Pirate Ship (Wellington) Mystery Cache
TheCoddiwompler: I am regretfully archiving this cache since there's been no response from nor action by the cache owner within the time frame requested in the last reviewer note.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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'Miramar' means 'Behold the Sea' or 'Wonderful Sea' in Spanish, and was thus named by the first settler on Watt's peninsula area, resident James Coutts Crawford, who arrived in Wellington in 1840. In 1872 he changed the name of Watt's Peninsula to Miramar as that was the name of a house built for him by his brother-in-law, Major McBarnett. The original Maori name of the area was Whataitai.
The Miramar Borough was formed on 18 November 1904.
Now on to the Geocache hunting...
The first waypoint takes you to Miramar Wharf at the entrance to the suburb of Miramar.
Once on Miramar Wharf you should find the numbers associated with the following:
A. The number of lighting towers
B. The number of red doors
C. The number of yellow bollards - 6
D. The largest wharf length measurement / 20
E. The second digit of the tow truck operators telephone number
Checksum: A + B + C + D + E = 27
Replace A, B, C, D and E in the following Sudoku puzzle with the relevant numbers from the above puzzle and solve the Sudoku puzzle.
Sudoku rules - each 3x3 box, as well as each row and each column, must contain all the numbers 1 to 9.
When you have solved the Sudoku puzzle use the yellow shaded cell values going from left to right and top to bottom to give you the coordinates of the next waypoint:
S __ __° __ __ . __ __ __
E __ __ __° __ __ . __ __ __
You can check your answers for these coordinates at Geochecker.com.
Stand at this waypoint to view a popular Miramar artwork. The commonly used two-worded 'scientific' name for the subject of this artwork will provide missing letters for the next clue:
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Check: There are 2 of each of the following letters in the answer - E, I and S.
Replace the numbers in the phrase below with the associated letters from the above puzzle to get the next clue:
__H__ __ __V__N__UR__ __ __ __ __ __N__ __N
11 2 14 6 9 11 2 5 7 1 11 4 11 12
__H__ B__U__ __ __ __U__
11 9 3 2 3 7 11 10
Find the above item at the site of the artwork - you might need it to help solve the next puzzle. **UPDATE February 2017: The above item is temporarily unavailable on site. Use the power of the internets.**
Twin ostriches eventually entertain cheery elephants secretly aspiring treasured eels. T.
Now head to the address indicated by the solution to the above puzzle. Go to the rear of the property. Solve the Word Find puzzle below to give you the location of the cache:
Words to Find:
| Art |
Bollard |
Checksum |
Community |
| Coronation |
Creche |
Geocache |
King George |
| Kohanga Reo |
Latin |
Miramar |
Mural |
| Ostrich |
Peninsula |
Pirate |
Sculpture |
| Spanish |
Sudoku |
Wharf |
Whataitai |
When you have solved the Word Find puzzle read the remaining letters as a sentence going from left to right and top to bottom.
The cache is a small sistema. Please re-hide well. This area is susceptible to muggles of all shapes and sizes!
While you are here have a look at the plaque on the front of the main building. There you will find out about a little known piece of its history.
(Pirate Ship is number 1 of 4 in SJME's Pirate Geocache preliminary series)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ghpxrq oruvaq. Abg ba gur tebhaq.