After 10 days on the South Island I have to report having had a great time geocaching. The trend here seems to be the same as in other places; loads of micros. So far I have been hunting caches in Christchurch and Nelson. However, there is a lot of ingenuity in the way caches are hidden in Nelson as I am sure the local cachers will know. The stats are not impressive by any means. I have found 99 caches and had 8 DNF’s and a couple of DNA’s (Did Not Attempt).
I have also visited four EARTHCACHES; one in the Christchurch area and three in the Nelson area. These are fascinating places to visit at the best of times but now with the added bonus of being able to log a cache there.
This quarry was the source of building material for Christchurch in the early 1900’s The main feature is the basalt columns at the far side of the quarry. Of course there are a number of caches located in the area, my favourite being Aloha, sonny which I found on my last trip to NZ in 2008.
Riwaka Resurgence
This was a fantastic place with clear cold water emerging from a rock face. Rain water has dissolved the marble veins in the surrounding granite over eons creating the resurgence.
This was a strenous (for me) walk up on to the Grampian way. Up 400m in about a 1km walk. I felt good afterwards so it can’t have been that bad. Here it was clear that there was a lot of geological activity with a combination of tectonic plate movements and earthquakes moulding the area.
A thirteen kilometer stretch of rounded boulders right across the Nelson Bay. Impressive, even more so considering that it was just long shore drift moving boulders from MacKay Bluff along the sea bed.
All I have to do now is learn how to upload pictures properly……
Geocaching with DS8300 
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