Time flies...

Thursday, June 19, 2014

My memory is playing up again, but I believe that on Thursday morning we went back into Katikati town to check on the murals that I couldn't find the day before. The tourist information centre in the library couldn't help me, but I knew there to be more murals than previously listed, so we went in search for those.  Lucky enough we found them and they provided me with the answers that I needed.  Although they still didn't provide enough information to find the 2nd cache I gave it another try, but to no avail.

In the meantime we went to the local bakery to have lunch with Dorothee's friends, one of whom I'd met before, and a new one.  The bakery's menu wasn't very exciting and I clearly made the wrong choice: Hot cakes with bacon, bananas and honey.  It would have been reasonably nice if the hot cakes had been fluffy and light, but they were very dense and floury and spoilt the meal.  For lunch it was far too much as well, so I cannot say I enjoyed it, and neither did I enjoy the Chai latte to wash down the meal with, because it was far too sweet.  Oh well, life can't be perfect all the time.  It would be soooo boring...

Later in the day we played around with a few flower kits in 12th scale, because we both have dollshouses and miniatures as a hobby.  We made Hollyhocks and I also made the pink Hibiscus.

The red ones are Dorothee's and
the pink ones are mine

Pink Hibiscus

I also looked into my geocache puzzle and after using the rule of elimination in Google Earth, as planned, I discovered that I had been looking near a series of particular trees that are repeated a bit further down the road, so I may have to go back to have another look at those.  Preferably sometime before I go home... ;-)

Friday, June 20, 2014

I have prepared a series of caches to search for in and on the way to Waihi.  We find a quick one along the road side at a truck stop, which I forgot to photograph, but took a picture from the car on the way back.

T2A-R: Truck Stop (Waihi, Waikato)

To be honest, this wasn't the most exciting find, but sometimes an easy grab is enough to boost the numbers. ;-)  We could've almost parked the car next to it and retrieve it through the window...  In Waihi we had another search for a cache near Lake Gilmour, but there were too many muggles having morning tea in their cars (again!) and I could not work out the hint.  However, later in the day, when I had logged my DNF I received a very helpful message from the CO so if we can go back to Waihi I will have another go at it.

After this one we had just enough time left for a quick dash to the quilt shop (Dorothee) and the local supermarket for a bottle of wine (Marion) and then we made our way to Merv and Josie where we were expected for lunch.  We spent a pleasant afternoon together and I must say I enjoyed their simple lunch so much more than the one the day before.  Just to show that it's not always necessary to be extravagant and sometimes the company is just as important, if not more.  I would have loved to spend more time with them, but there are never enough hours in the day, are there?

A little incident made us rather late for further caching in Waihi, so we picked up a few on the way home.

Waihi Permanent Rest Area, Bay of Plenty

Waihi Permanent Rest Area, Bay of Plenty

Normally I am not very successful at cemeteries, but this one was easy.  I needed only one half of the hint and there was no reason to disturb the residents...

Bigger and Better ???? Rest Area ,Bay of Plenty

Bigger and Better ???? Rest Area ,Bay of Plenty

  

"Bigger" was not about the rocks, but about the rest area.  Still, GZ was very clearly near the big rock, so again an easy find.  The last one for the day.

On the way home we stopped off at the local farmer's market for some produce and we had a quiet night at home.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Not many plans for the day, but shopping in Tauranga was on the list.  We tried a few caches while in town, but it being a busy Saturday morning there were too many muggles around, and one, we discovered too late, was a multi cache of which the questions did not show on my GPS.  This was a pity, because it was at a historical village and could have been interesting.  At another stop some oldies gave me dirty looks when they saw me scrounging about and a third one was in a playground where children were running around and plenty of tennis players arrived.  So, in the end I was left with the one I found on the way in:

Aongatete Domain (Bay of Plenty)

Aongatete Domain (Bay of Plenty)

A fairly easy walk past the tennis courts into the bush following my compass towards GZ.  A big enough container not to be overlooked and there I had my one and only cache of the day!

The rest of the day was spent watching the soccer highlights, updating my blog and playing endless games of Wordfeud and WordOn!

What's up tomorrow?  I don't know...