Flying Fox Flax (Central Plateau) Rangipo, North Island, New Zealand
By Punga and Paua on 30-Jun-06. Waypoint GCWWJY

Suddenly lost interest. Archived.

Saw the flying fox from a distance. Of course, Mrs Tparty wanted to try it. However, I managed to distract her long enough to avoid annoying the man in the security vehicle who was driving ever so slowly up the road keeping an eye on us. TFTC

Did not realise there was more than one yellow marker

My now five year old daughter wanted to go geocaching, among other things, on her birthday so I took the day off work and we had a adventurous day together with a picnic lunch, surprise presents along the way.

This was the final of our ten finds.

The area has recently been cleared of brush.

After finding the right flax, a quick find. TFTC

This entry was edited by mariachi27 on Wednesday, 20 November 2013 at 08:17:30 UTC.

Extensive weed control has happened. Flax now cut to ground level but cache still safe.tftc

Easy rond, tftc

Found with ease following the clues, Workers on site dredging the canal down stream of the power station. They were packing up the dredge onto large trucks using a huge crane. We were careful to keep out of the way getting to the cache. Interesting spot to see where the Poutu canal ends.

[:(!] What a load of nonsense! We wasted our time and petrol rushing out to check and found a clear path to the cache, we found the cache easily without touching any blackberry, there wasn't any!
If you follow the cache note instructions you will find a clear path. It is NOT overgrown with flax and blackberry! Please don't use the 'Needs Maintenance' when it isn't needed.

Found after a bit of a search. Maintenance is not required. Thanks for bringing us here.

Flax and blackberrires have overgrown the area. Could not get to it

Easy find on our way home from a visit to the mountains - No giant Trout in the Canals today! TFTC

Easy find...TFTC

Took longer than it should have but got there in the end. Amazed by the number of trout that can be seen in the canal and the dam. TFTC and for bringing us to this delightful spot.

Found the cache, but not the Amcal Turangi Pharmacy as the geocaching website says should be there!!!!!

A couple of guys fishing in the canal when I got here. But I made the find unobserved. TFTC

Nice easy find. Thanks

Found after a short search TFTC

5th of 6 Today. Didn't take long to locate with no one around. Signed Log. TFTC

A bit of a search until Mother Dag located the cache. Looks like rodents may have been nibbling on the outer 'raincoat' and bag, but everything inside safe and dry. TFTC

11.40am - Started this at the top so got a bit confused as to what flax we were looking for. SL>TFTC

Find #503. Our ninth find for the day as we journeyed our way clockwise around Tongariro National Park. What was early morning cloud had now dissipated to blue sky and sun. Once at GZ we followed the road with a quick stop at the dam – really interesting machinery, but we don’t really understand why they decided to build it. The water on the lakeside looks extremely deep in places, and we didn’t see any trout . A nice quick find, we liked the “raincoat” . SL TFTC.

An interesting piece of engineering. TFTC

A great spot we would not have otherwise come to. TFTC

This one took us quite a while to found. The channel between the lakes is an interesting piece of work.

#1809. Interesting structure - and good that we could get up close and personal to see the control gates. Lovely views. TNLNSL. TFTC.

[375] Quick afternoon caching expedition brought us to a site we would have never known about were it not for Geocaching Lovely clear water, with scores of lovely Swallows darting around trying to catch insects on the wing - Awesome!

Found this one easily while geocaching in the area. TFTC.

I found this cache together with steha70 a while ago. We are traveling around NZ.
Thank you for the cache and greetings from Switzerland. Grazie!

#1323@15:20

On our sightseeing tour towards the national park we found this cache. A surprising beautiful place.
TFTC and many greetings from Switzerland.

Found.

Did a small diversion on the way back to Wellington this afternoon to get this one. Found quickly. That raincoat should be really effective! Signed log, TFTC.

Quick find on the way home. TFTC

Well worth turning off to see the canal and constructions here - the cache is neatly hidden, thanks.

very interesting spot, understand the poutu canal a bit more now!
TFTC

A nice spot for lunch on a sunny winters day. Watched a couple of fishermen above the dam, no fish though.
TFTC

Thought I'd found it damaged. Found a bunch of random items scattered near some flaxes right where GPS was indicating (dental floss, shoe polish, some other stuff). So initially logged as 'needs maintenance', but now see someone found it today (11/7). Damn! At least its still intact. Will take hints with me next time....

nice easy cache to poach. (na I left it there!) tftc

Probably shouldn't have worn shorts and sandals for this one. TFTC

Quick find. Raincoat intact. - 50c South Africa coin, + TGC4 bracelet. TFTC

quick find, cache is dry, log dry, doubt that the "raincoat" does anything useful.

found easily

Good area for the fishing, couple of locals were having no problem with the trout. Saw the "fox" soon located cache. SL TFTC

No one about except for 2 workmen on a crane near the car park doing maintenance work. Being such a warm day they told us they wished they could jump in the blue waters below and have a good swim! We agreed with them. We told them we came to see the dam and canals, and having the camera with us, they thought we were just tourists. No problems at GZ; had the place to ourselves as we began our search. Good camo and very interesting dam and canals. Thanks Punga and Paua for the cache.

Found it after a little searching - mainly for the best way to approach it. A few dodgy looking fisherman around, we kept a close eye on.
Swapped a pet rock - a crab, for a jurrasic park coin

Nice canal for cycling. TFTC MacBanger

Found as part of my three week caching trip from Wellington to Auckland - # 466. Took a few moments to find best access. Thanks.

No 11 of 14 today. Quick and easy find - nice peice of urban camo. NINO, TFTC

2nd on the way out to Mainland. Interesting to see some of the Hydro power network as previous have only been in area for fishing. TFTC

Quick find once the raincoat was on! TFTC

We did a family day out an looked for 17 caches. This is cache 11 for us.

Visiting from Oz with son in toe. Found it thank you.
Nice spot no trout or muggles due to weather.
Looks like someone decided the raincoat was not effective and covered it with a Half Plastic bottle. Cache is dry.

The bottle IS the raincoat!!!! Please use it to keep cache dry.

Pity no fishing some sizeable fish at the outlet.

Another great little out of the way spot. Replaced as per instructions. TFTC.

Loved the 'raincoat'. Once found, replaced as instructed. We were on the wrong side of the canal to start with but finally got ourselves sorted.

Wow! Very interesting! This place is definitely worth a visit.
Loved watching the fish in the canal before getting to the cache.
The log book is wet but we managed to sign it. Sorry didn't have anything to replace it with.
TFTC

Replaced the whole cache. No wonder it was getting wet, the raincoat was the wrong way up!!! It was just collecting water!!
PLEASE rehide it so that the raincoat keeps the water off....i.e.place cache bag inside the plastic and hide it upsidedown. Thankyou.

#447

What a great spot, so thought the poacher fishermen!!, the 2 fishing off the dam into the lake were having no luck,i told them the fish were probably down there laughing at them in the clear clean waters, but they said there mate in the canal had caught a couple of beauties.

Found the cache without worries, no muggles in view of the cache site.

tnln TFTC!!

There were three fishermen fishing off the dam when we arrived. Must have been the same ones mentioned in the previous log. Wonder if they were curious about where we were off to? Cache found easily and managed to sign the logbook, though it is very wet. SL. TFTC.

Cache container is wet, logbook is soggy and falls apart.

After a wonderful day for the Tongariro Crossing, the weather changed to dull and rainy. So we went for a little loop caching tour around Turangi.
We loved the flying fox close to GZ. Too bad we could not operate it. Anyway. The cache took some time due to several possible locations, but in the end, Rala found it in something she first considered rubbish. The cache is totally wet and it was nearly impossible to sign the logbook. We did not dare to look for the other contents.
Then down the track to the dam and looking for the source of the croaking. Must have been a big frog, but we could not find it.
TNLNSL, TFTC

A nice quick find as I was completing a little loop drive Cheers Gav [2289]

Nice easy cache. TFTC

11:20 Took us a while to find this one despite the hint. Then found and couldn't believe how we had missed it. Another interesting location. Saw 2 kingfishers and a heron. TFTC

When we got to the lower gz, things made sense.

Spotted the flying fox.

Nice at this time of day, thank you.

Nice easy find this one
TFTC

Quick find. No water in canal. workmen cleaning it. TFTC

The last cache of a long day caching.
No probelms here.
TFTC.

Nice find with Mother Genius

Yes, sorry, it's one of those dreaded bushes! BUT at least its a clean one, and not in a Rest Area, with no piles of rubbish or toilety places!! The hint pinpoints the place so you shouldn't have to search too hard, its pretty obvious.

#788
Easy find in not our favourite plant. Caching mojo restored after the previous DNF at Poachers Paradise. Had a quick look around before moving on.
TNLNSL, TFTC

Found along with a baby weta.

Thanks,
Chris & Vera

Read the clue and this time Ra ran to find it before Mak. Searched for ages and Ra came out covered in some big nasty prickle things. Swannie covered in plant matter and soaking wet. Eventually found where should go to but Mak beat Ra to it by 10 seconds. Yay another toy soldier for Ra. Left egg putty.

2.10pm. Thank you, although not in my one of our favourite hiding places!! David & Noeline

An easy find for our first of the day. Stopped by on the way home from Ruapehu, meet up with a couple of hunters and thier dogs .... almost muggled. TFC

Quick drive by and a cool canal. Have driven through here before with a local but seem to remember there being more water. TFTC

Found with family and friends but never logged

Quick and easy find ,, No fish around
36 of 102 for the trip

Enjoyed returning to this spot, after all these years. Thanks for popping a cache in this interesting spot. The overcoat was damp, but cache was dry.
A lovely day, the sun greeted us here, despite the huge black cloud looming.

Another spot I spent many many hours at a few decades ago, struggling with temperamental control systems. The control link to this site used to be by copper telephone cables, and the man with the roadside mower seemed to think the joints were targets, he managed to get one every couple of months – always late on a Friday afternoon. I see there is a big tall tidy radio link antenna now – I assume the mowing man can’t get that high!

From the look of it, they never got that drum gate working… all the compensation flow into Poutu Stream is coming from the bypass valve still.

Lots of thanks again to Punga and Paua for bringing us back here.

Out and about turning the Waitangi Day holiday into a super long weekend, the Turtle embarks on a ‘cachexpedition’ in the Central North Island. Accompanied of course by team cacher Sweet P.

Swooped down here on the most magnificent of summer days, a real pearler. Enjoyed this cache. An interesting locale that takes me back to the big water-works-for-power project that was the Tongariro-Tokanuu. Only scant sign of all that left in Turangi. Valentino's says it's Italian, but I read the menu and wondered where in Italy a filet mignon comes from... hahaha...

TFTC

+ donkey
- pink spring

SL

The Turtle strikes again!

Thought the raincoat was a bit of rubbish so it probably adds to the disguise.

Nil in or out, signed log. Many thanks.

tried this one a while ago on a horrible day with no luck... we had sunshine today so decided to try again...

easy as.. Its rain shelter made it a breeze

TNLNSL

TFTC

19:36 Found this enroute to Wgtn with EJ to see the airshow on Saturday. Was one fisherman. Ignored him. Nice spot. TFTC.

Out: Tape Measure (thanks from E)
In: Slinky

Found by Uppie's family. Today a group of boys were busy dive bombing below water way.

A quick find after visiting "Ketetahi Guardian". Like Grandalf, saw lots of people fishing but no fish. In fact I thought this one must be "Poachers Paradise" under I got home and realised I had mixed the names up. Thanks for giving me an reason to go down that road and see the dam. No swops. Nice container and camouflaging!

An unusual spot - the river now flows the other way!! Couldn't see any trout - maybe the guy with the fishing rod had got them all!! Easy find, no swaps, thanks and cheers from Grandalf(694)

This area brings back interesting memories, as I once had to dispatch a red stag which had fallen into the canal & couldn't get out. A flock of native pigeons were flying overhead while we were there. TFTC

Very wet
TNLN

Very very wet today - hard work keeping everything dry while trying to sign the log. Couldn't see any fish as the rain was churning up the surface of the canal too much!

TNLN

Thanks.

Absolutely saturated today but an easy find thank you

Easy find. Interesting place once again. TNLN

Nice easy find.
Took Travel Bug.

Hunting with XenaCommander after piking out on a windy day on the snow. XC ... commanded ...SIT !!!!! so he could bag the cache. TK sat (twitching) on the canal admiring the beautiful big trout cruising about... if they had tongues I am sure they would have been poking them at us knowing they were safe
Interesting raincoat
TN left calling cards

Dropped off a TB, Honoring My Friend, just arrived from Australia, wants to travel around NZ and Pacific Islands. The Dam is releasing more water and its flowing over the ford.

TechnoKitten and I were looking forward to another great days skiing we were foiled by the weather so decided to hunt a few...
Came here first.. Got close and ordered TK to sit while I went hunting... easy find.. interesting cover..
Sorry we missed running into you at GZ.. another time we hope..
TNLNSL....
TFTC

Clever container, will steal idea. +-0. Many Trout, looked tempting. TFTC

Second find of 23 for our 'round the mountains' caching day.

Twenty or thirty trout visible in the canal - pity it's out of bounds for fishing!

TFTC!

Making day out round trip to find as many cache's as we can - Took Geocoin one its way to new location. Great day for searching.