Then no matter how much I looked I couldn't find a suitably positioned kahikatea to use for this cache, it was always too cose to another cache. We found some on our travels around New Zealand, but I wanted one in the same area if at all possible. Then one day recently, whilst walking to find another cache, we walked into this small pocket of bush and...there was a whole group of towering kahikatea! I was overjoyed as well as amazed: how can a stand of trees like this still exist just a stone's throw from SH2? The answer may be that they are relatively young trees, so were too small to be logged back when native bush was being logged all the time in the vicinity of Upper Hutt. Anyway, I was even more pleased to discover that nobody had ever placed a cache in this pocket of bush. So, here it is at last: I hope you will enjoy this spot and these wonderful trees as much as we did 
. Incidentally, there is a wonderful specimen of a matai close to this group as well, right alongside the track. I've added its co-ordinates as a point of interest.
Kahikatea
Common name: White pine
Botanical name: Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
The kahikatea is a lowland forest tree that grows from sea level to 600 metres altitude and ranges over the whole of New Zealand. It is often the dominant tree in wet or swampy areas, but also grows well on drier sites. It grows up to 60 metres tall with a trunk up to 1.6 metre across, taller than any other New Zealand native tree species. The tree passes through several distinct stages on its way to maturity: from a straggly seedling to a conical form in the young tree, which lasts for many years.
Young tree, 30 years old (from CO's garden)
Then the crown of the tree starts to open out and it loses its conical shape. Finally the branches become more ascending and the crown of the tree opens out. Mature trees can have large buttresses around the base.
Adult tree, Kaitoke Regional Park
Leaves
The leaves are small.
Adult foliage on a tree in Kaitoke Regional Park
Seedlings bear juvenile leaves until they are 1-2 metres tall, then semi-adult or adult foliage starts to appear. Juvenile trees are rather straggly looking with leaves up to 7 mms long and 1 mm wide in two rows along the stem.
Seedlings on the forest floor
Semi-adult leaves are shorter, only 4 mms long, but otherwise similar in shape. Adult leaves are like scales and only 2 mms long. All three types of leaves can be present on the same stem at the same time.
Semi-adult and adult foliage on a branchlet of a mature tree in Kaitoke Regional Park
Cones
Male and female cones are borne on different trees and are very hard to spot, especially from the forest floor, given how high up the very small cones can be! I have never managed to spot any in a mature tree and it would certainly require binoculars, but after this listing was published I DID spot some quite low down on the biggest kahikatea in our own garden: the one that produced the seedlings shown in a prior photo.
Female cones on CO's oldest kahikatea
Bark
Kahikatea bark is smooth.
Bark on a young tree, 30 years old
Once the tree is old enough the bark flakes off in large oval flakes, leaving a distinctive dimpled pattern on the trunk. The relatively young trees at GZ are at the age where their bark is just starting to crack and flake, but the dimpled effect is not yet very visible.
Start of the bark flaking on a tree at GZ
The kahikatea(s) at GZ
If you can see this view you are in the right place to search for the cache.
A nice group of youngish trees - lower section of the trees
It is well worth looking up when you are at GZ, even though the cache isn't there: these trees are little more than half the height they are capable of growing to!
The tops of the same group of trees
The cache
The cache is a red M&M container a little away from the path (but next to one of the kahikatea in this group of course) and at time of placement contained a log sheet and a gel pen only. Please bring your own writing implement to sign the log in case the gel pen has run out or has gone walkabout. Online logs that do not have a matching signature in the paper log will be deleted unless some other means of verification of the find is provided (e.g. a photo of the log sheet).