Serpentine works for me (Nelson/Marlborough) Carluke, South Island, New Zealand
By muzzman & annie on 05-Mar-06. Waypoint GCTQ7J

Once another cacher found this one and gave a few hints, I gained the courage to return and try it again. Starting from where I left off, I made a quick circle around to GZ only needing to dodge one blackberry shoot. Who would but a stone this large in a room? I'll never know. Who would put a cache here? I guess that would be the COs. TFTC.

This cache:A very rare occasion of scoring a find after 2 DNF's! From the last finder log I concluded the cache was not at the easiest to reach wall side. I immediately went looking at harder to reach places and after a short while was able to dig up the cache! Wow, I was ready to replace it if needed but it's still going strong.Some extra guidance: you need to be in a small 'room' with 3 enclosing walls and 1 'enclosing' big rock. Then search in one of the corners, should be a quick find if you can safely make your way over that big rock, good luck!Tftc for this one and the added historic context, FP!This day:I had a whole day to myself, while Mrs Dutch Kiwi was entertaining the kids. The weather was not great but mainly dry, so I decided to do a string of caching along the SH6. I started just after Hira and continued almost up to the Rai Valley, finding or replacing every cache along the way. Except for 1 DNF, where fallen trees had completely covered GZ. A lot of fun bush bashing and some golden oldies that were still patiently waiting for my visit. Also finally got around to seeing the section of old SH6. What a great and successful day it was! Geocaching brings you to so many cool places you would otherwise not even know existed!

I'm going to have to ask a PF which side to search for the cache.

After giving it a 20minute search we decided to give up. Not sure if we were missing some vital piece of info or what. Searched both sides of wall where GPS was closest. Will check next time we're through this way to see if it's been found by someone cleverer. Interesting to learn it's history though so thanks for making us stop.

Another warm Sunday buzz on Bumblebee-st. Got on the road while it was still quite quiet and cool. This was the fifth find for today. Not so easy find here as I had the wrong side of the wall at first. Finally, over Troys wall i got it, and it has survived the weather event of Aug 22.

Undergrowth includes lots of spiky things. No luck, either side of wall.

Traveling to Nelson from Picton. another cache on the way TFTC

A handy little side road to pull off into to make the find easier. Parked up and made our way to GZ for a nice easy find. Log book a little damp although could still manage to sign name. Put back as found and headed on our way again. tftc

Found while caching with ABL973. Thanks muzzman & annie

I had seen the building ruins a few times recently on my way past but this time I stopped in to have a looksy. I started on the wrong side of the wall but soon figured out my mistake and made a quick find. Thanks muzzman & annie.

Prickly search here. Log damp.tftc. good find shellsadventure.

With dry weather and a day to ourselves Missnboyz and I began a caching dayhunt. This was a prickly enslaught to find this one. It actually didn't need to be! so take note you don't actually have to get prickled to find this one. cache was soaking wet. Dried it out as best as possible. Left a tissue in the bottom to soak up and excess moisture. Also replaced bag. Hopefully it will be drier for the next cachers. TFTC

Driving towards Nelson we pulled in for a cache, like some people pull in for a burger. I think more caches need to have a drive-thru attribute to get everyone involved. How keen would teenagers be to cache it they thought they could eat something unhealthy.

Being stupid Aussie tourists, we thought that all plants in NZ were beautiful and cuddly. Damn the quarantine rules, I was planning on smuggling some seedlings down my jocks to plant at home.

That’s was until we met up with a plant that was hard, spikey, had bad breath, and was out to kill you. This plant was like wait-a-while but had done the tough knocks on the hard streets. We met up with it at GZ and even the cuss words we threw at it had little effect. tftc

Been past here many times but today we get to stop. Yes Ihave to be on the wrong side of the wall so The Seagnoid spots this one. Now tagged. Cheers

Snagged The Seagnoid from Blenheim for a day trip to the Whangamoas with Toby. So lets go exploring.

Heading home from Nelson and have a few caches sitting in my off line list just waiting for the right moment. Pretty wet around here - lucky I have some decent footwear on. Initially was searching the wrong side of the wall - but once I got my bearings I had cache in hand.
TFTC muzzman & annie

A quick find once the GPS counted down to zero, but took a couple of false routes until that happened.
Found the cache exposed and upside down. Have added some rock cover to it. It’s not the most waterproof of containers, but the log was fine.
TFTC Muzzman & Annie.

I devised a plan today for those kind of ‘pesky’ caches on the road to Nelson. Pesky in the respect that anytime we are heading past we always seem to have other plans, or a car up your bum not allowing you to stop in time.
So, I decided today will be the day for the last 15 between Rai and Hira. Take it easy, cache safely, and never again have to say ‘oh, there’s one there I have not got yet’.
Just me today, Jo is working. 15 targeted, one not attempted due to muggles, 2 DNFs and the rest tagged and bagged succesfully. Thanks to all COs.

So much wall, so much undergrowth. And wall gave two sides!!

Needed to find this one as it was published on a date that we need to fill a gap in our grid. I followed the geotrail and went a long way further than was needed - but then so had others. Thanks

Nice and quick find. Thanks for he maintenance GH6710

Found on a long weekend up in Nelson/Marlborough, with family, friends, and caching. Ticks all my boxes!!

Thanks to all of the CO's for the hides. Cheers.

It appears that the CO is not active currently so I have replaced the cache at GZ as per the hint. It is in the easier 'bay' so not too much poking around in the bushes. 4 February 2017 10:36 GH6710 T F T C muzzman & annie

Did a quick search but found nothing. It looked like someone searched the concrete wall but no DNFs were logged

despite the 4 of us looking it was no luck today.

Thorough search in spite of difficult conditions but were unable to find . Good luck to the next searcher !

Fun jungle walk my son managed to find this one pretty quickly tftc

I walked almost straight to this one.. My nice trainers aren't that nice any more after several close encounters with thornbushes,..

Found at 03:43 PM - #5967

TFTC

Talk about mazes - this one was exciting but found in last place looked. Container has two broken clips but still held by the other two. Contents damp but was still able to sign the log. May need a bit of TLC by the CO next visit.

Found it with Team FIN [janahola, kapeka, laalaa & temyllyl]

We had fun with caching few weeks here in New Zealand. Lots of geocaches and many sort of them too. We saw awesome places, weather was pretty good all the time and people were friendly and polite. Caches were pretty similar like in our home country. Of course there were some exeptions. Nice and really scenary country!

Greetings from Finland

FIN (laalaa, janahola, temyllyl, kapeka) holiday in New Zealand. Marvelous country and nice landscape. This was ferry day (Wellington - Picton).
Greetings from Finland.
Thanks for the cache.

Sixth day on our geo-roadtrip in New Zealand, and caching our way towards south. Logged using our group nickname FIN with janahola, laalaa and kapeka. Driving to south and heading to Christchurch Mega event. After ferry ride from North Island we continued our road trip by driving west side of South Island.

On a geoholiday road tripping to Christchurch MEGA and around beautiful New Zealand. Our four people group (temyllyl, laalaa, kapeka and myself) from Finland used group tag FIN to log the caches.

Today we took a ferry ride to Picton and our road trip continued to Richmond. This was one of the caches where we visited today. TFTC!

Welcome to MEGA Finland in 5-7 august 2016!

HockeyHiker19 and I were on day 6 of our geocaching honeymoon in New Zealand. HockeyHiker19 requested that we pull over to give this one a try. We did and she was able to make the find.

Greetings from West Sacramento, California! Papa EGTH and I are on Day 6 of our 19-day honeymoon in New Zealand. Today's route takes us from Picton to Nelson. We had taken the overnight Bluebridge ferry from Wellington after dropping off our rental car and we were able to catch a bit of sleep in a cabin overnight. Then, we had to wait a couple of hours in the terminal for the rental car agency to open up, so we didn't leave Picton until nearly 9:30am, which is a very late start to a caching day for us.

This one wasn't too terribly difficult to find...we just had to ensure that we were searching around the correct wall. After checking a few spots, I saw an area I thought would have a good hiding spot and I was right! Serpentine is the California state mineral, so that's the main reason I wanted to stop for this cache. Thanks!

Found at last on my third visit! Coming from the North Island we do not get here very often so it was a great thrill to finally claim this smiley. This "maze" really deserves a cache. Thanks also to the previous visitor who placed a new log book which remains dry. Thanks muzzman & annie.

Off to the Blenheim branch office today, so a chance for some caching on the way.

I just had to stop here as I needed this month/year combo to fill a gap on my Jasmer grid - still plenty to go though!

This was a cunning wee hide amongst the maze of derelict walls, but just I was about to move on I found a nook that I had not yet searched.

Having previously seen that the log was wet, I popped in a replacement. The cache has done pretty well considering its nearly 10 human years old. I wonder how old that is in cache-years?

Thanks
#791

A bit of a challenging find on a frosty, frosty morning dressed in our number one's ready for a day in the 'big smoke' (Nelson!). Mr W went hunting, followed by the toddler, followed Mrs W. Miss 4 stayed in the car - warm. Pick the sensible one! Log was far too wet to sign but have taken a photograph near GZ which I will upload shortly.
This cache sparked much discussion on our journey. Was on earth is Serpentine? Well, over lunch with Mrs W's brothers we Googled. We are now armed with some new knowledge and it didn't take too long for our shoes to dry so thank you very much for placing this cache. For us, this is what Geocaching is all about - learning and exploring.

Found it never stopped
Here before nice hide
TFTC

Hi there thought I
Might let you know
That log book is wet and unrightable
Regards elliot13

Found with Kiwimykl, refer to his log for details.

Sorry for the late log.

TFTC muzzman & annie

Log sodden, needs replacement.

Yesterday NZDi (aka Mrs Kiwimykl) said that if it was fine today she wanted to go to Nelson for some retail therapy and perhaps we could do some caching during the trip. I'm not normally a religious man, but last night there was much praying to the weather Gods, and this morning my prayers were answered... in reality the only praying that went on was that the weather forecast would be right and this is the Top of the South, so divine intervention didn't really have a lot of say in the matter.

To make things easier, NZDi took over the driving duties, while I did the navigating. Over the course of the day we looked for 12 caches and found them all, some were in good condition and some were not. We repaired/replaced some but not all as we ran out of repair material.

We turned off the highway to get this cache and there was another vehicle nearby. He obviously didn't appreciate our turning up as he departed and went further down the track which was a little dodgy.

I went in search of the cache at GZ and initially couldn't find it. I then realized that the other side of the concrete wall was only 0.3m away from where I was and when I put this knowledge into effect the cache was soon found... as the previous logger mentioned... it is sodden. I signed our names on the back of an EFTPOS receipt and placed it with the log. It appears that 2 (of 4) of the click-clack retaining clips have broken off the container and it is no longer weather-tight.

TFTC muzzman & annie

Cache has now been found

This cache is not lost. We hadn't read the previous logs before attempting to find this one on 16 March...so we hunted in and around the given clue and found this cache...it is there...wet yes, very wet, but it is there to be found. We also found the "clip" from the container but it is not the clip from THE container. Need a bit of bush bashing but you will be rewarded. Thanks for the cache!

Nothing for us here today. If only we'd refreshed this caches info before hitting the road. Silly us!

This entry was edited by looking-lotts on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 22:22:55 UTC.

Container missing. Will replace soon

Had a good search, but came out empty handed.

Logged a DNF in 2009, tried again today, but same result. GZ is really turned over. Hope this cache continues successfully as this historic "maze" deserves a fine cache.

Found the clip from the cache container but no signs of the container

Tftc
Rehid . Great forage for that one

[green] Hatched a plan with Capperz last night and so downloaded only solved puzzles, both unfound and found. Turns out Capperz had solved a bunch that I hadn't, and vice versa. Now that I write this log I realised I should have used Project GC's map compare feature so that we could leave out caches we both had found. So after some trouble getting them into our GPSs, and a night's kip, we set of at 0630. Started off a nice cool cloudy day, which turned into serious drizzle that settled in for the day, which slowed us down not at all. The rain disappeared about 11am (so much for settling in for the day), leaving a bright sunny 25 degrees. I managed over 40 caches today, most of them puzzles, and Capperz found nearly 60, adding in the puzzles I had previously found. So yay, a badge upgrade! And after today another one for Earthcaches. Woohoo!
Well, we have run out of puzzles for the day, so we've switched to my cellphone and are now looking for traditionals on the way home. Momentarily confused here, the serpentine labyrinth had me in a perfectly good spot, 3m from GZ, but with no cache. Capperz found it for me.

For the sake of sanity we set off with sonia26642 for a crazy geocaching trip, aiming to cache until we drop. The main destination was Nelson and the ‘surrounding’ area, but then we ended up covering a few miles in three northernmost regions, plus a few in Canterbury. We were signing/stamping the log as 'Team Polak' or ‘TP’ for the two of us on this trip to save logbook space. We found a lot of different caches, city ones, road side, park side, up a hill and on an island, and we enjoyed every single one of them. It was good to be a professional thingfinder for a few days!

We had great fun and are grateful to all CO’s who placed caches for us to find, and help restore our sanity before returning to our other non-geocaching lives!!

Come and join us the next New Zealand geocaching MEGA event!! Register your interest now at www.nzmega2015.com to receive newsletter updates and be the first to know. It will be a great event, come and be a part of it!!

Found with the hint tftc

Felt like a labyrinth to find this. Tftc

Cool art on the walls 8D
Container contents very wet but log ok

Thanks for this little on-the-road cache!

During the last weeks, well months, I had the luck to find a lot of geocaches in NZ. I'm really sorry that I can't remember everyone and have to write a log like this. But after all I found this country to be a beautiful place (not only for cachers!)
TFTC!
Winkelkaefer from Germany

I've lost count of of how many times I've driven past and wondered what was here and then more recently thinking I must stop to get the cache here but never did ... until today. Quick find TFTC

#2013

So now I know what this place was all about.

I thought it was placed there for graffiti

Thanks for that

Holidaying in the South Island, grabbing a few caches on the way. Easy find, on our way to catch the ferry. Thanks for the cache.

TFTC!!

Found orginally as part of phasevisitor team, now created own account, re-logging as yorkshirekiwi83.

After a night in Nelson we then made our way to Kaikoura via Blenheim, picking up a few caches along the way. After a bit of a hunt around, the cache as spotted. TFTC!

After a night in Nelson we then made our way to Kaikoura via Blenheim, picking up a few caches along the way. After a bit of a hunt around, the cache as spotted. TFTC!

Stopped here ages ago but no luck. I did the same thing today - - - tried to make it way too difficult for myself. Got there in the end. Thanks .

After finding the cache recognized, that there would have been an easier approach. TFTC

On a very stormy day and some time to kill. I can remember when this was operational. Great art work, TFTC.

On the way to Nelson with hopes of another dot-day, beating PB, busting past 1400
Nice hide, easy find

TFTC

Eventually zoned in and found this one with SAFCman and Osteoboss. I've never seen so much pollen in the air !! Clouds of the wretched stuff today.... TFTC!!

Nice location - would never have guessed what the building was for. TFTC

makka pakka 2 went out to day still thinking about the art?

[green]Day 3 of our 5 day Easter caching roadtrip. Today we are heading from Blenheim to Nelson.[/green]
Yay! first in the new log, made me feel special. These containers arnt waterproof so you have to make sure both bags are sealed properly. Thanks for the cache

Good art work recently done here

We found this cache today on our trip from Nelson to Kaikoura, when we stopped for a little while. Quick find!

Thank you for this cache!

Today we visited this nice Cache on our way from Nelson to Kaikoura TFTC

Container lit broken The logbook is totally wet.

TFTC. This cache was located with the assistance of an earlier log. I also found the coords to be a bit off, but not a problem. Now I need to go and have a moment with Mr Google to find out about serpentine.

A lost place is always interesting. TFTC

Together with my family on a vacation trip to New Zealand. Starting at Auckland airport on transfer to Christchurch we went for a roundtrip exploring the south island. This was one of many caches we found while visiting so many nice and interesting places thanks to all the caches why I want to send a thank you to all CO for the work spent.
Soaking wet container and content. TFTC.

Serpentine didn't work for me. Found the walls and lots of tracks through the grass, but no sign of the cache in five minutes of searching - would have been my first for 2013 if we'd found it.

On our way to Nelson for a wee holiday (after having stayed a night in Blenheim). DNF'd this a couple years ago. Tried again whilst passing. Found it this time after a bit of persistance. GZ slightly off for us (6m); which makes a difference to your angle/side of approach. No need to bush thrash! Found at 514/832. Nice to tick it off. Log wet as. Cheers.

#2529 @1435
A quick find while caching my way back to Nelson after dropping my daughter off at the ferry last night. TFTC .

25/12/2012 3:59:00 PM
2152
This cache was found as part of my epic as move down south to Christchurch from Auckland - A drive that involved around 3,000km, 350 caches, 14 days, and a bit of a detour through East Cape, Gisbourne, Napier/Hastings, some back roads in the Wairarapa, Cape Pallisier and Nelson/Tasman as well as every CANZ cache along the way that I was still missing. (Hence my excuse for the not as interesting log as I usually try to make mine.) But thanks to every awesome amazing as cacher that placed caches along these roads, you made my trip awesome, and very cache happy!

Decided to take the scienic more pretty coastal route to Nelson along the coast, and collected up this cache along the way.
I LOVE abandoned things!! They are SO the best!! So I loved finding this cache - was great as exploring the area - took a while though, as I initially came from the wrong side, and couldn't spot the cache... then I went round the other side of the building, and that seemed a bit more obvious.
Cache desperatley needs maintenance though as has already been stated. It was completely drenched!

TFTC!!

After a trip to Nelson town the weather is not improving. We need to be in Picton this evening so have decided as there is not much else to do in clouds and drizzle to cache our way there.

TFTC
helennbrian n 2/4 tribe

Wet logbook

Quick easy found but it was not possible to log because of the totaly wet logbook

During our trip downwards to Kaiteriteri we found some geocaches on our way, this is one of them, TFTC to all owners

Used to come here when i was younger with my m8 whos father ran the crushing plant
,spent some cold winter mornings here.Brings back some memories Thanx4tc

Nice day for a caching trip from Nelson to Blenheim. Nice easy find apart from gaining some unnecessary blackberry scratches. Have often wondered what this place was all about, so now I know. TFTC

A little history for us in this lovely spot. It must have been quite an operation in a prior time.

Tfftc Blenheim Bear

Today a run with Holymu was planned to achieve the '30 finds on a day' challenge for the MGSc. Although just one day we enjoyed all four seasons weatherwise. Total tally 44 and a new personal best. No dificulty finding the caches and signing as the day proved almost muggle-free. TFTC

Out today to do the "30 in a day" component of MGSc we decided to do a round trip from Nelson through Spring Creek, and up the Wairau Valley and back home. This was 5/44 we found, bypassing a few where we intend to return. We managed to dodge the worst of the weather and easily achieved our aim. TFTC

Quick find on way to Nelson. Thanks

Stopped at the old Serpentine works for a quick look around and to find the cache. Interesting spot, thanks.

# 5465

Easy find on a holiday in the South Island

Not our first attempt on this one but dealt to it today. No brainer - look in the right place!!!! TNLN. TFTC.

Found with geopopnz. TFTC

This entry was edited by smsRenwick on Monday, 16 April 2012 at 23:53:40 UTC.

drive by nice easy find TFTC

The joys of searching in the wrong spot. I was just about to give up, when I remembered what I was looking at. How about I have a look around there... Ah, there it is!

Thanks for the cache, muzzman & annie

Tonight I have looked up the definition of Serpentine. Quite an interesting read!

Works for me too. Found your cache

The first for today, quick and lonesome find during surprisingly nice weather after this nights storm. TFTC