Seal Hotel (Nelson/Marlborough) Rakautara, South Island, New Zealand
By Badger-Ferret on 03-Jan-05. Waypoint GCMDQ1

Replaced the cache on the 15 th may went to chc for the weekend and checked it on the 18 may missing again so ill leave it for now and if no one places here then i shall return and re claim the spot

I expect to come through on my 4th attempt in a few weeks. I might have to do it as a night cache, because in all the other attempts I have not been able to put in any searching time due to constant muggles. I have had the platform to myself for 1 minutes, once. It doesn't seem to be the sort of place where a somewhat tricky to find cache has much of a chance of being found. I'd love to get this off my list at last.

Called into this one without realising it was disabled - didn't find it, but there were some muggles about which made a thorough search difficult. Great spot to be bringing people to, hope you can re-establish it for others to find.

Visited two weeks ago and the cache is still Roughly where i left it i will be back this way in about too weeks and will check it again it is not a walk in the park to find so untill then i will disable it

No luck here. Also way too many muggles around! Love the huge number of seals though down on the rocks below!

I think this is definitely gone. Ni sign of it.

No success this time!

With all the DNF logs, this one needs checking please.

Loved visiting this place and watching seals, but there aint no cache here. The vegetation has been sprayed and there is no sign of a cache. Needs checking.

I think this one has gone - some of the vegetation has been sprayed and if the cache was in there it would have been exposed some time ago.

DNF
No luck with the cache, but more than made up for with the spectacular scenery and Full House seal colony. Took heaps of photos. Bumped into a couple of Mainlander amateur photographers. Had a good yak, comparing the merits of various digital SLRs. Wouldn’t mind a D300 like theirs. Many thanks for bringing us here, we will definitely be back.

Dropped into Nins Bins afterwards for a feed of crayfish and whitebait fritters. High recommended, many thanks Nick and Fiona for the suggestion.

This was our second attempt during Christmas visits from the UK and again we were prevented from searching properly by the high muggle density. It is probably easier at less busy times of year. We will try again! Seals were good though.

Stopped by today mid afternoon - a few muggles but while they watched the seals were able to look as directed by the clue - no luck again .. maybe 4th time will be the charm!

Great spot for seal spotting!. But due to high intensity of muggles about over the festive holidays, the seal platform was full, and unable to retrieve cache. To save for next time

Erik couldn;t find him first. But I Natasha did when we looked for the seals.

Found it by GuanacosTeam
TFTC!

Trobat per l'equip GuanacosTeam
GPC!

Found it!
Cache found in our holidays in New Zealand.

A lot of seals everywhere !

TFTC
Greetings from Barcelona

9th find today - This is really a seal hotel - actually a seal colony is the best description. Sunbathing and rolling around they were.Thanks for bringing us here. TFTC TNLNSL (277)

Coin and TB visit

There were muggles aplenty when I was travelling south a few days earlier. No such problems on the return journey when I was passing early in the morning. There were dozens of seals at the hotel when I called by. TNLN. TFTC.

It's still there, but did find the hole described by "kucki". Is certainly a busy spot and the tendancy is to rush this one due to the location - somewhat of a hotel foyer!
TFTC!

We had a look for it today but were not able to find it. There was a kind of a whole in the dirt right at the place described so we assume it is gone.
Thanks anyway.

Easy find for the little pirates! A lot of fun with nzphantoms!

Found together with 4goodpirates. Waited for muggles to leave.Cache was easy peasy & was in eye view & replaced it a bit more hidden.

An easy find. TFTC

Nice easy find, Dropped in coin. TFTC

Very easy now. Especially in the rain - no muggles!

Nice and easy and not busy, enjoyed the young seals playing.

Easy find.

Left a cheeky plane.

.

A quick find once the bus load of tourists and a few others had left. Gotta be fast here. Keep thinking another bus will stop any minute. Signed log and covered up a little better than when found. TNLNSL. TFTC.

2.45pm. We are afraid it has gone. Located the obvious place where it had been - evidenced by a neatly shaped hollow in the ground where the hint said it was. Checked undergrowth in immediate vicinity in case it had been misplaced but no sign of it. Worth going to have a check we think. Nevertheless the seals were there in abundant numbers and its a beautiful place to stop. [8d] m&p.

Found it! TFTC!

I have tried for this one many times but now that its all been sorted it was a nice easy find. Thanks Bo

Lots of seals about today. Really high seas, good 4 - 5 m swells, so I guess they were probably keeping out of the turbulence. TFTC

Thanks for replacing this one - we missed it last time past. It's great fund watching the little seal pups play. TFTC.

A nicely placed cache - a great view of seals (if it had been light). we drove down the coast and seal spotted as we went - so much so we oerlooked this cache. Staying in the area, we backtracked and got this in the dark. What was more interesting is the sounds the seals make at night. You have to be there. Thanks for tihs. TN left whale coin, as it seemed a good outlook for it. A very natural coastline.

Visiting from Canada, we found this cache while on a road trip that encompassed most of South Island with Ramzee et al. Yet another amazing coastal viewpoint in a country that seems to have stunning scenery around every corner (and there are a lot of corners!). Thanks for a great reason to take a short leg-stretch stop.

Thanks NZ for an amazing vacation - I'll be back!

TFTC... Driving round the South Island with boardgirl and saw this pop up on the GPSr.... Pretty good Seal colony too!

TNLNSL

Nice day for a drive, muggels every where though. no swap.

Quick and easy find. TFTC

** Coordinates Changed From **
S 42° 14.960 E 173° 49.573
Distance From Old: 39.9 feet
The cache has been replace and moved slightly

All Good now have replaces the missing cache and moved it
Satchmo cat 4 badger ferret

Not realising this had been disabled we stopped today and had a good look after muggles departed. We looked on five signs, none corresponding very closely to the coords. The closest we got was 11m. No cache on any of them. I'm sure it has gone. We enjoyed the stop anyway though, watching seal pups play in a rock pool, thanks.

will be down that way at theend of march will check it the

Found sign, found seals did not find cache despite thorough looking, maybe it's been muggled - there were lots about!

Didn't understand the cache notes - couldn't see anything relevant by using the clues - plenty of muggles about which made further investigation impossible.

No luck today, no signs at GZ. New signs nearby with no tags etc. Walked up and down the road also, hoping to spy the hide nearby, but just too many muggles stopping to view to make a concerted effort without the confidence of a final waypoint.
Like others, I believe the signage has changed.

Nearly didn't spot this one despite the clue. Lucky my muggle husband has sharp eyes.
Took coin (not geocoin) put in an old european banknote. TFTC got some great seal photos.

Have had a good look around , mabe it needs to be checked to see if its still there,,cheers

My first DNF for the trip, and one that would turn into a bit of a theme for the general area. The cache may be there, but the cache description and clue no longer seem relevant. There are two brand new signs, both with their own respective unique numbers on the back, and neither of those were anything to do with the cache. This is one of the area's prime cache spots - it deserves a better one.

Well, I did not find it. Is it still there?

[Boo hiss. hunted with Bo of bo&bronnie, but couldn't find any sign of any numbers to add/subtract. It appears that ] one of the signs has been replaced, so it's possible that the waypoint has been removed. [Hunted around for the cache with no coordinates to use but too many places it could be. Will watch this with interest!]

just passing by and look wat i found

dropped off the "never stop" geocoin
picked up the "tuit" geocoin

Well this one was easy!! The seals had dug it up for me!!
I have now placed some rocks over it....hopefully this should help the problem!
Left a coin.

Unfortunately for the seals some stoopid uni students were chasing them -which distracted people from noticing me finding the cache...

Quick count and saw 38 seals. Road open so did not have delay.

Found while wife sat in car eating crayfish from cays crabs caravan. Lucky I was not hungry.

Thank you for the cache on a nice place. Jumbo and Slonik from Czech Republic.

I'm sure I've found this cache before? Weird... Well, I've definately found it now. Cute Mummy seal with baby directly below. Gee, remember when there were next to no seals along this stretch of coast. Cheers.

popular spot, managed to grab it between muggers, i had planned to drop of a TB but no room, The baby seal look so cute

Very clever, right under the muggles noses. A Great viewing spot and the kids were all gaga over the baby ones, well I was too, very cute.
TNLNSL, TFTC

---(2007-04-10, 16:45: 3)---
Neat hiding spot and holder. Seals were rather lazy and smelly today. #21 for the day on our trip home from Nelson. TNLN TFTC

Found the cache quickly in it's excellent hidey hole. Nobody around when we first arrived but as we were about to do swaps a couple of buses arrived so we had to get things away quickly and didn't do swaps. Good to see young seals, which we'd never seen before. Thanks for the cache.

Easy find despite lots of muggles who were somewhat preoccupied with the view! TNLN TFTC

Found together with Ingrid and hixxx quite after breakfast at the beach.
Greetings from Austria,
Annari

Started quite early in the morning. After a few minutes the place was full of muggles.
TFTC!

A quick find on a wet day,did it right under the nose of muggles.Lots of baby seals having fun

TNLN SL

Lots of muggles
and seals!

A wet day, which kept the muggles away. A neat cache location thanks!

It was lovely watching the seal nursery school in action. The tide almost full in with waves flooding the seal paddling pools. I had a hard job tearing Mrs BE away. A neat urban type of cache where you could retrieve the cache without others noticing what you were doing. T4TC.

Had lunch while watching the seals and finding the cache. I wounder what they think of the humans?

Visiting from California, touring South Island. Traveling from Kaikoura today to Blenheim, we caught a couple caches along the way and this was one. Saw some seals and baby seals too!
TN, left a US coin. TFTC!

Have stopped here many times but never to retrieve a cache. Unnerving to see the way youngest mini muffin used her innate caching sense to identify where it was and then remove it with extreme stealth under the eyes of muggles without being noticed all the while keeping up chatter about the seals. What have we taught her and is it good?!!
TNLN
TFTC

Our heart sunk as we arrived to find 2 busloads of muggles at the viewing site. Luckily they were all looking at the seals so Gary was able to go straight to the cache and retrieve it without anyone being any the wiser. Had to be a bit more sneaky replacing it as they were all sitting back up in their bus watching us. TNLN Thanks

Lots of muggles and the smell wasn't very nice...

Didn't find numbers to add/subtract but did find the cache.
TFTC.
TNLNSL.

Jfer nicely scooped this cache despite the muggle frenzy next to us. Top spot for the seals. TNLNSL. ...from Oz

Plenty of muggles around, but they were too busy looking at the seals to see what we were doing! Our 5th find of the day en route to Christchurch. TFTC, TNLNSL

wonderful spot...plenty of muggles around had to be a bit careful.....
no exchange

elcapo and eee

Cold wet dark morning.
On way to catch a fairy.

Loads of seals doing cute things, also loads of not so cute muggles. I distracted the muggles by loudly pointing out the seal antics while Dad grabbed the cache. Thanks.

Found it very easy with PaBa. Thanks, very nice place.

Found easily with millu during our trip around the coast. The seals were great as well as the weather... Thanks!
TNLN

The third cache of our New Zealand holiday. Enjoyed watching the seals - the torrential rain didn't seem to bother them. Many thanks from the Top Cats (UK).

Number 101. Getting the time to log all my South Island caches. TNLN. Amazingly how easy it is to get this cache and hide it again even with 35 muggles around -- they all look in a different direction...

Found it on the way back from Nelson. The cold weather kept the muggles at bay and so it was easy to get to. TFTC. TNLN. Hatas

Very high muggle's indeed. Managed to find amoungst gaps in the crowds. Male Seals lounging about waiting for the pregant Ladies to return from adventures south. According to the signage, November is when the travellers return.

It is a very nice spot (at least if the wind comes from the right direction:). But we really had to hurry before more muggles arrived.

Were watching the littles seals playing in the pool. Great location. We loved this hidden cache

Thx and greetings from switzerland

The seals had babies!! Very cute
Easy find on way north. Often stopped here but never known about a cache.
part of the Macs great school holiday road trip

Stopped here for a look at the locals on the way back from Christchurch and picked up "save me" TB. Have been past a hundred times and never stopped.

Called in here first thing on the way past to Blenheim but there was a couple of divers getting kitted up so left it until my return journey just after dark. Surprisingly easy find . All the locals were asleep. Left "Save Me" Travel Bug, thought this was an appropriate stop for this tb, especially since there were whales spotted only a hundred of so meters off shore from the town yesterday!
+ TB "Save Me"

Easy find on a mid week trip to Blenhiem.

It is a bit of a nasty place over the fence, a very bad add for disposable nappies.
Clever hiding place, we have stopped here many times over the years.

Thanks,

S.T.

- Pig
+ Car
- geo Giraffe TB

checked it today all ok left travel bug behind

Stopped on the way north to catch the ferry. It was sunrise (6:20)when here and the seals where just waking up which was quite interesting, they start the day with a big strectch. Found cache in first place looked. TNLN.

People prob thought we were mad looking at the seals in the dark !!! found the cache okay - had to take it to the car for light to write in log !!! Was a good last find on a trip to Hanmer and ChCh geocaching along the way
Cheers for the cache took wild animal stamp left wooden ladybird and wooden pink pig

Been to this site many times good hide did in the dark returning from the south

Stopped by on the way to Picton at 9pm, so no muuggles. However, no torch made it a bit harder. Had to use the clue in the end and it was easy after that. TNLN thanks.

A quick find in a smelly location, but all woth it as it is a great spot to stop.
TFTC