Nemesis

I could, but I'm not quite sure of the exact year it was logged. I would have to look it up in some notes I made years ago, and that will take a while. I just wanted to bring it to the attention of everyone, just in case it is a consistent bug that could potentially affect everyone.

Yes I certainly do. I didn't have a problem with the maintence visit I had just logged, it was just that the date of a note that I submitted about three years earlier was changed to the same date as my maintence log for no apparant reason (before I edited the note adding an explanation of the problem).

I logged a maintenence visit on 3 of December 2006 on my Queen Elizabeth Park cache. I later noticed that one of my previous cache notes had ben changed so that it appeared to have been submitted on the 3 December 2006 also, even though it had been submitted on the same day about three years earlier. I'm assuming that this is some kind of bug with geoaching.com. I hope my description is enough to track it down, because it is quite perplexing.

Divine, you you will pleased to learn that one of my caches is hidden on one of those cliffs, see Makara Beach (Wellington). BTW, Kaihoro means 'eat hungrily' in Maori and the town does not really exist, instead Makara township and its surroundings were used for filming about half of the movie. Back on topic... I'm cautious with my privacy when online, but my details are out there for those that know where to look. As others have said, its a fact of life. Nobody has my photo yet however. No that is not intended to be a challange for others to try to get it.

Tobin's Track (Arrowtown, Otago) is in Arrowtown but you sould be able to find public transport to get there from Queenstown. There are two (now temporarily unavailable, but you can log them) caches within walking distance of the Queenstown centre. They are Time to Cache (Otago) and Pipeline Highwalk (Otago) by Team Meem. I tried both of them myself, but with no luck. I suspect that as they were the first two caches that user had placed, maybe they used the wrong map datum. If that is the case, it would be a good idea to start with the first of the two caches and to try several different map data. Also contact the owner to see if you can get more detail as to the location of the cache and a full explanation of the hint. Good luck. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by BaldEd:...Photographer's Cache III (I think it was) which gave Dunedin City coords requesting a photo of a Yellow Eyed Penguin. Yes it was. I was going to try for it, but, it is far more difficult to find a yellow-eyed penguin when you want to than you might expect. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by Navigull:...I made a virtual one in view of the DOC permission issue. It got archived because the approver thought it should have been a real one... I have had the same problem with Erik. Yes, it would be great if we could have a local approver that understands the expectations of local Geocachers. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by wlswat:...Ive never made it to a cache yet. But I am keen to do a Dunedin one this w/e....I would appreciate anyones advice on how close I've managed to get the coordinate conversion. I dont have a GPS, yet, so I'm keen to know if the x's are showing up in approximately the right places. Welcome to Geocaching! It's great to have someone else that is interested in Dunedin. I had a quick look at your map for my Botanical Gardens cache, it seems spot on. You will have a great deal of trouble finding most caches without an GPSR, but, you can pick one up cheaply if you shop around. Good luck in finding a cache this weekend, it's a pity about the rain. Cheers, Donovan.

I agree, I dont think anybody will reach that confluence on foot anytime soon. I'm glad you enjoyed your little trip down our way. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by DJM:...We're wheels up from here.... Have a great trip and I hope you manage to avoid the rain too. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by brentcSeems funny that you turn left 200 metres before one mental hospital to visit another one. Make that another former mental hospital. It used to be Cherry Farm, now it is a cheese factory and lifestyle blocks. BTW DJM, I was caching yesterday and it did not really get dark until 9:30 pm, so you have plenty of time. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by DJM:...If I can roust my companions out of bed early in the morning in Chch we should be able to do most of these and still reach Dunedin before sunset, it appears.... ...what would you reccomend for a place to stop for a mid-day meal? You don't need to rush as it does not get dark until about 8:30 pm. I like Brentc's idea of a picnic for lunch. There are plenty of rest areas you could stop at to eat it (or even in the Oamaru gardens near Never Never Land, depending on when you reach there) Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by DJM:Currently, our plan is to drive by auto from Chch to Dunedin on one day-- 4 February. Do you think it is feasible to do Never Never Land, Puke Mataa, Trotter, Shag Point and Seacliff Hospital on the same day? Pick me, pick me, I can answer that one. You should allow about 5 hours for the trip with no stopping. Never Never Land should take less than 30 minutes, as it is close to the main road. All Day Bay should take less than 45 minutes including the side trip along the coast. Puke Mataa is another 30 minute job. If you would like to do both Trotter and Shag Point. It would be easiest to take a 5 to 10 km side trip to Trotter and then backtrack to the main road. You may then continue south along the main road to Shag Point. Trotter may take about an hour including the side trip and the walk up the track. Shag point should take less than 40 min including the side trip. Seacliff Hospital should only take an additional 30 minutes, but, you could skip it if you are running out of daylight. So, you should allow about 4 hours extra for Geocaching. I'm sure you can do it faster. In total it would take about 9 hours to reach Dunedin, with a number of interesting stops for your passengers too. Cheers, Donovan.

It should be a great trip DJM! I can suggest a few of the more approprate caches along with some suggested travel routes. Starting with Christchurch, I will leave it up to the local caches to suggest options. If you have more than one day to get from Christchurch to Dunedin, I would suggest taking the inland scenic route to Mount Hutt and then to Timaru via State Highway 72. This would allow you to find a multitude of caches: Fall'n Glentui Bush is a short diversion along with many others nearby that I have not found. Hororata River #2 is easy, there are others around Mount Hutt that I have not found yet. If you only have one day, then you could try: Fuel Dump is very easy but not scenic. Opihi River is the same. All day Bay is a nice drive along the coast. Shag Point is a short diversion. Seacliff Hospital of another nice drive along the coast and a virtual. In Dunedin you could try: Mount Cargill is easy with great views. Flagstaff Hill is the same but with a short walk. Botanical Gardens combined with a visit to the gardens. Unity Park is very near to a lookout. Centenial Memorial is a virtual and a great lookout. Spit Beach is a nice drive and a walk along the beach, but, quite difficult. Go at low tide. Bledisloe Rush is difficult and not too scenic, but, it would be a good one to find on the way to or from Flagstaff Hill. With a short side trip from Dunedin you could find: Sutton Salt Lake is very scenic. Rushing Water Hidden Box is a nice scenic short walk on the way to or from Sutton Salt Lake. From Dunedin to Invercargill, I would reccomend the southern scenic route via the southern coast, you could find: Slope Point is a virtual that I have not found yet. There are other caches along this route, but, they may be a bit time consuming. From Invercargill you could find: Bluff Hill is VERY difficult, but, it is right beside a great lookout that will keep the others occupied. From Invercargill to Manapouri, I would reccomend that you take the scenic costal route along State Highway 99. You could find: Monkey Island is an easy virtual at low tide. Clifden Bridge is a virtual and a gift. Near Manapouri is: Dock Bay is a short scenic walk. On the way to or from Wanaka and Queenstown you could fund: Tobin's Track is a short scenic walk in Arrowtown. Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon looks good, but, I have not tried it yet. Other cachers may have more suggestion for finds in and around Queenstown and for the rest of your tour. Have a great trip! Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by kaimaikid:...I know this has probably been thrashed before... We thrashed it in this thread, Listing Caches by Province?. Here is our final list of provinces: North Island: Northland Auckland Waikato Bay of Plenty Gisborne Hawke's Bay Taranaki Manawatu-Wanganui Wellington South Island: Tasman/Nelson City Marlborough West Coast Canterbury Otago Southland I have always included the province and the narest significant city, town, or landmark in the names of my caches. This makes it easier for locals (from a particular province) to see exactly where a cache is without opening its description. It would also be really useful to be able to view either all of the NZ caches, or the North or South Island, or the provinces individually on geocaching.com. It would be great if caches could be split into provinces automatically on approval. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by kiwitony:...a spot like Oreti Beach, the airport, the main drag or a rural area to the east. You should have no trouble finding an appropriate spot. It's a pity I didn't know a few weeks ago when I was down there. Cheers, Donovan.

Me too. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by rediguana:...there is nothing wrong with using those coordinates to find the spots, and then marking our own waypoints... Do you think the coords may in fact be GD49 so as to work with topo maps? I agree, that's what I did. I used WGS'84 and assumed that they may have been GD'49, but, I found that some were spot on (within 5 m), while others were out by over 30 m. It may have been that either one or both the original marker and I had a poor lock and/or poor geometry. This may have caused the WGS'84 and GD'49 locations to appear similar due to random variation. I wish they had printed the datum used in The LOTR Location Guidebook. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by tgsnoopy:Excellent idea Gav. As for copyright, modify the decimal place by 1 unit in a known direction or convert the WGS84 ti Geod49 and problem solved, as long as we know what you did so we can undo it. Copyright violations can be avoided by measuring the locations ourselves. I have just been up around Mavora Lakes for a few days. I found that most of the locations mentioned in the LOTR Location Guidebook are highly inaccurate anyway. I placed a cache near the Orc Mound (Beside Fangorn Forest). It is close to the road and on government land (I think), if not, it should be OK as the LOTR Location Guidebook encorages visitors, therefore, I suspect that many more LOTR fans will visit than Geocachers. As for naming conventions, I have chosen Fallen Ent, as the cache is in one of the locations used for Fangorn Forest. It would be difficult to choose a specific name that covers all of the locations nearby. It might be called Fangorn Forest, Orc Mound, etc. If we do come up with some convention, I will change the name of the cache. The contents of the cache are quite standard. Maybe I will encorage visitors to leave LOTR related items. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by ooga booga:I _think_ country no. 150 is Antarctica... Yeah, I agree. I saw Antartica appear on the list after the country counter reached 150. I had a personal interest in the new Ross Island cache in Antartica, as it beat my long-standing record for the southernmost physical cache in the world (once held by my Bluff Hill cache in New Zealand for over 1 year and ten months). Cheers, Donovan.

Well, it was only a matter of time, but, there is a an even more southern physical cache than mine (i.e., than my Bluff Hill cache). As of a few days ago, the first cache had been placed in Antartica, Transantarctic's Ross Island cache (see http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=41554). In the end, I held the record for over 1 year and 10 months, not bad in geocaching terms. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by rediguana:...Hopefully we might see you hunting some caches again?... Yeah, I've got one that I haven't found within 2 km of my front door. But, I've always preferred hiding caches, I have a few new ones lined up (mostly virtual, however) for when I find the time (hopefully soon). I see that you are about to overtake me in the hiding stats, with 31 hidden, congratulations. Cheers, Donovan.

I got my first GPSR for aviation a few months before discovering Geocaching. I chose the eTrex Summit, because of its barometric altimeter (great for plotting track logs for loops showing elevations). It's a pity about the poor reception under some conditions. It's been almost exactly two years since I read about Geocaching in Electronics Australia (just as Tgsnoopy did (you don't recall the issue by any chance, Tgsnoopy?)). I was visiting my grandparants in Temuka and I couldn't wait to get home to check out the web site. When back in Dunedin, I discovered that there was one cache in the South Island, near Asburton (only about 100 km from where I had been in Temuka), and a couple in the North. Before I had a chance to go looking for it, it was washed away by a flood. As I had no chance of finding a cache in the immediate future, I put together a dozen caches of my own over the next few weeks. Within a few days, I had doubled the total number of caches in New Zealand (there were only around 150 caches worldwide at that stage). Not a lot happened for quite a while apart from the odd tourist finding a cache. But, as they say, cache it and they will come, and they did. Now we have tens of thousands of caches wordwide and several hundered in NZ, things have improved. So cache on! Cheers, Donovan.

They look really cool Nandor. The terrain information is very useful and far more accurate than that on either Buxley's or geocaching.com's maps. I especially like the magnified view of Dunedin. Cheers, Donovan.

quote:Originally posted by regoarrarr:...the most southern physical cache is at: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=431 which is in New Zealand. ... Thanks for your e-mail update. In surprised that nobody has placed a more southern cache in the more than one and a half years (an eternity in geocaching terms) since I placed it. Antartica and Argentena are two locations that are further south than mine. Cheers, Donovan.