On a recent trip to Dunedin for other purposes, I managed to fit in some geocache hunting time. Two hides, “Opoho Onion” and “The Prune” were major goals. After some difficulty on my part and considerable encouragement by the CO, I found “Opoho Onion”.  In addition to the smiley, I was rewarded by an invitation to have a cuppa with the CO. Said the CO: “you get on and find the cache I’m going home to put on the jug. Come and join me when you’ve found & logged it”.
Over our cups of tea, I mentioned that I was off to Wellington soon, to accompany my wife to a reunion of ex School Dental Nurses.  My expectation, geocaching wise, for the few days that I would be there had been that since I would be vehicle less, I might be able to wander around the CBD on foot and pick up a few. Oh such serendipity.  My friend very kindly offered to contact another experienced Dunedin geocacher, who has a very keen geocaching sister, living, working and geocaching in the Wellington area. Exchanges of Emails resulted in contact being made with the Wellington sibling. From that point on things kept on snowballing. I was invited to list my “would likes”. One of the suggestions was to go with me to GC46, New Zealand’s oldest active hide.

The 16th of July 2011 turned out to be one of the best if not the best of my geocaching days ever.

This was the day that I was guided and mentored around some of the best geocaches that Wellington (NZ) has to offer.
There were so many highlights, GC46 being the top one. I also got to do five different geocache types in   one day, a first for me.  In all I got to get 11 smileys.  This exceeded my expectations which had been for maybe five, done on foot around the Wellington CBD over the entire weekend.

The highlight of highlights was:

Geocache by Kevin Anderson (Wellington) GC46
A cache by Kevin Anderson Hidden: 26/May/2000
2nd placed in New Zealand. Still active.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC46

 
For the hike in to this one a group of us met at the car park. What a mixture of ages. Here was me, an octogenarian, one of the older active geocachers in NZ, doing my best to walk to the oldest active geocache in NZ.  and four others  to  all of whom I could give at least 30+ years.  Also in the group were three littleuns, children of a member of our group. I felt so privileged to be part of such a select group.
What a thrill it was to arrive at the cache site and see this very important piece of NZ geocaching history. I doubt if Muslims arriving at Mecca would have a greater sense of awe and reverence. I wondered if some sort of genuflection would have been in order but on reflection decided not. My reaction was to just simply to enjoy the feeling of history and to share that enjoyment with my companions.
This was by far my longest hike for more than three years. Hip replacement surgery has slowed me considerably and was a great feeling of accomplishment to make it, to and from, albeit slowly and at times a bit painfully. 
Now it is part of my geocaching history the memory of which will be savoured.
Two things came as a real surprise to me. One, the original logbook is in such great condition and two, considering how long the cache has been here and how iconic it is, that it hasn’t had a great many more finders.

If Kevin Anderson sees this log, thank you for this cache. Also thanks to those geocachers who are maintaining it.

Other highlights of this day were:

Light and Bright Sub-Urban Streets CHIRP (Wgtn)

  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=9ca1cd03-9cc3-4e51-aab3-ab65d0672446

This one stretched me, and

Sub-Urban Pipe Dream - #2 (Wellington)

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=2fd74284-da7d-4de4-8a95-6bc19a10fd79

This was so inventive, so much fun for this fisherman.

So it was a most enjoyable trip to our capital city, Wellington, New Zealand.
One of the big plusses was to be able to stroll along the waterfront, take in the sights and sounds and to find some cunning hides along the way.
My endorsement is... “Wellington is a great place to go for a Geocaching Adventure”
So, many thanks to my new geo-friends for their company.

Jim (Onslow Fisherman)

By Onslow Fisherman