The listed coordinates will take you to a Wellington Regional Council information board. This is one of the starting (or end!) points of the Cannon’s Point Walkway that takes you past the Birchville Reservoir. The walk from the carpark to the Reservoir is around 700m and is suitable for dogs on leads and the pathway, at least up to the dam, is suitable for pushchairs.
Answer the two questions below to give you the full coordinates for the location of the main cache. Please note that the information board information differs slightly to that unearthed from Upper Hutt City Council archives (detailed below) and it is the information board answers that should be used to complete the coordinates!
Q1. X = What is the digit on right hand of the KM scale?
Q2. Y = Add together the two digits that make up the hour range displayed to walk the Karapoti Challenge
The coordinates you need are:
S 41 05.37X
E 175 05.X2Y
Birchville Dam
Birchville Dam is on Clarke's Stream which is a west bank tributary of the Hutt River at Birchville, north of Upper Hutt. The water supply to Upper Hutt from this 1930s dam is not the first drawn from Clarke's Stream as the land around the stream was purchased by the Upper Hutt Town Board for a water supply reserve in March 1914 to provide a supply to Upper Hutt Borough in April of that year. Water drawn from a streambed intake was passed through a settling tank and an eight inch (200mm) pipeline to cross the Hutt River at Birchville.
The contract for the dam was awarded to M G Templeton in April 1930. The engineer for the work was H F Toogood a Wellington Consulting Engineer and the Clerk of Works was John Cudby. Council records show that an extension of time was granted to the contractor in November 1930 and that by February 1931 an additional loan of 10% of the contract price of 5,800 pounds was required. The actual completion date may have been early 1931.Water from the dam was fed into the original pipeline via a new 12 inch (300mm) pipe the remains of which can be seen in places along the streambed.
The dam is a constant radius concrete arch dam of 27.5 metres radius with a crest (chord) length of 40 metres (arch length 46 metres) and is approximately 15 metres high above lowest foundation level. The infill of boulders at the foot of the dam (to protect against scour) makes the dam appear lower.
About the cache
A small pill container containing only a logsheet - Bring a pen! Please note that muggles can appear from both north and south of the cache location so be wary when searching for the cache. Please also take care when retrieving the cache and make sure that it is well hidden when you replace it.
Care should be taken around the dam as the water & moss combo makes things slippery!
FTF medals created & designed by bjtrekker