Road Crossing (Dunedin, Otago) Traditional Geocache
Road Crossing (Dunedin, Otago)
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(regular)
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Stop! Look and Listen, before you cross the road.
Look right, look left, look right again – and if it’s safe to cross – go geocaching!
You thought you were walking up the Flagstaff walkway, didn’t you? You are – except for the 20 metre wide strip here which has been dedicated as a public road since Dunedin was first settled 150-odd years ago.
It's Otago's first road, running from Halfway Bush via Flagstaff, Swampy, Hightop and Jones Hill to Orbells Crossing by Cherry Farm.
Find it on the Walking Access Mapping System, which shows public roads in purple:
The Flagstaff walkway legally stops when it reaches the road, and starts again on the other side…
A cache in the middle of the main road to Waikouaiti? Sounds dangerous! But there’s no need for concern. Just put in the coordinates of the cache hide on the WAMS site (eg use the NZTM 2000 Position Format E1,403,011 N4,921,306). You’ll see that the cache is safely parked at the side of the road where it won’t be trampled by traffic going down Spiers Rd to Ben Rudds I and The Black Box.
As Bruce Mason says in “Public Roads: A Guide to Rights of Access to the Countryside”: “Subject to the express or implied statutory powers of a district council, the public has the absolute right at common law to pass and repass along a road without hindrance”. You can read more about rights and responsibilities regarding legal roads at the WAMS FAQ Unformed Legal Roads.
Okay, that doesn't matter here, since it's DCC reserve land on both sides of the road. Go to www.dunedin.govt.nz/council-online/webmaps, click on the webmap, then use "Identify Rates" to find the property owner's details. Here the adjacent properties are part of 680 Flagstaff-Whare Flat Rd, owned by DCC Community & Recreation Services, Non-rateable, and Land Use is Recreational & Passive Outdoor.
However, your right to use a legal road can matter a lot. For example, The Black Box appears to be in the middle of a paddock. Fenced off, stock grazing; it definitely looks like private property. And until the Spiers Road alignment was marked in 1999, the adjacent landowner treated it as his private property - walkers were not welcome. But when you put the cache coordinates * [E1403126 N4919655 or 170.46435 -45.84853 ] into the WAMS map, you can see that The Black Box is right in the middle of the legal road. Provided you stay on the road alignment, you can "pass and repass, without hindrance" to find that cache.
So - Stop! Look and Listen, to make sure you're not going to be run over by the ghost of a bullock cart coming up the road... and then cross our public road to find a black 2 litre snaplock parked between a rock and a flax bush.
* The WAMS map accepts NZTM2000 position format or Decimal Degrees position format. Open the WAMS map feature "Find and Share Coordinates" and scroll down to "Find Point from Coordinates".
The fastest way to check the location of a cache is to click "Other coordinates" on the cache page and then copy the first line under "Normal GPS Coordinates (WGS84 Datum)", which is "Decimal".
Back at the WAMS map, choose Decimal Degrees and paste the Decimal longitude and latitude into the appropriate fields. That point will show on the map.
There is plenty of room in the log book to put in the date that you sign it. Because the date can be important for some challenges, logs without a correct date may be subject to deletion. I will use my common sense and discretion as we all make genuine mistakes at times.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
N oynpx 2 yvger fancybpx cnexrq ba gur fvqr bs gur ebnq orgjrra n ebpx naq n synk ohfu