The Block is a reality television show from Australia that like redback spiders and the Queensland Fruit Fly has made its way here to call New Zealand its second home. The show features four sets of couples who renovate a home room by room and generally cause bedlam in the neighbourhood they are based for a period of a few weeks before everything settles down and it was like they were never here. From GZ, you can see three of the four homes (go around the corner to see the fourth) from the fourth series "Villa Wars". You will see the odd original villa around Sandringham that looks like these obvious transplants but many of the original homes are Californian bungalows due to the largely later settlement date of the area in the 1920s. Originally known as Cabbage Tree Swamp, the area was not renamed to Sandringham until 1929 after going through a couple of other names. This area was settled once the tram line extended past here and was known as Victory Estates.
From here you are a short walk to the Sandringham shops which began being built around 1915. Your walk will take you past a large number of state houses which began being constructed in the 1930s. The Sandringham shopping area shows the face of a modern, vibrant and multicultural Auckland with many fantastic South Asian stores and eateries. Almost all are based in the original buildings from the 1920s and 1930s and there is an excellent heritage walk. One notable change is at the site of the local Samoan Congregational Church which was originally the site of the Mayfair Cinema.
Sources: wikipedia and Auckland Council Heritage Walks.
The cache is a bison tube but hidden from plain sight. Please be gentle with the cache so that it doesn't get stuck. It's a small cache so there is room for a log book and that's it - no tradeables or trackables sorry and you will need to BYOP.
First to find: Team BMMR, second to find: Harisree and third to find: Gorbygorbachov - congrats to you all and thanks for visiting.