Logs for SongMonk 

OMG!! CoconutFoo and I were so here last month!! We took a little side trip just to go to the toilets! We didn't have a data connection while we were out and about (international roaming, you know -- we're from the States), and so we missed so many geocaches we didn't know about at the time! Boy, I sure wish we could have gotten this one. Pity!
 

Darn! We totally would have gotten this cache had we known about it!
 

When we stopped by earlier in the evening, there were a bunch of kids sitting on the stairs (the higher stairs, not the ones leading up from the horns). So we had to come back later in the evening. Followed the hint, still a wide area to look, but we found it! TFTC.
 

I don't know how tough this would have been with just the coordinates, but with the explicit instructions, it was a snap!

CoconutFoo and I were visiting from the States! Fun to do some geocaching while in town!
 

Spectaular church. We did go in and it was quite impressive.

As for the cache, we knew where it had to be, but we couldn't find it. The ants we saw, got familiar with them, but came up empty. I don't know whether climbing was necessary or not, but I did it anyway. Still nothing. We were visiting from the States, so we're not going to be able to look again. C'est la vie!
 

Found this cache at night. We didn't have the benefit of our GPSr (it couldn't latch on to satellites), and we didn't have an arial snapshot either. All we had was the location of the church and the hints on the cache page. Amazingly, we were able to find the cache! We were pretty happy about that.

Visiting from California. TFTC!
 

Enjoyed this one. Had a lot of difficulty getting a GPS fix between the tall buildings, but was able to get to the location via a Google Maps snapshot. From there, used the clues to find the cache. I am amused by the sheer number of people who walk past this cache every day without knowing.

Visiting from California. TFTC!
 

Heh! The title of the cache kind of indicates the location, and yet it was still a bit of a challenge to find the cache.
 

We got this cache right as the sun was going down. The cache was not as tucked away as we thought it might be. TFTC!
 

Tough to get a reading under the tree cover. But we got close enough, and with the hint, we were able to find the cache!

I never thought pine cones could be a problem previously, but when you are wearing flip-flops, the pine cones are like land mines!!
 

Found the initial location, no problem, of course. Calculated the new coordinates and found the very likely cache location. Matched up with previous logs and would have been an excellent cache location. However, we could not find the cache.

Was started by a mouse running away. And a big spider!
 

Frustrating! This cache was not on our list of planned caches, but we had just a little bit of time before heading to the airport. Parked our car, and not 5 minutes into the park, the sky opened up and dumped rain on us! But we wanted to find the cache! We were pretty sure we were in the right grove, and though we didn't know what a cabbage tree was at the time, we looked it up later and felt we were looking in the right possible locations. However, we could not find it. With the rain not letting up and us having to get to the airport to be sure we made our flight, we had to call it quits.
 

LOVED this cache. It was very challenging. Given the poor GPS signal under the trees, not sure that we had *quite* enough info from the description, but with a little more info from the logs, we were only just able to find the cache. CoconutFoo was the one who located the cache. I'm not sure that I would ever have found it!! Brilliant!
 

Hint made this one not too tough. Great view! TFTC! 

After the Karst Camo cache, this one was a pleasant and easy one. After this cache, we had lunch, then headed back to Raglan.
 

[Our first cache in Raglan! CoconutFoo and I brought a travel bug all the way from California to be by the water here. I enjoyed the background story on the beacons. I think that's pretty clever.]

[Spoiler: comment on hint #1:] Regarding the hint though, I think the corner the label is on is more like the NW corner than the NE corner. We spent a lot of time looking for the label on what we thought was the NE corner and almost gave up. Found it on the next corner almost instantly.


[This entry was edited by SongMonk on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 9:54:51 AM.] 

This one was a bit tricky to get to. Yes, there's parking, but it's easy to miss. Getting to the cache itself was a bit tricky too because it was raining and the ground was a bit muddy and slippery. But not too much trouble! TFTC! 

Our new-to-geocaching friend found this one too! She's a natural! 

CoconutFoo and I went geocaching with a friend and her daughter, both new to geocaching. The newbie found the cache! Great location. It was rainy so we came back the next day as well when it was sunny. Though we found it the first day.
 

Our hotel was close to this park, but I doubt we would have come here if not for the geocaches. I'm really glad that the caches did take us to the park though!
 

Amusing. This was our second day in Rotorua and the weather looked dicey, so we didn't want to go on any long hikes or long outdoor activities. A little geocaching within town sounded reasonable! The weather started out well, but once out of the car, it started raining good. We were prepared with our raingear, though, so it wasn't a problem. I'm not sure we would have found this one without the hint, but it wasn't too difficult with the hint. TFTC!
 

Nice simple find. Refreshing after our previous day's lack of success!
 

CoconutFoo and I had to come back three times! The first time our GPSr was not cooperating and we couldn't really find GZ. The second time we had the right area, but could not find the cache. The third time we had reviewed the video spoiler and I quickly spotted the rock formation in the video. Success! TFTC. 

Stopped in Hamilton for lunch on the way from Auckland to Rotorua. This cache was not on our planned list of caches, but picked up wifi at our lunch spot, and so found the nearby cache. Had to go for it! This style of cache we were familiar with from back home, so it was not a problem at all. TFTC!
 

Grrr! CoconutFoo and I were staying at the Novotel across the street, so we had plenty of opportunities to look for this one. We went after this one on more than one occasion. One of the times was early in the morning when no one was around, so muggles were not an issue. It didn't look like there were many places it could be, but we could not find it! I'm dying here just thinking about it. We were visiting from California, so it's not like we'll have a good opportunity to go back and look again. Oh well!!
 

Solved the puzzle before our trip to NZ from the States. CoconutFoo had been to this church before and really liked it. Visited the church again, and then did our geocaching. Finding the final coordinates was straightforward, but we could not find the cache. Frustrating, because we really wanted to find this one with the church being so special. 

Our last cache before heading out of Paihia on our way back to Auckland. The location as it appears on Google Maps is off. Thank goodness we had our GPSr (borrowed!) to bring us to GZ.

I was startled by the spider residing on the cache when I extracted it. But no harm done, log signed. TFTC!
 

CoconutFoo and I came here after leaving Paihia in order to see the Kauri trees. There was no one here at all; just us and the trees and the animals. We didn't know about this cache until later. (We hadn't looked up the cache beforehand and didn't have any on-the-fly network access.) Which is just as well since it looks like the cache is probably missing. Worth the visit though!
 

We got the two graveyard caches on our way out of Paihia. We thought the weather was okay when we left the car, but three minutes later we were getting rained on! Yes, we are visitors from California.

We did not get to see the inside of the church, but it was still a nice location.
 

Wow, we really got sidetracked by this one! I thought it was a short jaunt from the parking lot, but it was probably closer to a 45 minute hike out.

Our GPSr was dicey among the trees, but were pretty sure we were at GZ when we got there. The rocks were slippery, but I maneuvered my way to the cache and no mishaps were had. TNLNSL. TFTC!
 

CoconutFoo and I were staying at the Copthorne Hotel across the street. And yet we didn't get to this cache until the day we left. Easy cache, thank you! 

Whoo hoo! CoconutFoo and I were visiting from California, and this was probably the #1 cache that we wanted to get in New Zealand! Everyone was recommending we take a tour, and we almost considered driving ourselves because we knew it'd be easier to geocache if we were on our own. But took the tour we did. (And I'm glad we did, because that would have been a lot of driving.) Our tour guide gave us a little over 30 minutes at Cape Reinga. First I forgot our geocaching kit in the bus, so I had to go back for it. And then the weather turned on a dime and it started pouring! That wasn't going to stop us though. We got to the location, and then we had to wait and wait for the coast to be clear. Very busy path (obviously!) and our own tour group to deal with! Eventually there was a break and we quickly grabbed the cache. Success! We had just barely enough time to walk to the lighthouse afterwards, admire the view and snap some pictures. Before going there, I thought the phrase "where the Pacific meets the Tasman Sea" was a bit silly, but not anymore! Well worth the trip.
 

CoconutFoo and I were here on holiday from the States. Beautiful spot.
 

Loved this hide! Spectacular location, perfectly hidden because the trees obscure our suspicious activity from anyone who is hiking up the path. 20 or so indeed! Felt like it was the last one we looked at. Actually, it felt like we looked at them all, didn't find it, and then looked through them all again and was the last one we looked at twice. Nevertheless, I loved this one. I always like camos. We weren't sure at first whether we were allowed down here, but of course we are and it wouldn't have been hidden here otherwise. TFTC!

Oh yes, and CoconutFoo and I were visiting from California. Love the international caching!


[This entry was edited by SongMonk on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 2:50:51 PM.] 

Ahh! CoconutFoo and I were visiting from California. When we were visiting the falls, I just *knew* there was a geocache nearby, but we hadn't noted this location beforehand and couldn't check on the spot. Would love to have been able to log this one. 

CoconutFoo and I were on holiday from California. This was our first day in New Zealand. In fact, our plane had arrived at 5:30 a.m., and our first stop outside of the airport was this park! Nice park, people were already up and about walking and jogging. This was before I figured out how to use my cousin's GPS unit, so were didn't even have help from that! But we found the cache from the satellite image we had printed out ahead of time. First geocache in NZ!

Also, we took the Braedyn Bug back with us to California to take to Disneyland!


[This entry was edited by SongMonk on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 2:48:56 PM.]