This cache has been placed in a very high muggle area.
Please be mindful of geokids and pets when retrieving this cache.
There is plenty of room for you to place travel bugs and swaps.
You will be visible to everyone at this cache location; it is out in the open with no cover and is very close to a rather busy road and water.
This cache is a large screw top waterproof container with a write in the rain notepad and pen.
Do not over tighten or a tool will be required.
Parking is available here; S43⁰33'22.104 E172⁰43'50.185
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Natural History
Two thousand years ago there was no estuary. The shoreline was 3-4km further inland.
Glaciers ground down greywacke rock into gravel, which was carried down the Ashley and Waimakariri Rivers to the coastal shoreline where it was dumped as sand.
As the sand built up to create the Southshore Spit, water pooled behind it creating the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, 450 years ago. Today the estuary covers 880 hectares and is 12km from the city centre.
The Avon-Heathcote Estuary provides a summer feeding ground and home for the 2,000 or more godwits from November to February.
By mid-March up to 2,000 Eastern bar-tailed godwits (kuaka) leave the Avon-Heathcote Estuary for their 10,000km journey to eastern Siberia and Alaska, to breed in the Arctic summer.
When the ground starts to freeze in August and the supply of insects decreases, the godwits head south through Southeast Asia and the islands of the western Pacific to Australia and New Zealand.
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Congratulations to odgersaj for being the first to find this cache J
