeping this oldie going, there are 7 left in NZ for this month.

Having taken Friday off as leave, and with Monday being Wellington Anniversary, I am making the most of a 4-day weekend by spending it with friends in the Waikato in order to try to target a few specific caches up here and otherwise boost my numbers for January. Our crew consists of Mr-Mcgoo, Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B and myself TwigNZ, and so to save space on logs we simply signed our finds today with either MINT or Team MINT depending on log size.Today is day 3, and just like the previous 2 day there was a great deal of driving to a lot of beautiful places which make me want to come back and spend a lot more time at. One of the joys of geocaching for me is that I get to see places that I wouldn't have thought to visit otherwise, but often you just get a 'taste' of a place because you're rushing off to get another cache somewhere.That was the case a couple of years ago when I came to nearby Te Puna quarry to get a PWGT cache. Here I am in this area again, but this time with friends, having come here today specifically to get this cache as it was a missing Jasmer Grid date for a couple of our party. We walked through the reserve to get to GZ, and started our search. I totally overthought the whole thing by standing back to try to figure which was the tallest Punga, whilst Mr-Mcgoo just dove straight in and made an almost immediate find! Well done that man No issues to report here with either container or log, and we soon had our names entered before the whole thing was replaced as found.Thanks for setting this one up all those years ago.

Tried searching for a while but no luck. The area is a bit overgrown and the cache hasn’t been found for a while. Hope it isn’t getting buried in vegetation.

Sweet little walkway nearby out home. I love how geocacheing gets us out and about to new areas

Glad we found this one…. Wasn’t sure we were going to with all the work going on with the track. Log a little damp

We weren't confident with the track work going on but buzzybb found it. Log a bit damp. Tftc

Out with wellerfellers today and the kids were successful finding the cache while I marvelled at the nearby pine cones. TFTC.

Very cool hidden geotrail! Out for the morning with storeynz and the kids.

really fun treasure hunt

Reasonably quick find on a loop around this patch of bush. Log is starting to crumble. TFTC TgaWookie!

TFTC TgaWookie!

Lucky to find this one as there were a few contenders to look around. Cache contents are a bit damp but able to be signed. Lovely little walk.

An impromptu bush walk led me here instead of my usual Te Puna quarry walk. Checked for caches after pulling up and yahoo! 2% battery had me worried I would miss out but the hint served me well. Took the track up to Minden Road and had a looky at the jumps in progress. Just the kind of walk I needed today

We decided to go for a little walk as it was not raining for the time being! Lovely reserve, and not a soul in sight. TFTC!!

Visiting Tauranga for the weekend. Enjoyed the walk through this reserve although it was pretty muddy. Only managed to find 2 out of the 4 caches here. Here the hint was spot on. TFTC

Out on a mission to grab some caches to help finish off the Museum challenge. Great hint but still took me a little while to find it. TFTC

TFTC found very quickly my mummy and the little one as we discover this lovely reserve.

Heute geht die Tour weiter. Nach einem Plausch über dieses Hobby bin ich mir nicht sicher, ob sich nicht unser Gastgeber gleich selbst einen Account zulegt. Begeistert war er offensichtlich. Wir mussten jedenfalls wirter. Auf dem Weg haben wir hier angehalten und den Cache erfolgreich einsammeln können. Nach kurzer bzw etwas längerer Suche war das Logbuch gestempelt.
Was für ein schöner Weg. Dafür gibts einen Favoriten. Außerdem half uns ein Neuseelandfächerschwanz bei der Suche. Total süß!
16. April 2019, 13:25 Uhr

Heute starteten fazzyOne und ich in Richtung neue Unterkunft. Auf dem Weg lagen dann noch viele Dosen, einen guten Teil davon konnten wir tatsächlich auch finden. Warum nur werden die Dosen in diesem Land immer im tiefsten Dickicht versteckt und nicht wie bei uns gemütlich an Schilder oder Zäune gepinnt? Naja so dauerte das Suchen immer etwas länger als gewöhnlich und auch die Beine in den kurzen Hosen jucken jetzt ziemlich. Aber immerhin wurden wir auch hier fündig.

Thank goodness for hint! TFTC

GZ was a bit hard to find due to tree cover. Girlfriend tripped over it other wise would of been a DNF. TFTC

Out caching for the day, and decided to come visit this area. Thanks for the cache

A visit to show Taybeedragon this cache. Hey! My path tag is still here! That was dropped in 2 years ago!
Log could use a refresh - mouldy. We removed the rotting paper and the pointless desiccant.

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Day 7 of my Mega trip: Tauranga to Waihi. Two weeks of travel with Taybeedragon, from Blenheim to the 2018 mega event, then on to my mum's eightieth birthday in Rotorua via the East Cape and Tauranga and the hole in the ground that is Waihi. Dropped the dragon off in Wellington while I continued on to Motueka for more family time before at last arriving home. We may have only found 230 caches over that 3000 km, but I qualified for 4 badge upgrades, hit the 10,000 cache mark, and even have a missing month ticked off! Throughout most of the trip we targeted special caches - earth caches, virtuals, wherigos, etc, although there were a lot of traditionals too. On the cache maintenance side about eight caches were replaced, and many more logs were added to or replaced. Many thanks to everyone who made this an awesome trip.

After the letterbox cache here we continued on the circular walk to arrive here. This took us way too long but The Seagnoid finally found it. Finally snagged and tagged this elusive one. Cheers. Love this bush walk.

Day 7 - Thursday - Tauranga. Another day in the sun - so lets go!
The Seagnoid, Zara and I are on another epic caching adventure for the next two weeks, starting with the Wellington Mega, then East Cape, Tauranga, Waihi, Rotorua and back to Wellington. Its been an awesome journey, over 2500 klms later, visiting many amazing places. Thanks to all COs

what a great spot for a cache the hint certainly helped locate the little devil tftc

Would have totally missed this park if we didn't know it was here, lucky for us it also meant that we didn't run into any muggles while we enjoyed a nice bush walk with a little detour off track to find the cache. Thanks

I stopped by this amazing place with Mrs. Llama to see if we could find a kiwi bird. Unfortunately we had no luck with kiwi's, but we did see some other New Zealand birds. Also, this cache fills in a month on my Jasmer so I'm excited about that. We enjoyed the walk around here. Thanks for the great cache and greetings from Utah, USA and South Korea. 캐시 설치해주셔서 감사합니다.

Had visited this reserve many times and cant quick work out why I havent found this before.
With a new cache in the reserve I made a quick detour and made the find in the fading light.
TFTC

I'm travelling around NZ for 7 weeks, using geocaching as my tour-guide. Today I drove from Waihi Beach to Rotorua, via Tauranga to find important geocaches.

About this cache:
This one was important, because I'm missing this month in my hidden month-statistics. Good thing someone had plottet the trail on my map, so it was easy to find parking and the trail. It was a beautiful morning-walk in the forest. Not much bush-bashing to the cache, and it was quickly found, thanks to the good hint. Tftc, greetings from Norway

Cache number 3619. The hardest part of this cache was actually finding the park. I assumed that Minden Reserve would be off Minden Road. After proving this wrong I eventually found the car park. The rest was a lovely walk in the park. Once at GZ the cache itself was quickly found. A little water in it but the log was all good. A great little bush area which I would never have found without geocaching. Thank you for the placement.

Heading over the BOP this evening with Mr McC for an evenings caching before the event in the morning. So this was going to be a long evening and lots of fun. Hopefully the rain would hold off for most of the time (although I didn't hold out too much hope for that) but the caches would be in good order (was sure that that would be the case). All caches signed "MCCD" or a variation of as we got more tired as the evening progressed.

Started at the most northerly point and worked our way back towards Tauranga. Had never been in here before and certainly an adventure. A bit of a bash from one track to another then a very quick find in the right location. Log Book was a little damp but otherwise all good.

Great place for a cache and a very pleasent wander (even as it persisted down)
Thanks for the placement, Thanks for the cache

Out with Cats&Dragons on a late night - early morning cache run. Logs were signed MCCD but may have varied a bit as tiredness settled in. Thanks for placing this cache and giving us a reason to visit

Was getting a little dark by the time I got here ...to my last one for the night .
Really loved the track here alongside the stream !
Nearly had to give up as didn't bring my torch out of car ...
However I was really determined .....It was further from path than hint suggested .....
But I found it finally ! Phew !
Thanks ....gorgeous area !

Plenty of holes and a big dangerous ditch on the parking, where I got stuck. Be careful.

Once the GPS stopped bouncing around we had a nice quick find TFTC

Initially, I entered the bush too far along. Mrs tryfyn looked for an easier path. We both found a better track and the cache was soon in hand. Is there supposed to be a TB?TFTC.

Zara, Etherlord and I are at last on our way home from the Turangi Mega. The trip back to Palmerston North will take three days!
This cache is a bit out of the way, but I had been planning this trip to Turangi for some time, so I was poring over my stats looking for gaps. When we decide getting the web cam was a thing to do, I discovered that this cache gets me one of my missing hidden months - I now have only 18 months left - I have found a cache hidden in each month since caching became possible apart from those 18.
A lovely walk in the bush. I noticed it wasn't marked, so I plotted it and will upload it to the maps in a few days. Then you can have it on your smart phones or GPSs!

Signed as ZECATS - Zara, Etherlord Clan and the Seagnoid

It took the Seagnoid and I three days to drive the ~250KM from Palmerston North to Turangi for the Mega.
I wonder how long it'll take us to drive home given that our post-Mega road trip will be via Tauranga to collect the North Island's only remaining Webcam Cache!

We enjoyed the bush walk, but was then confused when the compass started to increase in distance. I thought that maybe the track looped back round, but the distance just kept increasing.
We decided to back track and bush bash our way to GZ, and then figure out if there was a path to GZ that we could exit on once we got there.
Turns out there wasn't a path to GZ, and that bush bashing was indeed the correct access method.

Even once we got to GZ, it still took us a good 10min to find the cache, and even after looking at the hint.
There were a couple of trinkets inside the cache, including an "A positive" NZ Blood Service key.
Hey, that's my blood type! ...it's the only A+ I've ever had

Thanks for the hide, signed as ZECATS - Zara, Etherlord Clan and the Seagnoid

Joined forces with HKCB, 11HPG11, Kyb3r and iammrwalker for a caching splurge around Tauranga. We had an earlier than usual curfew for today's caching mission, so we set off from the Tron at 5am to maximise caching time. Great fun with lots of laughs and lots of entertaining tales as is usual on our group outings and even better to be rewarded with so many quality hides: we were most definitely very impressed by the effort made by BOP COs.

Preconceived ideas of exactly where to look here proved to be wrong but it didn't take long to work out the correct spot, thankfully. Nice location & hide, TFTC

Out and about with Kiwis69, 11HPG11, Kyb3r and iammrwalker for a bit of a mission over in Tauranga. With caching time limited for a few of us, a half(ish) day leave pass was given from our respective muggle partners. With a set in stone time of 2pm to be back at home to maximise caching time a 5am start was agreed on. Still we managed about 6 hours of caching time and managed to find around 35 caches throughout the morning.

We all enjoyed the day out, and I think we all agreed it was a little long between drinks. A bonus for the day was the high level of quality caches we found. A big thanks to all those CO's for making it an even more memorable day. We signed the logs as HOAC, a group name we go by from time to time.

We all enjoyed the walk to GZ, it's been a while since we have all been in the bush together. Took a bit of time to locate but thanks to the great hint we eventually got there as the GPS was being a bit useless. Thanks for bringing us to this great spot.

I found this cache along with HKCB, kyb3r, Kiwi69 and 11hpg11, we signed most of the logs HOAC and a couple with an abbreviation of our Geocaching handles to save on space and time. We came over to the Bay from Hamilton, leaving at 5am and getting back to the Tron at 2pm to appease our respective partners. I managed to nab about 35 geocaches on our quick trip. We had a great time, shared some unforgettable work stories and some very humorous cringe worthy innuendo. The Bay has some incredibly creative CO’s and we were really impressed with the quality and variety of hides.

I eventually tracked this one down thanks to the descriptive hint. GPS struggled a bit but eventually settled and got us about GM from GZ. Interesting spot, thanks for bringing us here.

Out and about for a quick 'half day' of caching today with a good sized group of Hamilton cachers. We were time limited so left at the usual 5am before calling it a day at 12.30pm which meant we could be back in Hamilton by 2pm and I think we just scraped in. A good days caching none the less and managed to knock off a few great quality caches. Today we signed the logs as HOAC as a group name, which consisted of HKCB, Kiwi69, Kyber, Iammrwalker, and myself. Thanks to all the cache owners for their placements which enabled us to have a great morning in Tauranga.

Enjoyed the nice stroll to this one. A new spot that I had not been to before. We all took a different spot to search and I was grateful for having a few sets of eyes helping search for this one. Luckily Iammrwalker stumbled upon the cache after not too long. Thanks for bringing us here.

I was a bit disappointed that I only ticked off 3 caches on this trip to tauranga, so managed to convince the family to stop to 'let the dog out for a wee run'. It was an enjoyable little stroll, we ended up piggy backing the kids who were pretty tired but we all enjoyed it. It's a cool reserve, thanks for inspiring us to come here! TFTC

Once in a lifetime we wanted to travel to the other side of the world. This year we took a chance and made a 4 weeks trip to New Zealand! Although caching was not the main purpose, we had our GPS prepared and when we were close to a cache, we of course looked for it and logged it. So we found several dozens of "kiwi-caches" and want to thank all the owners!!

From Rotorua first we made a detour to Tauranga and then we drove northward... There we found this cache and logged it. Thanks for placing & maintaining, we very much liked the hiding place!!

TFTC #3644, Ebnater

Good hide, from USA & Kiwi daughter

Thanks for the cache. I found it on 24/02/16 at 11:33 AM. Yup that was a scramble.
FTF in. 2016!!

We certainly scrambled around for this one but the clue is accurate. Further away from the fence than my screen showed. TFTC

Nice view.Tftc.

TFTC. Great spot for a walk.

Thanks to Grifter 13 for instructions to get to the park, other wise I would still be looking.

Took a while for GPS to get locked into spot. Thank goodness for husband who slipped fell alomost on it!

Definitely wouldn't have known about this had it not been for geocaching. A little gem on our back door step.
Had no trouble finding carpark and headed off to the bush walk. What a cool spot, I'll be bringing family here for sure in the summer, found cache fairly easily thanks to hint/description. GPS was a bit patchy under the foliage.
TFTC

Second time here, NAILED IT!! Yay was looking wrong place last time, didn't realise it was a loop track.

Hidden reserve is an understatement. To get here, if coming from Tauranga, turn left onto Ainsworth Road, and - as the description says - follow the road around to the left, past the lake and the reserve is immediately on your right.

As you walk you will come to a sign that says 10 minute walk (or something like that). You can follow this to the left where it loops back around. It is possible to come back out a different way than you went in. GPS is useless inside there so had to carefully search using the hint. Good to see such an old cache is still going!

Looked everywhere iPhone wasn't helping and lots of tall pun gas and angled trees!!!

#341 - Another awesome reserve and cool bush walk, i didn't even know was here! Great little trail, took the dog with me to find this one. GPS was bouncing a bit but found it with the hint.
TFTC

We knew this reserve was here but have never visited it - thanks for showing us this lovely spot

Spent a long time looking for this eventually another geocacher turned up we joined forces and eventually discovered the cache which had been thrown down a bank all the contents were out of the cache. Luckily the other guy Philip had replacement log books so we replaced the log and put the cache back at its location, made need some investigating

Another 'Hidden Reserve' Another loop track to send my completely unreliable GPS in circles. Using the hint we went off in the general direction in search of favourable geo-trail. The first trail was a bust but as we came back down the hill we spotted some familiar faces from I'Anson Reserve who clearly had a better signal then us. And just like that there were 7 of us looking for this cache! We spread out and had all it's pieces soon in hand - unfortunately the container was found open with contents askew. We've placed in it a new log book, pencil, sharpener, zip lock bag and some silica gel. Replaced as per hint, hidden well, but not too well It was a tricky cache, cheers TgaWookie. Nice to meet you Val7700 and family, remember to log as 'Found it'

: )

: )

Trying to log this and it doesnt come up as found it?

Done it thanks Philip!

Another hidden gem that we would never have known if it weren't for geocaching. Enjoyed the walk through the bush to GZ. GPS took a few minutes to settle but miss had already found the cache. Signed log and replaced. Thanks for showing us this cool place and TFTC!

Great family loop track walk through the bush. Thanks for bringing us here and TFTC. #297

Found after a lovely bush walk. Thanks for bringing me here. TFTC

Found after a lovely little bush walk! As others have said the log is wet but still able to be written on. Lovely new homes being built beside this reserve, as we found the subdivision before the reserve so had a drive around. TFTC

Little hidden treasure nice easy find . You can only just write in the log as it's very damp and there's no snap lock bag also container had water init that dosnt help

Log log was damp needs replacing thanks

We found the sign fast enough!! May have been by chance, but still... we found it. Cache was a quick find too but only because it was sitting out in the open... hasn't been found for ages though so thinking weather/animals may have rolled it out of it's hidey spot. Put it back to where it should be according to the clue. TFTC

We had a day free so made the trip to Tauranga for a day out and
to catch up on a few caches. TB out tftc nice bush walk.

been sunny all day so off to find some caches . pleasant walk in the bush and found easily cache with the hint. dropped off TB . TFTC

Another great location in my backyard that I didn't know existed! Nice easy find. Came across the resident.
TFTC - found with Stevovets

Very pleasant Queen's birthday stroll through the reserve with Heirsback. Cache was easily visible but off the beaten track so left as we found it. Resident was basking in a glade in the cold winter sun. Thanks!

Thanks for bringing us to this lovely area, enjoyed the bush walk and did the full loop. Our GPS got us a bit confused but we got there in the end, the hint helped a lot thanks! Picked up French coin, left toy car and dinosaur. Still only has temporary log but we brought our own pen. Didn't meet the resident but saw plenty of evidence that they were nearby. Another family was coming in as we were leaving.

Secluded rather than hidden. Beware of the residents calling it home. Go with a buddy, not alone. Found with Mama.

Quite scary running across a resident of the park. Not to be searched for alone, take a buddy. Found with kumara17.

Had to go cross country to find the right track but got there in the end needs replacement log

Found while big kids were at training.

Auckland Anniversary Monday. Should be at work setting up classroom, but too lovely to be indoors.

This is definitely a hidden reserve. My luck fell away here. Found the cache; but somewhere on the walk in, lost my good pen. Ended up writing badly in grass... Took a photo of cache, just in case. TFTC.

TFTC a gem of a reserve

One of the best finds we have had

TNLN
TFTC

Very nice walk on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We found the cache easy enough and then discovered that we had left the pen in the car! Photo attached instead. TFTC.

Found it

Our 3rd Cache. Took a long time to find it. Our favourite to date.

Nice little walk, rummaged around for 10mins before found it, good spot, left trackable, stil not sure what to do when come across one, left red clown, TFTC

biggest adventure for a cache yet!!!!! after trudging through countless mud puddles and sliding down streamed tracks, we lost our gps for a bit yes we went the wrong way countless times!!!! but retracing our steps we found it great hide!!! left a trackable travel bug (picked up from 'lost boys') an a plastic hermit crab, took $1 coin signed log book left new sheet of paper as log book was full the cache needs a little tlc from water damage

How did I miss this last time.....must have been the distraction of the children!!! Easy find - thought the co-ords may have been out by a couple of m...but the (excellent) clue is all that is needed when in the general vicinity. A great evening cache!

TFTC

Dampish with no pencil. A lovely bush walk off Ainsworth Road

What a lovely spot, a real hidden treasure. Cache definitely needs some TLC, didn't write in log as no pencil.

Found after a brief search. Cache could do with a bit of TLC, only two small items in cache and a temporary log book (no pencil either so could not write in log boook.
A very nice short walk to GZ. TFTC

Finally found it. Took the whole family and the kids had fun. Nice spot. Need to take Ainsworth off the hiway, not Minden Rd. My Canadian GPS may have been a bit off but had a good search to find it. Took pink toy left loonie. TFTC

This entry was edited by barjjake on Thursday, 05 January 2012 at 07:40:23 UTC.

Great find for Nana while I was sliding in the mud, and forgot to take a pencil so will have to log it next time we're this way

This entry was edited by Cam Ham on Thursday, 20 October 2011 at 07:06:58 UTC.

Another area i didnt know existed. Thanks for enlightening me

Wow - never knew this place was here, and I used to live at Te Puna when I was a kid - caching certainly opens your eyes to your own neighbourhood