The intersection of integer degrees of latitude and longitude are known as “degree confluences” and there is a website here that tells you all about a project that is trying to document visits to degree confluences around the world.
The other special thing about this particular location is that it was the site of one of the earliest geocaches (GC49) placed in New Zealand, and in fact, the world. It was placed by Peter McKellar in June 2000 and had 2 successful visits before being archived in 2002. Peter has kindly granted me permission to reuse his location.
The road access is off State Hwy 5 between Tirau and Rotorua and is via publicly accessible forestry roads. (access permit required, the one that worked for us in 2017 is added to this cache listing as an image below, or contact PF Olsen Rotorua - https://nz.pfolsen.com/contact/ ) You used to be able to drive to within 1.62 km of the cache but there is now a gate across the road at waypoint A3 so you will need to walk from there. As an alternative you could bring mountain bikes to save a bit of a walk. The point of this cache is an adventurous bush walk past a lake so for those that have no interest in getting lost in the maze of forestry roads on the way to the carpark just follow the posted waypoints A1 to A5 (carpark) in sequence.
The first 300 m of the track is quite overgrown with ferns and toitoi but it improves after that and you can just follow the standard orange trianglular reflectors to Lake Hiwiroa. There are a couple of windfalls to negotiate at the moment (Feb 07). Beyond the lake you are on your own with about 290 m off trail to the cache. It is quite dense bush in places but the Garmin 60CSx held a lock the whole way. EPE at GZ was varying between about 8 and 10 m but we patiently waited there until we saw all of the zeros come up for a moment – cool! The cache is a 40 litre plastic container placed out in the open although it is in dense bush remember so might be hard to spot until you are close. To make it a bit more visible it has a special (trendsetting?) camo paint job – the background on this cache page might give you an idea of what to look for.
WARNING: Please ensure that you are adequately prepared for the journey. There is no cell phone coverage in this remote area so you are on your own. A 1:50,000 topomap and compass are essential backups to the GPSr which is bound to crap out at the worst possible moment! Don’t forget to tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back, take lots of water and snacks and dress appropriately (boots, long trousers or gaiters and long sleeve shirt). You will also find plenty of hookgrass, bush lawyer and supple jack – ah the joys of NZ bush! In saying that I took my 9 and 10 yo kids with me and they thoroughly enjoyed it apart from the abovementioned natural hazards :)