Tour de McLeans (Canterbury) Yaldhurst, South Island, New Zealand
By BaldEd on 26-Oct-06. Waypoint GCZ31A

Inspection today has revealed that wind damage has caused the major part of the forest to be closed off to the public. The MTB track has been realigned and shortened. Many of the waypoints associated with this multicache are no longer accessible. The cache will re-published as a Traditional.

Thumb up. Thanks for this one, my first time biking in this area and I love it;)

The main cache we aimed for in the park. Decided to walk the wp's and ended up as good exercise but certainly tiring by the end especially after picking up 4 other caches in the area at the same time. All wp's fairly easily found and the numbers were mostly easily recognized. Although one had us thinking a bit. Calculated the numbers and set off to the final. Having done the wp's in a strange order it was a bit of a hike back to the final location (praying we had calculated right). Got to GZ for the final and there it was a nice quick find with the coordinates spot on. Noted down the location for the bonus. Left it up to Chelzea whether we went for it or not which she quickly decided we would so off we tramped. Ended up walking about 12km in about 4 1/2 hours with a fair bit of off track hiking. Great day and glad to find the cache.

Found with Sevren.tftc

Found today on a lunchtime run. Took me two runs toi get the coordinates last week, bagged this cache today and have the coordinates for the bonus cache so looks like another lunch time run to get that too!! Thanks

We had collected 3 of the 6 WPs a few weeks ago and I decided to go for a walk with my dad and he was keen for a cache. I didn't really have a plan to collect these but we headed for the second WP and got the 'we'll get just one more' bug and headed to the next WP. We were in the neighbour hood and grabbed the first WP for another nearby multi. By now we must have walked 4-5kms and my dad was making plans to sue me. Boy was it frosty this morning. We headed out about 9.30am and by the time we grabbed the last waypoint we were 2.2km away from the final. My dad was getting hungry and tired. He had already walked 4kms this morning. We decided to go for the final. We found it quickly, thankfully, as you never know you have collected and recorded everything correctly. Took some photos and we headed back to the truck to go in search of some sustainace. We ended up walking 11kms!!! We headed to a local establishment for a good meal. Great park and we left a few to collect another day. I grabbed the coords for the bonus but saved it for another day. Too many kms for my tired dad. I have to sign a contract and show on the map where the next cache is if dad will come out with my next time
I think this would qualify for a ramble for the Dunedin challenge.
Thanks for the cache.
#1192

Had to recycle the track and regather the waypoints to get teh bonus coords. Was pleased when recalced after point 6 and it wasn't far and I could get the coords without heading back to the car park.

I had come here with my bike in the back of the vehicle the previous afternoon when I had a couple of hours spare and picked up the traditional caches. I enjoyed this so much that I decided to come back today and get this one plus the bonus if possible. No problems with the waypoints and the final was a quick find, and yes I did get the bonus as well! Signed log, TFTC and for the incentive for some great exercise, there's a lot of very good tracks in this area!

Had this one on the radar for some time as spend quite a bit of time out here. Needed two visits to get all the clues as muggle activity high. Final cache easy to find. Thanks

Found some of the waypoints, lots of muggles, couldn't find the exit to the river loop. Will try next time we are there,
Lucy, Kaitlin and Alex

3971. Not sure what we are supposed to do about this one but we did have to redo the whole cache so that we could find the cache in its new location and get the coordinates for the bonus.
Thanks
Iris & Rodney

Completed the tour with Mrs Mt Toad with plenty of muggles around on their MTB's burning off their Xmas pudds to keep us on the look out.

many thanks for the tour

Our #100 cache thanks BaldEd!! Really enjoyed Tour de Forest @ Bottle Lake so knew what to expect here. GF and I completed in 3 hours by foot, lost energy by final location so will have to locate bonus another day. Thanks for the awesome find.

#572: McFun!


Finally had the chance to come back out to try my luck with this one again! This time, found all waypoints with no troubles. Thanks Eddy for tending to the one that got taken away! This was a great day for a ride, with 2 of 3 GeoYounglings who are on school holiday (and under Papa's care today). Waypoints are good distances apart, so we could stop and enjoy the scenery, puddles, forest, etc. Also stopped to eat amongst the trees. At the final WP, we followed the suggestion and took a seat to do the math for the final, and then went off in search of it. Found in great shape! We took a toy puzzle, and left an "I Love NZ" keychain. Dropped off the "Compass Rose" geocoin I'd been carrying with me for too long. Seems appropriate to drop it in this cache, as a compass of sorts helped a lot on the WPs. Grabbed the coords for the "Bonus" too.


Thanks again for this nice multi!

Waypoint TDM3 moved to a new location and the maths changed.

TDM3 waypoint has been removed during Park maintenance. It will be replaced in a new position in a few days.

I came out here with a couple of people I introduced to geocaching, their GeoYounglings and mine. I was excited to do this multi, as I thought both young and old would enjoy it. Unfortunately, we tried to find the clues at three of the WPS, but came up empty at all of them. I'm pretty sure from the description the info should be easy to find, but I have a feeling there has been a lot of new fencework done throughout the park. I'll send pics to the CO, but I think this one will need some tending too. Of course, it could be that my brain is not working correctly (a very likely possibility).

Checked. All Okay. Dropped off Northern Ireland geocoin.

had trouble with third waypoint, found at night on the mtb.
great way to add interest to a favorite activity

quite easy fun enjoyable

Great to get out on the bike - first time since the quake. Starting to get back to normal, but felt a bit guilty when so many still have a long road back to normality. Surprised and pleased to see many others out there as well. TFTC. Left Itty Bitty Fire Committee TB.

Failing memory meant every tag had to hunted for high and low. My how far you moved the cache from its first resting place. After hiking 20 km in Otago yesterday the 15 km cycled today almost killed me.

A good tour of the track. Scared off the hare that was guarding the cache SL TFTC

Nice ride - bit damp on the track after overnight rain.
Finish not where I thought it was going to be.

Thanks so much for putting together the cache. It was great fun to ride and collect the "clues" en route. First time our 4 year old has ridden that far! Collected bonus co-ords and will do next time we're out there. (+ small plastic swap)

Should keep my working sheets in future to avoid doing the cache again to get Bonus cache co-ordinates. Anyway it was good to get out again on a not too hot day. TFTC

One I have been looking forward to tracking down and great now there is the bonus. Would highly recommend finding the cache as soon as you have solved it, means less pain and anguish in tracking down the bonus (this one will now wait for another day. Cheers for a great journey and we will definitely be back this way. No TB in the cache.

Thanks BaldEd for a interesting tour. Recent track maintenance had made for a terrible ride but met some "fixers" were improving some sections. Also found the bonus.

I had done this cache before, but had to find all the waypoints again and a new cache location. Still a pleasant MTB ride.

It is very rare that I log the same cache twice - but today was one of those exceptions. Given that I wanted to find the new bonus cache nearby, and I didn't have the waypoint numbers from when I last did this cache in March 2007, and the final cache location had moved, I had to do this whole cache again. Oh well. I'm always up for a ride, and it was a cool but pleasant afternoon for it Cheers Gav [7055]

The boys wanted to go for a ride, I wanted to go caching, perfect combo. Missed to first number, not sure why but finnaly got there. TFTC

Cache has been replaced in a new location. Maths adjusted. IN: Monty P. The Lumberjack Bear TB.

Somebody's trashed the final site and removed the cache. A replacement will be placed at another location.

This entry was edited by BaldEd on Saturday, 30 October 2010 at 21:06:52.

Thought I had logged this b4
A great walk and easy to keep off the cycle tracks.

First Geocache, walked, great exercise, went out and purchased a Garmin Oregon 450. Looking forward to my next search. Grant

walked rather than mountain bike, great exercise for a sunny winter morning. TFTC

Decided to hunt for some of BaldEds caches after he had such a bad run with our caches. It took a bit longer than the 40 minutes .. doing it without a bicylce. But enjoyed the walk and were relieved that the coords were correct. Otherwise we would have to go for another round, but this will now be done in summer on a bike. TFTC

Maintenance check. All OK. + Worldcycling TB

Found this on yesterday. Have never taken the bikes out here before but definately will again! The Tracks are brilliant and finding a cache at the end of it makes it even better! TFTC!!

Borrowed a mountain bike for this cache and enjoyed the riding so much I completed a second lap, TFTC.

(52) Took Mini Brogan for a bike ride today and we just had to do this cache.. Was a nice MB ride.. Really well thought out cache.. SL. TFTC. TNLN.

Great cache! Found on a beautiful summers evening. Lovely ride, also dropped off an addition for the rock garden part way around. TFTC.

This is such a great track, and today was a brilliant day to ride it and get this classic tour off our list. Skipped the new loop tack as we were a bit pressed for time. TFTC

A worthy cache for my 800th - thanks for the tour. Didn't see any cheetah escapees on my travels, but the search for the final was accompanied by a great deal of animal noises from Orana Park!
TFTC.

Our first multi cache. it was fun. We had to keep waiting for the muggles to move on. Might try the kids on this one.

Lovely ride, good concept multi. TFTC

A nice easy find after getting the maths right eventually.Took Calofornia Micro GC.TFTC

Found with bdcbean. TFTC

Rode the tour and checked all okay. Dropped off 2 geocoins.

Thought I would do it again as the cache shifted since I did it. There is another 5km loop added to the MTB track.

It's been about 18 months since I was on a bike and boy I can feel it now as I log this. With an afternoon off work, it was time to dust off the bike, find the helmet and get a smiley face at McLeans Island. The carpark was pretty empty which meant I wasn't going to have to look out for many folks passing me! After a bit of a hunt at WP1 (not sure why it took so long, but it was the hardest to find for some reason) it was onto the next lot as the rain got heavier. 5 more WP's found then doing the maths under the bridge next to WP6 (what is that bridge for?) then onto the final. A fun time out there, I'm going to come back when the track isn't so slippery. Took the TB. Thanks BaldEd.

'A' eluded me. Went round and found the others, so then I had a better idea what I was looking for, went back, and it still completely escaped me.

Figured out what it likely was, headed there, and seemed to being pointed well out of the forest area, so decided I probably had that wrong and I'd check out the possibilities online. Now that I've done that I've decided I was right after all and will have another crack next time I'm there at that likely location.

Thank you for such an awesome, well thought out multi-cache.
BTW, a new 5km loop track has opened up at McLeans Island. Great Fun!

[This entry was edited by nzgeorgemoon on Thursday, October 08, 2009 at 9:34:24 PM.]

Great cache. Good fun. Took my time on the first lap getting the waypoints then ripped around lap 2 before locating cache.

Not only was this my first time back out on a bike in a long time, but also the first time at this place, so after discovering my tire was a little flat, and going the wrong way around the track, everything was fine, until my legs noticed what I was doing and started to hurt.

Got there in the end and well worth it, cheers.

A absolutely fantastic winters day for just enjoying the outdoors. Quick finds for most but I entered the wrong number at wp1 ...realised when I looked at the final direction...however easily corrected on the way back to the carpark. Regardless of errors an estimate of time of 40 to 60 mins !!?? Wow that would be focussed.Track alone takes about 30min at a fair pace without looking for caches. A great cache. TNLN.

Completed the circuit on my bike with much encouragement from the grandchildren calling 'c'mon granny' whenever they raced ahead which was often. Their calls ringing through the forest. Somehow we missed the last 2 Wps. It was getting late when we realised the GPS was counting up and not down. So a bit of calculated guessing as to the missing numbers. Mmmm just 300m away let's give it a go, Guess it was our lucky day as we went straight to it. For encouragement to the next cacher we left a Pot Luck and a Crockadile keyring TB

Found with Hello Mrs mum dad & sister. Granny was awesome on her bike. The trail through the forest was good fun especially wizzing down the hills. We must take my brother next time. TFTC

Ooops left a TB

Loving these Tour de..... muiltys you've put together BaldEd.
So much so that you have us biking again.
Got the 20 year old ten-speed out for a couple and gone and bought a nice new mountain bike for the rest and more.
Heck fuel was getting expensive anyway.
Thanks for getting us out here doing it.
TFTC.

Walked this cache - took 3+ hours. Would highly recommend doing this with bike. Went with friends and their kids who still thought it was worth it. Always enjoy your caches.

What a hike. Kids got tired towards the end

Had this on the list for awhile , so had the chance to go around with my son Jono today. It was a great ride, should do it more often. In fact we were so unfocused we missed a WP and had to go back by walking for nearly a 1k. The cache was easily found once all the WP's collected TFTC

[This entry was edited by La Vista on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 5:00:33 AM.]

Awesome setup. Found cache with new log book. Reccomend. Took nothing, left "Santa"

A great ride on a track better suited to the junior member of our team than Bottle Lake is. Thanks for bringing us out here, Eddie, we'll be back - even without a cache to do!
TNLN.

The final location has been compromised and a new location needs to be found. Hopefully changes will be approved in the next day or two.

Cache is now at a new location.

After having a very enjoyable ride around this great bike track I was looking forward to getting to the Final. I got there only to find that the likely pine has been cut down!!!! Someone in the know needs to check on this caches wellbeing.

I got there 2. Well set up. Ta

dropped off Geocoin: CPZTK3 - cache all OK

Well what a great cache, although I felt like I had cheated a little, as I drove to the carpark, then cycled from there. But I am sure that BaldEd would have cycled all the way there placed the waypoints, set up the cache then cycled all the way home again.anyway it was a great way to spend an afternoon out and about and a cache thrown in as well, so thanks BaldEdfor all the hard work in setting this cache up for us to enjoy.. Cheers Bo

cool bike ride, many thanks
+yellow loader, -TB:UN4GVR & ewok toy thing

We were coming to do a pre-run before kids bike jam next weekend. we had a lot of fun doing this multicache. TFTC, bald ed!! gorgeous day, lots of bikers out. enjoyed a nice picnic after the bike ride. -basketball whistle + monkey toy.

Great Cache.
Took us roughly an hour to do this wonderful bike track.
TFTC ClownyCacher
(All waypoints are in perfect conditions)
=)
This cache was so cool. my friend Claw of the forest was the FTF.
He and his family introduced me to geocaching...........

Fantastic MTB track. I had no trouble with my slicks, and quite fast. Thanks for bringing me out here BaldEd - literally.
+ mickey tb
- purple longhorn tb.
Cheers - M@

A fun activity on a hot summer's afternoon with Cock of the Rock. Left Purple Longhorn TB

Had a brilliant ride with Merry Wheelers! Cycling & holding the GPS was a bit dodgy at times but loved the track! Will be back with the rest of the family! TFTC. - TB + microman.

Great to find this enjoyable multi on one of our regular haunts - swapped toys

Enjoyed the ride in an area unknown to us. +Murphy's Paw TB -Moneydorks keys TB. TFTC.

Great family cycle, well placed clues.

-Bungee cord
+whistle

Thought this would be a suitable cache to drop off Moneydork's Keys #2. Apologies for keeping them for 2 weeks, due to being in Aus for a week. I tried to drop off the keys at a cache before I went, but the cache turned out to be too small!

Now that I know this track is here, and is good, I can bring visitors here! We bought 3 of Oli's cousins and his aunt for a ride. Spotted a couple of tags, but didn't have the waypoints, so didn't redo it. Dropped by at the final to drop a coin in.

The track was very busy today because it's the school holidays. The final coords took me straight to an easy find.
TFTC!

Easy find on a sunny late winter's day.

A pretty easy find- there's not a lot of places it could be.
Those tags could definitely do with a lot more space between the figure and the baseline. I can see why people got confused. Nonetheless, a very pleasant ride on a grey day - very much up to the usual standard. Coin swap. Thanks.

TDM4 has been replaced and shifted a few metres to a new location. Discovered USA Geocoin.

One of the markers has been removed. It will be replaced as soon as I can get there.

About a month ago I decided that if I did this at night, I could get on with the job in peace as it can be pretty busy here during the day. I fronted up with my homemade 12v light and discovered that it was as nearly as popular at night

In spite of my fancy light going flat after 5 min, I got all the points easily enough, did the recuired calculations and spent the next hour pestering a few possums in another part of the forest about 2km away

Tonight, I had a look at the logs, worked out where it really should be and went out straight to it. It was almost to easy to find but I have covered it a whole lot better.

I finished the night with another blat around the track, all by myself this time.

The light held out fine this time, which was a real bonus as I had fix a flat front tyre.

All up another great cache, many thanks BaldEd.

Swapped coins

A nice chance to try out the new mountain bike. The track was a bit of a blast even though it was mostly at a leisurely pace. The first marker had us looking for a couple of minutes, but after knocking the first one off the rest were straight forward. Got back to the car park and B packed the bikes while J found the cache. Guess we got our numbers right even if it did take two looks to find it.

Swapped geocoins.

Thanks for the exercise.

Another great tour cache Ed! Set out late this afternoon for a ride. The track had a few puddles from today's storm, but was still pretty firm. Didn't have any problem with numbers, I haven't grown accustomed to reading Ed's signs Including stops, I went from the info booth near the car park around the track in just a few seconds shy of 40 minutes. Thanks for the cache! Cheers Gav [1218]

Great track, great cache. Kids on bikes, me chasing them (Z is 4 1/2yrs). I've got to get back out this week to try out those banked corners . . . will put a little something back in the cache as we weren't quite prepared at the time.
[edit] back next weekend - dropped off an interesting eraser
-Thomas travel bug
-carabiner
Twos & nines worked out OK in the end but added an element of suspense . . .

[This entry was edited by CPAZ on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 10:11:20 PM.]

A nice track to bike about although without suspension my privates felt every bump. Had no trouble with 9's & 2's. Was going to go yesterday after work but with tempretures in the 30s' didn't feel inclined so left it til today and the ride was much more tolerable. Swapped TB.

Started this cache yesterday on foot (There were 4 of us, and not enough bikes to go around) while on an evening walk. Found 3 of the waypoints (Other 3 were definately going to require a bike to get to) and narrowed the cache location down to a rectangle 200m wide, and about 3km long! We searched, and in retrospect came *very* close to finding the cache with just these coords! Damn! Anyhow, we returned the next day with 2 other friends (GC 'Adventure' - also keen MTBers) and got the required numbers. Well laid out cache I thought - definate improvement over the Bottle Lake series in that you don't have to stop mid-way through a section to find tags - you can blast on in confidence that the next tag will be at a natural resting spot. I often come here as it's just down the road from my house - have now riden this track 3 times in the last 3 days! Starting to learn where all the best jumps are now! Many thanks! TNLN

Love this bike track, it's closer to home than Bottle Lake and smooth enough that you can go fast without fear of hitting rocks and roots or drop offs and falling off! (Maree's specialty!) Did this one with Nandor & Vida. They already had 3 numbers but were happy to go round the whole track so that we could pick up those ones. Lucky we did as there was a bit of confusion over the 9's and 2's. Had a great ride and Vida found the cache fairly easily with a little hunting around. Left a kiwi geocoin that has come from the Hope Saddle and Nelson. Thanks

1305. First time back on the bikes for a while and it felt good to be out and about. What a great track they have made. We biked the whole track and enjoyed the experience. Found all the waypoints with no bother but as did Grandalf we were unsure of a couple of the digits. But after a false start we headed off in the right direction and found the cache.
Thanks BaldEd for a good ride and a well constructed cache.
Iris & Rodney

Flood waters gone and MTB track has been re-opened.

After having Christmas lunch we thought it a good day to take Grandma and Uncle for a bike ride to get rid of the excess and so we could fit in dinner. Uncle hadn't been geocaching before so was looking forward to it. Although the log said the track was flooded we thought it was probably okay by now and it was.(No floods in the area for 17 years and it just had to flood after the new track was put in). Located all the coordinates after moving a bit of debri here and there. Love the track and the surroundings. Found the cache no problem. Took waterproof bag and put in Christmas tea towel. Uncle might take up geocaching. Great fun thank you BaldEd (we were at the opening of the park and wondered how long it would be before someone put a cache in).

Went out for a Hoon on the new track with Little Red Engine today. Had a great time but a lot of the track, including some of the waypoints are officially out of bounds due to damage from the recent flood. Keep an eye on
http://www.ecan.govt.nz/Our+Environment/Land/Parks+and+Reserves for updates on the track.
Cheers,
S.T.

Due to the flooding in the Park, access to parts of the MTB track are prohibited so the cache is temporarily disabled. Thanks for the info ST.

Well, that was a bit of a saga! There was this cache sitting on my "to do" list - and a nice afternoon to do it on. So I dusted off the old bike, pumped up tyres, tried to fit old helmet on old swollen head, tried to get into old cycle shorts (they must have shrunk - yeah right!!). Not a soul in sight out at McLeans. But I had to try riding the twisting trail with one hand on the handlebar and one hand holding the GPS (not having a fancy handlebar GPS holder like some people). That meant I couldn't get off the seat, so I found the track rather rough(it still hurts to sit down!!). Then I found I couldn't get out of 2nd gear (maintenance obviously required) - still that was quite fast enough for me, though it meant I kept sliding down the slope on the banked corners!! I refuse to say how long it took me, but I did manage to ride the whole way round. Funny thing - they could have made it much shorter without all those twists and turns among the trees!! And then not only but also - I mistook a particular frequently used waypoint digit for a different digit, and went off looking in the wrong place for the final. Eventually, I sat down and had a think - Aha, I wonder if... - biked over the 200m and there it was. Thanks for this one BaldEd - it shows I'll need some maintenance on my bike as well as my biking gear.
- TB Kiwi Cyclist (well earned I reckon) + TB Thomas the Tbug Engine. Cheers from Grandalf(631)