Trip to Mount Maunganui (30th April to 4th May 2010)

DAY 1 – Friday 30th April

Every year we like to go away for Kev’s birthday (May 1st), so this year we decided to go to Mount Maunganui in the Bay of Plenty.  It happened to coincide with the 10 Years! Rotorua New Zealand (Lost and Found Event Cache) so perfect opportunity for us to go to our first non-Auckland event.

We left Auckland just after 7am and arrived at the Mount at 5pm – lots of geocaching along the way!  Our first geocache was a nice and easy find GC231YF Monumental Effort (North Waikato).  The next cache GC24KAT Millennium Bridge (Thames Hauraki) we had to log a DNF – it looked easy, should have been easy, but no cache .  Luckily enough, our next cache GC1TCCA HMS Otago’s Deadweight (Waikato) was super easy, but what a terrible smell!  Not sure if it was the “country” air or the tree next to the cache, but Kev and I both agree we were happy it was a fast find because we couldn’t hang around for much longer.

Next stop was Paeroa, and we retrieved the GC10QY2 World Famous in New Zealand (Coromandel). 

Assumed it will be close to the famous L&P bottle, but the cache location indicated other type of beverages had been consumed – as the logs suggest, not the best to look at night time.

Our next cache, GC13C1X Crown Battery (Coromandel) has been our favourite so far.  It was a beautiful location with great historic information about the gold mining in the area.  No one was around so Kev and I had plenty of time to locate it – which we needed!  Once we finally got in the right spot, was a nice and easy find.

We drove to the next cache GC16TKB Owharoa Falls (Coromandel) and some workers were having their lunch at what we assumed was the entrance so we did a quick tiki tour up the road.  On our return the path was cleared so in we went.  Entering the track we noticed the gorse was a bit overgrown but we had our hiking sticks so pushed passed.  After a endless walk we reread the info, and noted we were not meant to go over the bridge – we were walking towards the top of the falls, not the bottom where the cache was!

Back to the car Kev decided to sit it out and I went by myself.  After walking the proper way, I was greeted by the beautiful falls, and after a few minutes searching in the trees, found the cache.

It was approaching 3pm and we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast in Pokeno around 10am.  We stopped at Athenree Flip ‘n Bear Cafe and Pancake Den.  It had been recommended but we had never been before.  We highly recommend this place – the pancakes are absolutely delicious!

With our tummies full, we did a final few caches in Waihi.  We stopped off at Martha’s Mines and completed our first earth  and virtual cache in one go!  They were GC1G06V Martha Gold and Silver Mine (Waihi) and GC367B It’s not mine, it’s Martha’s (Bay of Plenty).

The final cache of the day was GC21W6W The Pumphouse (Bay of Plenty).  Kev was pretty tired and didn’t fancy the walk up the hill so he rested on the bench while I went up.  My GPS was pointing me slightly in the wrong direction and after a good 30mins going around and around I had given up.  With my final glance I just caught the edge of the cache, I love when that happens!

With 8 finds and 1 DNF we called it a day and went to our holiday accomodation for a good rest before a weekend of geocaching!