Mt Oxford (Canterbury) Coopers Creek, South Island, New Zealand
By Sallies on 01-Jan-05. Waypoint GCMCTR

Has a quick look didn't find it. Beautiful views

Not today. Headed up to Mt Oxford with the aim of getting up and down in between school hours. Only was able to have a quick search as the mugsband and the baby I left down the hill a bit. I could hear the crying (husband or baby?) And made my way back down. Wish I had found it - will be some time before I get to go back up!

What a beautiful day to climb up to the summit of this beautiful mountain. After searching bit here and there managed to find the well hidden cache in pristine condition.
NB: Coincidence that the next find after 26th feb is also on another 26th.
TFTC.

Found today. Was beautiful views all the way up the hill, then the cloud started to come in and I couldn't see 20 m infront of me. It was difficult to find, the cache very well buried under rocks, had to really stretch to get it. It was a nice place to shelter in the lee of the wind. Find # 753

Had a scratch around GZ but no luck.

Had a real good hunt around, no luck this time. Is it still there?

Up here on Sunday amongst quite a bit of snow.
Up from Coopers then down View Hill and along Link track.
Couldn’t properly check all possible hides with the snow but did find a likely option out of the snow as pictured .
No cache though ( although was looking for a larger one that in logs is now quite small ?)
Great trip anyway
Thanks

Done

I needed a good day's caching fix, so I decided to head out to Mt Oxford! Of course I had to stop for a few on the way, but I did get up to the top eventually. A few people were already heading down, put off by the wind. They looked rather disapprovingly at me heading up. The wind was getting worse as the day went on, but I am stubborn enough to not let that stop me! I was just hoping I would not make the news headlines... It was a real struggle though, and a few times I almost got blown off, some serious winds happening. At one point I almost needed to lie down and just hold onto vegetation. I was quite pleased to make it up, although my knees were even less impressed with the way down... TFTC!!

Did not locate, found a couple of good options but they were filled with rubbish. Phone coverage was patchy and it was overcast so I couldn't get a good fix on direction. Hopefully it's just my lack of tracking skills and I'll find it another time!

Tfc

tough climb. Easy find when you look at the right rock

It's still there!!
Not much of a view today as the fog didn't lift but great to finally get this cache, thanks

Awesome weather. Thanks!

Found this one on Anzac Day, TFTC

Great day thankful for shade on way up and cooking gale on top. It was out in open but tucked it back tftc

Had to go up Mt Oxford twice today as part of the Oxford Sky Run Marathon. So simply had to get the cache! There is no log book to sign and I didn't have anything to put in so took a photo if needed for proof of find. Next people may wish to bring a logbook replacement. Tftc

Nice walk to the summit. Lots of snow. Cache in very good condition. TFTC

This entry was edited by ladyangie on Sunday, 23 August 2015 at 05:26:24 UTC.

Had a great day for the tramped up

A lovely day for a walk. We went up from the view hill side and down the coopers creek side. Stunning views from the top and hardly any wind which makes a change. Glad to get this cache while enjoying the view. TFTC

It was a nice sunny day for a hike up to Mt Oxford together with some friends. This was my second time up there. Great views, and I also enjoyed the forests. All in all, wonderful 8 hours of walking. TFTC.

A long pull up from View Hill car park on a warm day. Took us 4 hours on the ways up but we were quite a bit quicker on the way down.

It was hot on the summit, so we were glad of the shade when we got back into the bush.

We replaced the log book with a drier one. The cache was a little smaller than I expected, so I hope the "pirate book" makes it. TFTC

After coming out of the fog into a beautiful summers day on Oxford Hill, we reached the summit and found the cache.
The logbook was very soggy so unfortunately I could not sign it.
TFGC
Connor

If the next person to climb all the way up to this cache could take a new logbook, in a plastic bag, with them we would really appreciate it! Thanks, Rodney and Iris.

This cache no longer needs maintenance, thanks to Smoothhound. Sorry, I should have posted this log much earlier. Rodney

Stunning view, easy find, 3 h climb from coopers park. Tftc.

Up from Coopers Creek, back via View Hill and Link track. While breezy not nearly as windy as expected. Snow tussocks have had a good season so far and are looking very healthy along the tops. TfTc.

Found with chip.n.dale on a very muddy and wet track.
TFTC

We trudged up the hill from Coopers Creek, returning via View Hill and the Link Track. After a few days rain, the track was very muddy and wet - no boardwalks, steps or bridges to be found here! Good boots, gaiters and walking poles definitely helped.

The replacement cache is in good condition and we were very careful not to damage it. TFTC!

Nice quick find after a not so quick walk........... We took a few Scouts up to the top and camped the night. Rather cold and strong winds, not to mention the rocky ground, but a great night and worth the climb. TFTC.

I've never been up Mt Oxford before, have wanted to for some time and there was a cache as well that needed some TLC. Parked at Coopers Creek and headed off past dozens of bee hives and some bee keepers doing what they do. For a moment I was in a parallel universe and they were aliens - At least they look like Star Wars.

Anyway, then the climb started. It's unrelenting in parts. And there are several false crests. Mountains seem to keep getting bigger the more I climb. Made good time getting to GZ and it was chocka with water and basically smashed beyond repair. The treasure is a bit past prime condition too. I put it out in sun to dry but it was disintegrating. Dried as best I could and put it back together and re-hid vertically this time inside another ziplok.

I brought a replacement screw top container. new log and ziplok bag. They are hidden together. So they don't get smashed again with heavy rocks a note to cachers; Remove the large left hand side rock. The rest of the stone construction will remain free standing. The cache stuff is accessible. The rock if placed as found will hide again and no crushing.

Then I went and sat in the sun behind the wind break enjoying lunch. A wet dog turned up from a swim in the tarn over near Oxford Hill and wanted to enjoy my lunch. It's owner turned up shortly afterwards. I won the salami battle.

Great day out in the mountains. TFTC and another reason to go to great places.

BTW I was up on Mt Grey summit 11 January 2013 and some muggles turned up as I was about to place a cache. Chatted - They asked what I was doing. Caching blah blah. They asked if I had found the one on Mt Oxford? Said I replaced the broken one recently. The muggles found it one week ago, signed the log and were pleased with themselves. Their Wellington based son is a cacher too. Small world.

This entry was edited by Smoothhound on Monday, 14 January 2013 at 01:52:38 UTC.

Hi Team, The cache is in bad shape, the lid is broken and the cache was full of water and ice. Everything was very wet. I tipped out as much water as I could and when replacing I put it upside down to try and limit the amount of water that would collect in it. Cheers Aslan*

Great find on a very windy day up here, fantastic view, TFTH

GeoCorginz TFTC

Enjoyed it, probably needs a new container though as this one had cracked. Lots of pretty things inside.

#678: Whatta View!


Rediguana and I decided to head out to do the caches in this area today. We got an early start (6:30am), and were on the trail by about 7:15. This was our second find of the day, after a good trek up from the View Hill car park. The walk up started out beautiful, with relatively cool temperatures, and good cover from the sun. Once we hit the open field, the winds really kicked in, and almost blew us off the mountain. We trudged up, and started searching. Relatively easy find, once we homed in, and we made the find about 10:10am. I needed this to fill an empty slot in my D/T matrix. Cache is in need of repairs, as the container is cracked and there was water inside. Log book is fine, though. We stopped to take some pictures of everything up there, and then saddled up for the next part.

We walked back down to the Mt. Oxford Route junction, and then took that steep way to Wharfdale Hut. That also started out pretty easy, but near the end, it turned really steep, and we were SO glad we were going down instead of up. The signs say 1.5 hours on the way down, and 2.5 on the way up.

We arrived at the Hut, and walked past to find Beyond Towns End, came back to the Hut for a lunch stop, then headed down the Wharfdale Track to the car park, for a total travel distance of about 30km on foot. We arrived back at the car at around 4:15pm,

We took the View Hill-Mt. Oxford Track to the peak of Mt. Oxford, then back tracked to the junction with the Mt. Oxford Route, and took that to the hut. Then we took the Wharfedale Track back to the car park. The Hut is almost exactly the halfway point (15km) of the loop if you do it this way. We were both dead when we got back to the car, but happy we did the extra bit to get the Beyond Towns End cache.


SL/TFTC!

This entry was edited by 8ManAfter on Saturday, 03 December 2011 at 10:32:48 UTC.

This was the first of two caches in our 30km (thereabouts) hike today. On the track about 0730 from the View Hill carpark, and we were at the cache around 1015. Rather windy up there, but hung around for a few minutes to take the obligatory photos. Stunning views! We did make a quick getaway however as we want to get back to the bush before the sun got too strong. We carried on down the Mt Oxford route to the Wharfedale hut, where we did Beyond Towns End, had lunch at the hut, and then did the 15km hike back on the Wharfedale. Awesome day, but felt it a bit on Sunday! Cheers Gav [10261]

Bagged this one this afternoon after bagging Mt Richardson this morning. Took about 1.5 hours up. Sunny, but somewhat breezy at the top. All a bit of secret training for an attempt on a slightly bigger peak much further south.
New logbook all good, but the cache lid is cracked due to rocks on top and hence letting a trickle of water in - container needs replacing soon

So windy up there! Nearly got blown away, but got the cache and popped a new log book in a snaplock bag in. I am not fit, so took me over 9½ hours return - had planned on going down the other side via Ryde Falls but I was dead and just came back the same way.

I'm heading up there tomorrow and will take a replacement log book for ya

an amazing clear day ...beautiful views...
the logbook is pretty wet, needs a change...

Quick run up and down. Cache soaking wet.

Just under two hours from the Coopers Creek car park. 3 muggles at the top, but sat on the rock to eat some lunch and discretely retrieved, signed the (very wet) logbook, and replaced. The lid of the cache is cracked. Walked up in cloud, but great views east from the top. No wind. Returned via the View Hill cache and the Link track back to the car park in just over three hours. TFTC.

Cache was fill of water. Stayed the night at the hut nearby. Dried what I could. New bags are needed. Very windy up here today.

Left home early and made my way to the top for morning tea. The left knee was quite sore by the tie I was back at the bottom but no rest for me as an afternoon of gardening lay in weight. Great to knock this old bugger off.

TFTC. Had a wee bit of water in the container. Still no snow on the tops & spectacular view. 2 1/4 hours up from View Hill and 3 1/4 hrs back to View Hill via Coopers Creek.

Plodded up from View Hill and what a view from this hill. TFTC

Found some time ago, while trekking around Mt. Oxford. Nice view, beautiful weather, TFTC.

Made my man walk up this hill in the rain We wanted to check out the Wharfdale track for future Mt biking trip but once at top it was too wet and misty to find the poled route out to wharfdale so after finding the cache set off back down the hill. So sorry not to be able to enjoy the veiw and walk.

No Snow! 2:40 hours up from Coopers Creek. Completed the loop down to the Wharfdale & Coopers link track in 6:15.
This is ANOTHER lonely cache with few loggers.
Uplifted TB Big City Cachoids "Fastest Travelling" - well it would not travel fast up here! Another wilderness cahe beckons. Thanks for an easy find, well the climb is hard but the clue negated any need to fire up the GPS.

Found it by accident few weeks ago, it got me interested in geocaching and revisited it adding US quarter coin.

Stopped to search for this one on our way up over Mt. Oxford to Wharfdale Hut for the night. Great views! TNLN Thanks for my first find in New Zealand!

Out on a fine day doing the round trip from Coopers Creek car park - nice wee geocache to add to the enjoyment - thanks1

There was a bit of snow about but luckly there wasn't much around the cache and didn't have to dig any away.TFTC

We had an awesome day yesterday, we started at the view hill carpark, cruzed upto the top in about 3 hours through some amazing mountain beech forest, we reached the top and has some amazing views.
We had to wait for a couple of people to leave before we searched for the cache but it was an easy find, we then decided to walk the whole circuit and we wandered on down to coopers creek and then we walked back upto the view hill carpark.
An awesome day trip, 7.5 hours round trip, thanks for the cache.
No swaps.
Did this walk with my friend John and introduced him to geocaching.

Been wanting to do this cache for a long time, and as part of a get fit session, we got up here. A quick find. Took dog, left plastic hanger and TB Big city cachoids. Thanks sallies.

It was an almost perfect day for a run up the hill with my buddy Stuart. Much easier for us to find than the guy who had to find it in the snow....well done buddy. Took the truck and left the puppy It looks like we were the first visitors this year.

What an effort! 3 hours 15 minutes up. 2 hours 15 mins down. After yesterday's bad weather the snow was down to 950m AMSL and averaged about 30cm depth above 1100m. At the summit the gps looked like it zeroed in on the correct boulder (11 satellites, 3m EPE) NE of the trig and base camp was established at this boulder, a reputed 1m from the cache. But when I dug down through the snow on the given NE side there were no rocks to be found under which a container could be hid. I then searched it's N and E sides with no greater success. Mmmmm, the Sallies normally give good instructions! I then ranged a little further a field and searched the E, N and NE sides of 3 adjacent boulders, even though their coords definitely didn't match the posted ones. The summit area was now beginning to resemble the diggings at a gold field, with it's newly created piles of snow and with snowy footprints all over the place. After dejectly returning to base camp for some refreshments I sadly prepared to depart, but first I would take a photo of my gps to prove that I got to GZ. Photo taken, I slung my pack onto my back and in a fit of pique kicked the snowbank on the WEST side of the base camp boulder. Something moved below and I heard the familiar sound of rock on hollow plastic container. Yahoo! I won't need to come up here again and I get a too. As I filled in the logbook the next 2 tourists arrived, and no doubt wondered what the hell that mad fellow had been doing shifting all the snow around. I departed soon after and as I descended passed another 11 people on the way up. The snow was rapidly melting and walking down the track was like a continual wade in a river. I reckon the snow will be nearly all gone in 2-3 days. TNLN Thank you Sallies for an interesting expedition.

I noticed that the cache lid had a small crazed crack in it that had obviously been in it for some time. Would the next person going up there please either take up a length of duct tape to seal over the crack or a replacement container.

Finally managed to visit Mt Oxford with no snow. Have walked past the cache several times buried in snow. We were doing a loop trip about to descend a little used spur directly to Ryde Falls. Had lunch on top. TNLN

A great walk with fantastic views. A bit cold with fresh snow on the ground. Thanks for a great cache, will try to post some photos

+ shiny green stone & smiley face eraser
- yellow key tag & practice golf ball

Canterbury show day - perfect opportunity to go for a walk in the sun. Original plan was to climb Castle Hill Peak, but a screaming norwester on the day changed our plans and we chose Mt Oxford as the new destination. We were well protected from the wind all the way up through the trees, and were only really exposed in the short ridge section between the trees and last pinch to the top. On the top was quite an experience! The wind was gusting to speeds that had you ducking down occasionally to grab something! That rock wind shelter is just brilliant - it works so well - sitting behind that was warm in the sun, with practically no wind - just perfect. Views were outstanding - could see deep into Arthurs Pass, north to Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku, south to Timaru and all the way into Christchurch. There was a big dust-storm clouding up over the Rakaia River - looked really impressive from up high. Found the cache ok, although one of the clips had popped off and it was quite wet inside. We took our time at the summit, leaving the logbook and other stuff in the sun to dry as we had our lunch enjoying the views. By the time we packed it all away, everything was perfectly dry again thanks to the norwester (Although the logbook's a little fatter than what it used to be). Went for a wander over to the little tarn before heading down.
Brilliant cache - superb location. Many thanks for giving us an excuse to climb this fantastic mountain

Found cache during a blizzard after scraping away snow and ice. TNLN

OK, we know it was misty and drizzly in Christchurch - but I knew it was fine inland. So off to Mt Oxford for the day - I'd go and climb it anyway, but the added bonus of a cache at the top was excellent. Perfect weather along the foothills, frosty and sunny. Started at the Coopers Creek carpark and took the direct track to the summit - 2hrs 30min climb, despite the icy snow on the south ridge. Only a faint NE breeze on the summit - but it was all fug out over the coast!! No cell-phone coverage though - but the views all around to snowy ranges that I know so well was just magnificent.
Thanks, Sallies, for what was of course a very easy find. My GPS had a full 12 satellites in view, so GZ was only 1.5m from the cache - couldn't go wrong, could I?? The cache is in excellent order, suitably bedded down for its "wintering over".
So I then did the round trip down the longer way to briefly join the Wharfedale Track and return to Coopers Creek - that last section is a beautifully graded trail (ignoring the mud). There was still a hard frost in the shady places down in the valley. No swaps, cheers, Grandalf.

Oh - I forgot to mention...
The bellbirds in the bush were amazing - the singing was the best we have ever heard. We made a recording - and put it at: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/gturner/geocaching/bellbirds.mp3

Well - we are always up for a challenge
I reckon this is actually a harder walk. We got good views on the way up, but when we got to the top, it was in cloud, so we didn't linger.
It's a good time to do it at the moment - the mud isn't, and there are plenty of ripe blackberries on the way up. It was about a 6hr trip for us, then off to our friends near Woolff's revival for dinner. TNLN - ta!

First to find. Some overgrown parts at the start and with all the rain lately I was soon saturated. Made it to the summit in 2 hrs and unfortunately it was completely clouded in so no nice views.
Found the cache quickly - good coverage on top of a mountain. TB Spike Jnr visited but not a nice spot for a turtle so he will continue on.
+ cow
- Aussie 50c
Did the Ryde falls cache as well (and it did take 7hrs all up including cache finding and lunch)
Off course it was sunny by the time I got back to the car!