St. Davids Church (South Canterbury) Cave, South Island, New Zealand
By Bitsprayer on 16-May-04. Waypoint GCJEWZ

Another oldie and what a fascinating church. Felt like I was back in country Wales. Took a bit of hunting but realised from the logs what I was watching for so headed in and found! All Australian signings before me! Wow! Tftc and fave point

CaptainVimes and I have crossed the ditch to attend the Geo Toroa mega in Dunedin and tour around the South Island for two weeks.After reading the last log from over a year ago by fellow Queenslanders, I started digging in the fork with a stick. I eventually found it buried very deep in a hole against the dead trunk. I can see how it could get lost down there so I put some sticks and debris in the hole and sat it on top.Thanks Bitsprayer and happy caching

1MinnieMoo and I made a special detour for this one. I'm glad we did.We pulled up at made our way to GZ. After looking in a few areas, I soon spot (aka "felt") the prize after a big of digging. We signed the log and returned the cache to its home. A fantastic place for a cache. TFTC Bitsprayer

12/9/2023 Find #6484
Day 4 of the Fangsoki/1MinnieMoo NZ adventures. We got up and moving quickly this morning as we had big day of travel today heading from Lake Tekapo to Dunedin via Timaru and Oamaru. It was a chilly start to the morning with frost on the campervan and table to start the day.
We pulled up at this lovely church and headed over to begin our search. I missed it on my initial hint. Luckily Fangsoki dug deeper and made the find.
Thanks for the cache Bitsprayer, and for bringing us to another quaint little church.

Looks similar to the church over the hill in Cave. Risked grabbing this one early on a Sunday morning fortunately nobody else was around; TFTC

Thanks

3.45pm 29th December 22. Chose just when the volunteer custodian started mowing the vast lawns. Got a bit of history of the lovely bluestone church before looking around and ducking in to get the cache. TFTC.

I had a quick trip out to Pleasant Point a nd Cave today to pick up some Trads.

What a beautiful old church.

Cheers for the cache.

TFTC, a very beautiful church and peaceful spot

Lovely old church in a beautiful location. Cache found and signed. TFTC!

Found with no trouble. Thanks for bringing us here as we never knew it existed

Geo-Roadtrip in the South Island with TrinityNZ and JustlookingOO to collect some PWGT's and as many other caches as we can. This one was close to Memorial Hill, which was targeted as it has '100' in the GC code, so it made sense to make the small detour to the church.
Such a peaceful place hidden away from the hustle and bustle.
Cache was an easy find once the GPS settled and we looked in the right spot.

Glad we made the detour to see this lovely church. Thanks for bringing us here.

Beautiful old church tftc

Need to be a tree lover

Such an icon church with its river stones thanks for the cache hide.

Good hint

12/10 beautiful place

Merging accounts .... sorry for confusion.

Hint helped us thank you. Nephew and aunt out looking for caches. TFTC

What an amazing building. Loved walking around it and also viewing the similarly constructed wall across the road. Definitely worth doing the slight detour down the road to visit this. Would have loved to have seen inside, but it was all locked up. A favourite vote from me. TFTC.

A desperate shame the church no longer seems to have its daily open hours! TFTC!

TFTC

Touring the district with my historian sister.

TFTC

This took a while, gps was jumping around, when we found it the app said it was 9 meters away, apart from that great find was in good condition, TFTC

What a pretty building. I planned a ski trip with hubby and friends. Then I had a couple of biopsies dine on my arm. So no skiing for me so I decided to cache instead. Thank you Bitsprayer for this cache.

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Planning for the NZ Mega 2021 event is well underway. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, October 2021.

What a beautiful country church, such a pity it is never open to the public and not even by appointment. Cache was a quick find however, TFTC and taking me there, lots of memories here for Lytteltonwitch, who was with me. Just loved the peace and tranquility here.

We had an icecream at Cave, then, a return visit to this church. The cache was missing last time we were here - This time Mrs D was on the wrong side of the tree, but an easy find for Mr D.

The Pope guidebook had a long description of this memorial church - another of Thomas Burnett's efforts - [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/cavechurches.htm](http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/cavechurches.htm)

And that is the last for the day and for the Anzac weekend - time to face the long drive home!

Couldn't find it, the navigation was taking us in circles!

Tftc,yes it is still there in the centre

Kim 21 - 2 - 21

A detour on my way home from visiting Grandies. Have had this on my radar for awhile now.
Definitely worth the drive. What an amazing building
Quickly found this oldie.
FP from me

Good find

Beautiful little church. Nice find on drive around area. TFTC

Still there after a year.
Do hope someone cleans the gutters out or the building will be lostsad one could not view the glass windows

Without Geocaching we would never have known there was such a beautiful church here, well worth the stop and we were most intrigued by the cross monument on the hill obviously in a farmers paddock. The massive stone wall and gates just further on were also impressive. Thanks for placing a cache here

I thought there would be a cache here. Lovely spot. A quick find in the second hint item I looked into. A kereru flew off overhead. Thanks for placing a cache here Bitsprayer.
#5882

One of our target caches today for our placed months calendar. Nice to see such an oldie still going strong after all these years. Nice church too with pigeons roosting in the tower. tftc

Hi

Nice cross on the hill. Worth a wander?

Great find, thanks

My last day in the Timaru area so I went out for an early drive to find afew caches before I had to head to the airport and home (That's another story). Classic cache and classic place. Found the cache after a short search. Beautiful church here indeed. Thanks for keeping this one alive and TFTC, Biggles.

This church is gorgeous! More people need to see this. Hopefully this FP will help. The most beautiful church I've ever seen I think! My Airbnb host recommended I check this out on my way from Fairlie to Oamaru. Worth it.

Easy find on the cache. Unfortunately while it said the church was opened, everything was locked up so no viewing today. TFTC

Heading South for a break and a bit of Geocaching. Grabbing a few between Christchurch and Oamaru. Quick find at GZ then wandered up to have a look at the church.
Signed log, TFTC Bitsprayer.

Thanks for the find

2nd of our 6 Day Adventure down to Oamaru for [Oamaru Geofest 2017](https://coord.info/GC6M2V0).
An easy find as the coords were pretty good. What a lovely little country church. It looks so fancy. 23/48 caches for the day and 250 for our trip. Thanks for placing the cache and adding to our smilies

One of the most stunning old churches around. If you time it right you are able to go inside which is pretty amazing
TFTC

Found with Spydude13 and Us04. TFTC.

Found with LollipopCat and Us04. TFTC.

Found with Spydude13 and Lollipopcat. Thanks for bringing us here, this was an awesome little church.. Kia ora for the cache

Fab spot!!!!! Lovely church, tftc

Found it Tftc

Gorgeous location and history. Tftc

Looking at spot, turned out wasn't looking well enough!


I'm on a 5 day caching trip in the south island. Have a few aims - right now its to up a few specific caches that I need to complete my grid for a challenge - and find some interesting caches on the way 1800km later I can say I've accomplished my aim!

Found with StreetWalker while taking the scenic route back home to Christchurch, via Cave and Pleasant Point, after spending an enjoyable Easter break in Timaru.
I can remember visiting this church and cache nearly 1 years ago with SW but this was before I started logging my own finds. Lovely church and well worth another visit.
Access is more challenging than the terrain rating indicates - as well as hurdling puddles, there is some temporary fencing (to keep stock out?) to climb as well. Cache was a quick but grubby find. Well worth a placement. TFTC.

TFTC

GPS a bit confused here but found with reshamfiriri and Kiwitien. Interesting inscriptions on gated of gates across the road. TFTC.

Found after a bit of a search . Great little church.With kakariki and kiwitien TFTC

So glad this cache was replaced and I found it today it is a beautiful place and one well worth a look round. a local stopped and told me a bit about the history. and it is still being used for weddings!! Well worth the second visit TFTC

Up visiting friend who lives down the road and we decided such a nice day was a sign we had to go caching, so jumped in the car and took a very windy route from Otaio to Cave. Found some great caches along the way and saw some new places.

Down to 6% at this one, luckily didn't take too long to get to the right spot, pays to remember to look behind

It is nice to find one of the older caches. A quick find. All in good condition.

What a stroke of luck and coincidence. I was looking at this church on trademe lastnight as it is for sale and I thought to myself I will have to find where it is and check it out. Pulled up at gz to realise that this was it so decided to spend a few minutes and have a good look around too. Thanks for bringing me here I really like old places like this. Tftc

So pleased to get this one off our list. Found on the ground so placed it back in obvious hole. TFTC

Lovely church. TFTC with heyhaynz

TFTC found with JHay0112, awesome site

New cache in place

Coordinates changed from:
S 44° 19.080 E 170° 56.375

Coordinates changed to:
S 44° 19.089 E 170° 56.391

Distance from original: 88.6 feet or 27 meters.
New Cache in place in new location

cache replaced.

needs replaced

Will log a needs archived next step

As per logs below logging a DNF

Sent CO a message advising of the DNF's below ...... I'm positive it's not there

Spent some time searching in all the likely spots but not the right one. Will try again sometime.

Think this has gone. Needs checking.

The Pope guidebook had a long description of this memorial church - another of Thomas Burnett's efforts - http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/cavechurches.htm - so we arrived to look.

But searched in vain. Found a likely looking hole under a root, but nothing there. Suspect it has gone, unfortunately.

Picked up a Trackable and cleaned up some of the contents as most was wet. TFTC

[:;].. have found this cache before but wanted to leave a trackable. His name is Fido, and is a sheep dog.
His trackable number is V9MNCK.

3rd find today. Tftc

Lovely church, although a bit spooky at the same time! Nice quick find, TFTC!!

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Found with allaboutthatcache, becsicasa and Biartch79. Tftc

Gotra find the right tree eh... with allaboutthatcache and gonna cache em all. Tftc

Found on our two week south island tour with Gonna Cache Em All and Biartch79 and Becsicasa. Amazing sights
Tftc

Quick find. Have visited the church heaps but never properly looked for the cache until today.

I remember coming out to see this Church as a child, during a long weekend in Timaru - particularly noted for the lovely windows.
I was driving around in a sort-of random fashion with a few caches in mind - this was definitely one of them - and then decided to drive to Monavale School, further down this road.
TFTC, Bitsprayer.

TFTC:)

TFTC with tinkerb3ll

TFTC with tinkerb3ll

Found with LuckyNumberSleven TFTC

.. love this Church. Hoped to find cache last weekend however a wedding was taking place. Was going to be the first attempt today but yep, another wedding! Not to beaten today, change geo caching plans and made it the last of the day. Quick easy find.

Nice easy one ...

Lovely old stone church TFTC

There was a wedding yesterday, so a good excuse to have a ride out today to get this one.

A warm sunny winters drive. Fantastic looking building and well kept grounds. A delight to walk around. TFTC

Lovely church but such a shame we couldn't get in. I have visited many years ago and re ever it being very special. TFTC

Out for a quiet Sunday drive/caching trip. With the sun shining we couldn't have wished for better weather.
Mission for the day is to attack some caches in the Pareora Gorge and head to Fairlie for lunch and ice cream.
Nice spot for a little wander to look at this beutiful church. Looks so pretty in the sun
#708.
TFTC

Three years ago, we logged a DNF....no worries this time. Just lots of cow shit on the road to dodge! Thanks Bitsprayer for the cache.

Had been here before but to many muggles around then. Quick find this time. Cool when you can go in. Tftc

Quickly found, unable to retrieve last time. Tftc

Another special place. A good hide in the most obvious spot!! Took some time to find it though. Thanks.