The Two Towers (Canterbury) Beckenham, South Island, New Zealand
By Grandalf on 08-Oct-06. Waypoint GCYR9Y

I have decided to archive this cache, as one of the two towers is no longer visible from the cache site, due to tree growth on the Cashmere ridge.
The cache had held the true coordinates for my other cache "Hidden Habitat", so those coordinates are now shown in the Hidden Habitat listing, as an standard traditional.

No luck today.

I'll find it one day!!

Next time.......

15/09/2016 1:02:00 PM
7560
Still no signs of labour starting, and was told walking is good for making babies drop into place... though I'm not quite sure that a massive 4.5 hour hike in the port hills to find 13 geocaches is quite the way people expected me to take that advice!!
According to the fitbit - from car back to car again, was over 18,000 steps, and the equivelant of 199 flights of stairs, and over 1,800 calories!!! ... (I do remember thinking to myself that if this doesn't make baby drop, nothing will!! (And baby still didn't drop!!! ))

Anyways, I left the car with a bag full of snacks & water plus clothes for any weather change, as well as my extra 15KG of baby weight!

This one has been on my solved & unfound for ages... but having moved over to Kaiapoi, it's not often I manage to head out here!!

So today was a great chance to tick this cache off...

Took a while to spot, and I ended up needing to PAF, as I wasn't sure how accurate my coods were.

But turns out, they were pretty spot on, and i had searched that spot already, but the cache was quite overgrown with grass, and smaller than I had expected!!

However, I did then decide that hidden habbitat was going to be just too much of a walk, and I might approach that one from the top next week, or later on with bubs! There were still caches to find on the way back to the car, and it was starting to get later than I'd expected!

Consec caching day # 1411

TFTC!!

During geotrip found it. Thank you

Well that was a bit of a saga. Thank you very much for the imaginative puzzle and cache. FP. It is one of the closest 20 to my house, and I know both towers well, so it was bugging me. Multiple visits over the months.

I was not able to work out how to come up with GPS co-ords from the info given, as others seem to be indicating. Instead I had to go "old school" and printed a map, and used a compass and protractor. Thus I only had a vague idea of the GZ, i.e. significant uncertainty. As it turned out I was about 50m out. I had a good look where I was, but did not search that far on the first visit, due to the uncertainty.

So it was PAF time for the second attempt a few months later. TS gave me a hint which I totally misunderstood, and ended up walking miles away and spending ages looking in the wrong place on visit 2.

After another PAF and some weeks later, I got better info and went straight to it. Lovely day for it too.

As a bonus the cache was now a year since last visit, and in need of some "cache love" (see the "Give Me Some Cache Love Challenge"). As a gesture to anyone else needing to score some unloved caches, I will delay visiting Hidden Habitat for a month or so.

Yay finally got this one. This cache is one of the 20 closest caches to my house. Thanks TwoSharpe for the help.

Awesome! Worked out the approx. vicinity with a protractor a couple of weeks back. Sun out today, and also had the key to Huntsbury Hunt so went for a run up the hill and after a methodical search of likely suspects, found!

Agree with some other posters that some trees have grown on the far ridge....

Got cords for the other cache for next visit. TFTC

Ha, love it. Solved the trig about a month ago, but didn't know how to calculate the co-ords until today. I was out by 10m, but had a lucky instant find on the way past. It's always nice to clear up a cold case! Thanks Grandalf.

This entry was edited by CacheStrappedChCh on Sunday, 27 October 2013 at 05:24:26 UTC.

After an unsuccesful attempt from the top I got confirmation of my calculations and decided it would be worth heading up from the bottom. Collected Simply Suduko and another Trad on the way up and as I neared GZ the GPS was giving me a slightly different location and in the first place I looked thar she blew! We had a spectacular day will add photos. A great puzzle and a worthy cache... but wait theres a bonus....onward and up or down...

Feeling a bit under the weather, needed some fresh air. Really had to get out on this glorious day. Cheated a bit and drove down some of the way. Wasn't 100% I'd got the calculations correct. Thought I'd give out a crack. Arrived at GZ rocks everywhere! Started searching and had cache in hand quickly only 2m from calculated GZ. Quietly proud of that. So still today can hear linesmen chatting on pylons on the other side of the valley. TFTC, SL grabbed coordinates for next one. Have a good view of where baldEd took me on his ocache multi!

My calculated GZ was quite a few 10's of metres out by the copies of the towers I took. Tried PAF with not much joy either. Will redo my calcs and try another day.

Great puzzle to sort out the coords. Appreciated the fine tuning of our attempt by the CO. Great walk up the valley to GZ today. From GZ it is now almost impossible to sight Tower 2 as the trees around the tower have grown somewhat since the photo was taken. Cache in good order. TFTC

Approached GZ from above (from Hidey High via Chch Port Hills Cabbage Patch). Pleased to find my calculations were reasonably accurate. Didn't have to search for long before finding the cache. Then surprised to find I had to walk back up the hill to the Hidden Habitat cache (I was expecting it to be in the valley, hence my route choice). TFTC.

With encouragement from the owner I took the maths further and calculated the actual lat/long co-ords of the cache - not sure why I didn't do this yesterday?! With new batteries in the gps I hit GZ in the late afternoons sunshine and my calculated GZ was +/- 2m of the actual, I was pretty much standing on it. Most cool. Cache in hand in less than 30sec. My Triangulation the other day had me in the same area but just not accurate enough (although, if I'd searched enough I'm sure I would have been successful - eventually!). Thanks for the effort in creating and placing the cache....Always good to be up in the hills.

Came out in the late afternoons sun to try and pin this down. Didn't check GPS batteries, so Murphy's Law came into play when I hit my GZ - batteries all but dead. Had a brief scout around without luck....will be back with battery replacements and, given GZ, a better triangulation calculation for a more accurate GZ!! Battery oversight & effort "rewarded" by finding Hidden Habitat without the co-ords!...I'll be back. TT's has been hiding too long without a find!....

Definitely second time lucky, reworked the calculations and came up with another location and this time a “smiley face”. Had a laugh when I realised going by our GPS “Snail Trail” we had passed within metres of the cache location on our unsuccessful hunt the other day. We all had a fun time, Thanks

We Bushed Bashed to where I had worked out the cache was, and hunted around for quite a while but could not find the cache, have to redo the calculations and come back. Had fun, Thanks

ANother fine Grandalf cache. Left car at ca park below and ran/jogged most of the way then on up to hidden habitat, down Huntsbury and into View of the valley. Awesome morning TFTC.

This one took a bit of searching as my search area was fairly large. My GPS doesn't show fractions of a degree, and my fix for tower 2 was from google maps. More time spent getting an accurate GZ would have helped, but as it was my GZ was only 12m out. TFTC and the maths!

Worked this one out a long while ago - just never got around
to getting up there to find it. Finally managed to get out
tonight and log this one. Hidden Habitat will have to wait for
another time as I was not planning on going home that way.
TNLN. TFTC.

On the home stretch now... Had 4 candidate points from 4 slightly different sets of initial data. A bit of scouting revealed our prize. TFTC

Found with EliotB after independently calculating the location.

Phew, this, 'Hidden Habitat' and 'Huntsbury Hunt' have been way too close to home for way too long, and today we knocked them all off in a couple of hours, thanks to some late-night trig. Only, I kept making simple arithmetic mistakes and errors in transfering co-ordinates, so it was a while until I had an answer that finally looked about right in Google Earth. Oh, also its been so long that since I did trig at school that my scientific calculator refused to respoand, so I was forced to use Excel, where I found conversion to Radians was a further hiccup I had not anticipated until things just weren't looking right ! In the end, corrected calculated co-ords were apparently only 9m out from the cache, so pretty pleased with that and very pleased to carry on a lovely loop to pick up Hidden Habitat and the Huntsbury Hunt. Many thanks Grandalf, not too many more of your fiendish puzzles left to go...

After doing a bit of a reconnoitere last weekend I decided to give this one a go today. Armed with pictures and several marked waypoints from rough calculations I had made I headed off. Came up from Bowenvale as I had a couple of other caches on my list and immediately walked pasted one cache so decided to do on way back. Got to GZ and even with mention of the number of hints about thought I might be in for a long search. half an hour later gave up headed for port hills cabbage trees and then with fresh idea headed back and finally after another 15 minutes and a gashed hand found the cache. So glad to get this of the list. TFTC

Found this cache after a calculated guess using the information given. I am really rapted it all work out and we found Hidden Habitat before this one as well !! It was truly our day today, great views and weather as well. TFTC #411 5/7

Set off before midday having left my son to determine coords using year 11 trig. Hot hot day. Took the track left at the seat on the main Bowenvale track then headed off up the left of Hidden valley. Clearly in the wrong neck of the woods. Couldn't see both towers. Headed up till we hit the zig zag track but so many rocks!!! Retired home for a recalculation. Intersecting circles on the iPod touch app gave us new coords. Drove up this time and tackled it from the top. Found ourselves within 7m in the fading light as the weather changed. A good find. Took a Charlie Brown. Left some marbles. TFTC.

Calculations put me about 10m out and it took a bit of a search (and a lot of faith in my calculations) before laying my hands on this cache. But a valuable prize indeed for it's contents and well worth the perserverance.
A great day and I enjoyed the view.
TFTC

got it finally, turns out my original coordinates were the closest, but my searching let me down! Many thanks +yellow car & -mini marker

A bit of a trek up the hill from Forest Flat on a trip to clear the valley up. Mrs Moose had a rest from the easterly breeze while I hunted in ever larger circles from the calculated GZ - only 12m out in the end. Nice spot for a biscuit and a drink before going on to find Hidden Habitat. TNLN Thanks.

Yay I finally found it its certainaly taken me long enough lol A great day to be out on the hills thanks Grandalf for another great cache. Cheers Bo

#339 (1/6 on a Grandalf / Bowenvale-athon). On my previous attempt, it turned out my calculation of the coords was out by about 20m, and with Troodles waiting back at the car I didn't have much time). Armed with new coords, and as much time as I needed, it didn't take too long to find. I must have passed by the spot more than once on my first visit. Luckily my calculations were accurate, as with low cloud around it was a case of "Zero towers" today.

Had worked out some coords for this one a long time ago (based on google map coords for T2). Was in the area today, so decided to have a look. Looked for some time without success. After I got home I recalculated and came up with different coords (19m from the original ones). Given the info in the clue, and the fact I searched a reasonable size area, I probably spent at least some time looking in the vicinity of my new coords. Oh well, will go back for another look when next up that way.

reworked the sums/geometry yet again & spent ages looking but still no luck finding this puppy!

Decided we'd have a bit of a day walking around the hills, and came up with some caches to have a go at. Did some rough calculations to give us an idea where this should be.
Wandered up the right track, eventually got onto the right one, and little by little the views began to match the photos - sitting back in Greymouth... Took a bit of hunting before the cache was located, but the systematic approach of checking the view and distances paid off. Too hot a day to really enjoy being up here, but the mission was completed. TNLN, TFTC.

Finally got this one off my list.
Approached from the top - which seems to have been a good choice. TFTC.

Determined approx location and went there armed with the photographs and the GPS for the distance from T1. The puzzle was how much have the pine trees grown since the cache was placed. Found the cache within 10 metres of my starting point after looking at many potential locations. Left body wash and took shoe laces. Picked up the co-ords for Hidden Habitat - next stop. Thanks to Grandalf for this challenging cache.

Missed this cache on Sunday,
After having a wee search,

Came back here on Wednesday,
What a wonderful place to perch.

The sun was slowly setting,
behind the snow capped Southern Alps,

The climb up was a struggle,
but the view here always helps.

TFTC

Well at least my coordinates were only 30 metres out! Made for a big search area but the spot I was looking for was obvious when I finally looked at it. At least the hunt gave me time to cool down after my walk. A very warm autumn/early winter we're having, isn't it?
Very pleased to knock this one off, my nearest to home list is getting further from home now.

A lot of looking, very happy to find it. Took Diabetes TB

Came up after work - but by the time we finally found it, there was certainly no time for Hidden Habitat, and bearly enough light to find it - we were very close to going home disappointed. There's certainly a huge area to search, given the accuracy of displayed bearings and distances, and coordinate marking. TNLN, Thanks.

I din't need to use trigonometry to work out where this cache was. I just used my "Map Toaster" software, the two photos and map reading skills. I took the Skweaks TB.
Thanks for the challenge Grandalf!

Found on my 2nd attempt at about 7am this morning. Went straight to the cache this time. Cheers G.

Like M@, I had some technology to help me old - some old, some new. I used Google Earth (new tech) to get rough co-ordinates for T2, and loaded them into my trusty 12XL (old tech relative to my usual 76S). The 12XL has a neat function that helps solving this sort of cache that was 'crippled' in later GPS units Anyway, had a lovely hike up the valley and up the hill to my 'starting point' that I had determined using GE. Wasn't long before I was in the vicinity and found the cache. A lovely view from here, but even better was to come! Cheers Gav [1212]

Thanks to Google Earth, I was able to work this out back in Akl. Traversed the hills from Slim Dusty, having doubts about my calcs - but on arrival I see theres a better way to get there.
+ "Hangu, Pakistan" Unite for Diabetes TB
- Bonhomme Carnival TB
Good stuff, Grandalf! - M@

awsom find, well hiden, found it when the sun was setting
-Geocoin
+TB

Walked up the valley to see where the cache might be (without doing any calulations) after finding the second tower and taking its waypoint. I was in the wrong area - but think I know what I need to know to have a proper attempt at some future date.

All ready to go on this one but the tracks were closed for weed spraying.

927 Behind a rock eh? There were many rocks to search amongst and not having the GPS to point at the spot made things interesting. Anyway, made it in the end. Just discovered the TB and Geocoin. DS8300

Second look, second slog down and up the hill from Victoria Park. Looked behind the same rock, and this time it was there.

1274. This was our second find of the day and quite a mission in itself. We had worked out where the second tower was and so we drove up and marked the coordinates. Rodney then worked his magic with some trigonometry while we sat in the car. We then headed back to the valley, found Carpet, Crack & Cave and then set out for The Two Towers. The idea was to walk around until we could see the two towers and the distances were right, then we would just look down and pick up the cache! Well that might be the easy way when you are on the flat but it is just a little more complicated when you are in the hills. We walked up the valley until we could see one tower then worked out that we should be further this way and more that way so wandered back a little trying to make sensible decisions. We found an overgrown mountain bike track that looked as if it had once gone in the right direction so why not try that. We got to the top and oh look - Hidden Valley - but isn't that another cache and don't we need Two Towers first. So there was nothing for it but to continue checking the GPS and walking here and there until - yes it works and look - here is the cache!!
We left two Travel Bugs behind.
Thanks Grandalf for some needed excercise - now on to the next cache.
Iris & Rodney

Well I had a go today, wasn't to sure of my math (its been a while). Tower 2 came into view, must have been in the right spot. But, I didn't find the cache. Hmmmm. Maybe now that I've got the actual bearing of tower2 I'll be able to calculate cache site more accurately.

When this cache was reported I knew that I already had one of the 'twin tower's' coordinates so there just remained the location of the other to be established before I could rip into the maths to discover the cache's actual whereabouts. From the given photos I had a rough idea of the location and sitting here at home I reached back to a shelf in my study and pulled out an old NZMapped printout of the Cachmere/Victoria Park/Bowenvale area. From viewing this map I thought I identified the location of the other 'twin'. Using a protractor and a couple of quickly drawn pencil lines I was pretty sure that I was on the right track - just needed the coordinates now for the the gps. With NZMapped running on the computer I transposed my rough graphical position to the PC and was able to read off the lat and long. Hang on, lets check that 'twin's' location with Google Earth. The location of the twin was soon found and the lat and long read off - mmm, pretty close to NZ Mapped. But I knew that GE's wouldn't be correct due to the errors inherent in GE. Now to find the distance and bearing bearing the twins I use fizzymagic's (a mathematically minded geocacher) Windows based program "GeoCalc" on my PC - this is an excellent product (and it's a freebie) written by fizzymagic to help solve math puzzle caches such as this one. It makes very quick work of measuring distances and also doing projections. Applying the maths, I soon had the 'proper' coords of the cache location. Just need to visit it now.

Reviewing the location on NZMapped I decided that a 'top down' approach from the Summit Road, utilizing the 4WD mothership and the Huntsbury Track, would be the way to go. This would mean that I could get relatively close before having to hoof it. It would also give me the opportunity to check that I had picked the correct twin in Cashmere on which to base my calculations.

So two days ago I was in the city so thought I'd knock this cache off. As I was approaching the Sign of the Takahe on my way up Dyers Pass there came an "Uh oh" moment when I realised that I had picked the wrong 'twin' tower. A quick diversion was made to obtain the correct twin's coordinates. And the maths would have to be done all over again. But fizzymagic's GeoCalc program was on my PC at home. Why wasn't there a similar program available for my Palm PDA? What is wrong with those all those other Palm owing geocachers that at least one of them has not ported GeoCalc to the Palm! Never mind I should be able to work it all out, approximately, using just my gps. Small problem! How do I measure the distance from one waypoint to the other with my flash new gps seeing that I don't have the manual with me. I know how to do it with my old Garmin 12XL, but that is at home too. Much button pushing on the new gps then ensued and eventually some figures were obtained. But the distance between waypoints shows only to the nearest 0.1 km and this would lead to significant errors in the math calculations that were to follow and thus there would be far too many rocks to look behind at a wide GZ in Bowenvale Valley. The decision was then made to return to base for PC access and, more importantly, sustenance.

As I felt that I needed some exercise today I decided that rather than driving almost all the way to the cache via the 'top down' method and not really wanting to climb all the way up from the bottom of Bowenvale Valley I decided on a 'mid-level' approach from Huntsbury Ave. A breezy 1.5 km (following the contours) walk had me at GZ , 3m from the cache. It was behind the first rock I looked. Ain't maths brilliant? I quickly gathered the data for the Hidden Valley cache, signed the log and left before the pair of trampers I had spotted earlier making their way towards the cache area appeared over the horizon. TNLN.

Good grief!!, Baldeds effort sounds more of an epic than mine

Solved the coordinates incorrectly the fisrt time but realised before heading out, then yesterday afternoon solved correctly and this afternoon went for the walk. GZ about 15m from cache.
TNLN.

Well it took me three trips, but I found it eventualy, In the grand scheme of things I would be the chainman, not the surveyor. Great cache and a couple of great workouts. Didnt have time to go to the other cache, but from the look of it I probably came very close to it yesterday. It will be a while before I get back up there.

Cheers and thanks,

S.T.

- Geocoin

hello

while out searching for this i found Hidden Habitat by mistake.
but never found this one.
maybe another day.

Well, at least I tried.........enjoyed the walk though.

Published

Placing a geocoin.