Back and Beyond (Canterbury) Russells Flat, South Island, New Zealand
By Moneydork on 19-Mar-05. Waypoint GCN509

Parked up about 1km from GZ and enjoyed a pleasant walk along the road. Used the stones to cross the ford and quickly found the cache at GZ. TFTC.

Lovely spot, great excuse to travel this back road. TFTC

Not too far off the beaten track as I still had cellphone reception. Still some water in the ford you have to cross to access the cache; TFTC

A nice drive in to a new area for me. A lovely valley and muggle free. The cache was a quick find and sign and replace. The cache is in good condition. TFTH

Found it! Rather camouflaged in with all the mud.

Awesome find, good hiding spot!

Hard to find, but will find it

Hard to find

Took more finding than we thought. Lots of Barbara’ and Eunice’s looking on.

Spoiler

Did this on a bike ride with Dad, the road seemed to go on forever but eventually we found a sneaky little container. TFTC

Finally spotted this one while we were exploring the Back of Beyound. Its all caked in mud but the inside is still ok. Flooded Here?? Cheers.

Friday today, we explored from Rangiora to Lake Lyndon

Its Queens Birthday weekend and The Seagnoid, Zara and I are heading out of town for a long weekend to Arthurs Pass, via Kaikoura. Had a fantastic weekend, seeing lots of new places, limestone formations, amazing views, awesome beech forest walks, but getting nowhere fast. Bloody cold at times with -3deg frosts but thankfully the snow stayed on the top of the highest mountains.. Enjoyed driving back via Lake Brunner, Murchison. An awesome few days exploring.

One of the reason it too Taybeedragon and I forever to do just 130 kilometres, is that we did not do 130 kilmetres. We shot down every squitty little side road to go exploring out the back of beyond. Like here. Weird at GZ - it's like a flood has been though, even though the nearest water is some way away. Lots of rain and people driving through mud? Even though the cache has a fine layer of mud on it, the contents are in good nick.

Taybeedragon and I are on a five day extended Queen's Birthday weekend. Happy birthday marm! The plan was to cache the Arthur's Pass route, from Rangiora to Lake Buller. You would think four days was enough to do the 211 kilometers, but we didn't even manage the 130 to Arthur's Pass village before we had to pull the pin Monday lunchtime for the drive back to Blenheim. But on the way we saw some amazing views, strange geology, weird amounts of ice in the puddles, ice on the inside of our windscreen - it was that cold. Caves, wonderful beech forests, rather a lot of bridge barriers and even a cache or few. And there was blisters, sliding down icy grassy hills on our bums (what fun!) and rather a lot of walking. Many thanks to all the cache owners that made this such an amazing trip.

Today StreetWalkerNZ and I set out to find 13 caches today to bring our total find count for 29th June to 26, or more (in SW's case). We decided to do a round trip Greendale - Hororata - Whitecliffs - over Pig Saddle - Russell Flat - Sheffield (for a pie lunch - Rangiora (to visit whanau) then home to Chch, finding caches in most places.
It's about time we took the detour to find this cache - as it's been here for 14 years now. All quiet on the drive and at GZ, except some sheep in a nearby paddock. SW saw the cache, but even though I was closer to GZ, I said he could grab. It was pretty dusty here, so I didn't see why I should get dirty . Good to find another MD cache. TFTC.

#17225. Good to include a Moneydork cache in today's haul. We enjoyed our drive up the valley (a corner of Canterbury we hadn't visited before). Nice views of the Benmore Range. TFTC.

13/04/2019 2:38:00 PM
8828
Out caching with mum for the day - took a break of annual leave from motherhood, and headed off - it had been far too long since last having a caching day!!

We had a great day with lots of food & chat & caches on the way - perfect!
Thanks to all the hiders for giving us a day of fun!

TFTC!!

TFTC quick find today

i was heading over to castle hill for the night and decided to swing by and have another go at this one cache was a nice quick find once I approached from a different angle , it was good to turn that frown upside down..... unfortunately that didn't last long as I had cracked the sump of my car on a pot hole less than a km from the cache and the car was leaking oil....bugger . so had to cancel plans and head back to Geraldine lets just say it was a long drive home , time to by a 4wd I think.!!!

Out for a drive with my son and wife. It was a nice drive.

Out for a drive with my eldest son and husband. First stop Darfield Bakery. Nom nom. Next stops geocaches. Our third find in the Malvern's. The local muggle continues to write in the book. Off to Pig Saddle next.

This is way out in the sticks. really enjoyed this one

TFTC

I was fortunate enough to be able to squeeze an 11 day holiday out of two leave days!! I headed out west to find some caches, see some sights, and relax before the madness of the semester hits. The weather was unbelievably good, only a bit of a storm over Arthur's Pass on the first day, otherwise hot and sunny. I found a great variety of caches, drive by's, walks, hikes, even a power trail. Thank you to all the CO's for their great hides!!!

After a full on day yesterday conquering Mt Bealey and swimming across lake Pearson a leisurely drive back to Geraldine today picking up a few P and G s along the way was a good plan.

time to go of the beaten track but with no luck managed to get a whack to the head from the electric fence for my trouble but no cache

Came home from my morning bike ride and it was snowing quite hard...sweeeet. Right boys - who wants to go find some snow & go tabogganning?! Had an early lunch, packed snacks, taggons, change of clothes and we headed out just past Springfield....sweet farmers field, gentle slope & loits of other family's. Great early arvo fun. Thick powdery snow. Once the boys had had enough, back to the car, get changed, warm up...more food...then a bit of a detour on the way home.
Great fun. Had just found Russell Flat School and it'd started to snow again....wicked. Decided this one was worth a try. Plenty of snow on the ground and it was coming down like billy-o. Awesome drive in. Got to gz OK...took some photos before turning for home....fantastic fun. Will add a photo later. Cheers.

Easy find. TFTC

Found it.

Day 1 of our 5 Day end of year geocaching trip. Back and Beyond - it sure is! Its been awhile since we found a Moneydork cache so what better excuse to make the detour down here atlast. The cache is actually in pretty good condition except for the pen someone snapped in half to fit in the container (lucky it didnt leak everywhere) Had to laugh at the muggle note about how exspensive petrol is and we "wasted" it to come and sign this book. I actually thought we may have been able to go further to the other cache about 7k through this road but after about another 1k it started to get pretty rough and we didnt want to risk it so we drove the long way around 43k! That a pretty big detour.
Thanks for the cache [purple]Our cache find: #3162[/purple] | [green]Cache of the Day: 1/33[/green] | [blue]Cache of our trip: 1/235[/blue]

TFTC

It certainly is back of beyond out here, lovely & peaceful though! TFTC

Easy find. Someone had written in the logbook that petrol must be too cheep to waste time and money doing this. Some people do not understand. TFTC.

My last cache today, on the way home from the "Snowball's Chance" event up country.
If I log an Earthcache from 3m ago, this will be #1500 - great to have a Moneydork cache for this milestone.
TFTC - I must have arrived not too long after Hello Mrs.

Arrived at Sheffield and over coffee at a new cafe decided it was too early to go home. Where can we go to put our new subaru to the test. This cache was quite a distance but I kept that to myself as we headed off into the hils. A few km from GZ we hit the gravel road and soon after had to cross a ford with plenty of water. Arrived at GZ in the dust stream behind a farmer. Rosie took great interest in the cattle over the fence while I had the satisfaction finding the cache in an obvious spot. Cache in good order. Tomorrow we will book the car in for its first free car wash. TFTC

Great please

Got in the way of farmer, but a good find.....

Found after Orienteering event in Dalethorpe Forest. Sure starting to feel the back of beyond!

Very handy, we have just been competing in the National Orienteering champs in the forest further up the road.

At nearby Springfield Gliderfield and needed some decent exercise. Hence a walk was in order. It was a hot hot day though and poor Alfie the dog nearly died.
Nice easy find.

It sure is! A quick easy find though in a very picturesque and quiet area. TFTC.

Found with Jamien. TFTC.

Thought the road would never end!! Enjoyed the little trip and surprised to see that it had not been logged for most of the year. Cache in good shape. Thank you.

quick find thanks

Love the countryside. Sheep interested in the visitors.

Thanks.
SuperTeddy.(6).

TFTC.

First find of a day finding off the beaten track caches. I must have passed this one at least every year since it was published when orienterring or rogaining nearby. This time it was specifically to get this cache. From google maps I had a good idea where it was so didn't need the GPS for this one. TFTC.

A place I hadnt been to before, Must come back again and do some exploring. TFTC. Cheers Bo

Awesome valley to look into and an awesome day.

Passing by to nowhere,just having a nice day Caching around the Countryside.Found it quickly.TFTC

Seems like you are allowed further, but not today.

Nice bumpy ride, easy find

An interesting drive. We hoped the water across the road wasn't to deep for our little car. I didn't fancy having to get out to push it. An easy find I'm glad I hadn't noticed the notes about the electric fence. I might not have been so keen to get it. TFTC

An out of the way cache which was busy today. 2 visits! Thanks for the hide. Left Blue Grass Tom's Starfish Geocoin

A well named cache that says it all. Thanks.

A fair drive in alright, but it is amazing how certain challenge caches make otherwise uninteresting caches interesting after all.

No problems with the road or the electric fence.
+ a marble, - nothing.

Wonder where this road continues too? Found the cache fairly easily, but a note to other cachers to beware of the electric fence when bending down-it packs quite a punch!!! TFTC and the wake up jolt.......

This cache not visited very and it's no prob to drive here. We'd like to venture to the end of this road someday, see where it goes. SL

I saw the smartest lamb ever today, I came around a corner to see a lamb on the outside on the fence, (the road side), instead of sprinting over the road like every other sheep kind, it ducked under the fence and walked off into the field, when I came back after finding the cache, there it was again, out side the fence, this time it ran along the fence line until it found it's gap and ducked under. I didn't think sheep where smart enough to think I like that.

Cheers for the cache.

(437) A nice drive in the country with Freepetrol.. Nice area.. TFTC.

Day trip out with Broganbranch. First of the day.
Nice easy find. TFTC

Well it certainly did seem along way out and in ther middle of no where !! After crossing two deep fords we finally managed to get to the cache and sign the log. Now we just had to get back lol.

TNLN
TFTC

A good find with the kids, TFTC.

Got it this time, no one around this morning.Its not really the back of beyond, I have been a long way down that road in the past.
Cheers and thanks,
S.t.

Lovey day for a ride up to the forest TFTC

Easy find on a nice and warm spring day. Have to come back so see whether tramping is possible in the area. TFTC

Fun drive in the snow. Thanks.

Certainly out the back of nowhere, although no funny looks from farmers. Difficult wee extraction required! Cheers Gav [3826]

Just passing so decided to leave the Tui TB - Yeah right.

An amazing place/ road to Where?

TFTC

Just thought we would drop in to this cache as we were passing. Not. The title says it all. Interesting road though - and a nice bit of art on the way. TFTC.

Found soon after W.E.K.A. on way to same orienteering event.

Passing by on the way from an orienteering event.

Had to avoid countless cars passing through the gate.

Passing by on our way to Orienteering Champs at Dalethorpe.

Found after searching around & then going back to where we started at gz.Moral, if you look somewhere look thoroughly the first time.TN/LN TFTC

Certainly well back in the sticks,even got some shock treatment finding this one.
TN - Left pencil sharpner.

Wouldnt you know it, muggles!!!!! Working in the nearby yards. I got to within 27m of the cache but couldnt get it.

Nice ride out on the bike, couple local farmers must of wondered where I was headed with all my gear on the bike, (just touring, honest)

Quick find, TFTC

Easy find and happiness after my first two caches today were DNF's. No stock nor muggles about, so easy to get. TNLN Thanks.

A nice easy find, in the blowing wind. Had some company from the bulls that were very near, and on my side of the fence. We all kept our distance. TNLN.

Had another orienteering event on the farm at the end of the road, so stopped to check that cache was in place. All in order. No swaps, no log as we have visited before.

Drove many back roads to get to this one. was a lovely day to be up here in the back of beyound. TNLN.

Ah at last managed to get to this one.
TN left agate from Hororata river.
Thanks team Moneydork
Cheers
Conton

Good reason to travel that far off the beaten track.

Only went looking as we were going past anyway to a big orienteering event up the road. Our youngest member was reading the GPS and said there was one nearby...we didn't believe him at first. What a great spot. Took a jandal keyring and left a rubber. TFTC. Linleye.

We "gatecrashed" Lynleye's geocache party on the way home from an orienteering event. Our combined exploits left a few fellow orienteers wondering as they passed us.
Took the other lonely jandal key ring (we have a local place it can go). and left an orienteers' whistle.

Well, that definitely is the backblocks - so far out the bus doesn't go!! But I reckon if you used the farmers roads you could come straight through from near Lake Coleridge. It was a lovely afternoon there (while everyone was getting rained on in Christchurch) - perfect weather, peacefully quiet but for the birdsong. No swaps, cheers, Grandalf.

Aptly named. No wonder Bitsprayer looked a bit out of place - particularly if he was in his bitumen truck. Quick find and I was out of there before the farmer came back. TNLN. Cheers.

I pull up to Gz just as a farmer came out of a near by gate, I were reading the cache info when he came up and ask if I were lost, I said no I just look it, he gave me a strange look and drove off thinking what the hell is he doing paked out here in the Back and Beyond...

Many Thanks Bitsprayer

Moneydork, you never cease to amaze us! What is a 'West Coast' cache doing over here on the East Coast?
Thanks
Iris & Rodney