Loop the Lake No. 2 Shingle Fan View (Marlborough) Traditional Cache
Loop the Lake No. 2 Shingle Fan View (Marlborough)
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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I first visited Lake Chalice approximately 25 years ago and have made several return visits in the intervening years. This is my first visit as a geocacher and I was surprised there was only one cache located here. Today I have corrected that anomoly with a couple of placements to encourage visitors to 'Loop the Lake'
Lake Chalice is the only lake in the Mt. Richmond Forest Park and one of a handful of freshwater lakes in Marlborough. It formed 2000 years ago when a huge landslip from Old Man dammed the upper Goulter River. Evidence of this are the many stumps on the lake bottom and the fact that there is a native fish 'Galaxius brevipinnis'; endemic to the lake. There is no outlet to Lake Chalice so water drains through the landslip rubble into the lower Goulter River. The lake itself is about 2km long, and about 200m wide. Because of its location surrounded by steep mountains, the lake is cold even in summer, so is not suitable for swimming.
The recommended DOC track timings for the trip down and back and around the lake are:
Car park to lake: 1 hour
Loop the lake: 2.5 hours
Lake to car park: 1 hour
These track timings are generous even for an almost 60 year old like me. It took us 40mins to get down including stops for photos, 2.25 hours to Loop the Lake, including time for cache placement, snacking and rehydrating, and 55 mins to return to the car park with several breathe catching stops along the way.
This is the second cache of the series which is designed to encourage you to 'Loop the Lake' and is located at a place in the track where you will get a good view of the shingle fan that resulted from the small stream you crossed on the way down the track. You will have to cross this shingle fan to get back to the hut on the other side of the lake and in the middle of it you will find another cache, 'Lake Track' (GC23M23).
This cache is only there to prevent you doing an out and back to get No. 1. By the time you get here it will be quicker to continue around the lake rather than return the way you have come.
Unfortunately, I when I got home and went to list this cache, I discovered I had misplaced or overwritten the coordinates that I took for it so I had to wait for the self licking ice-cream to perpetuate and get a finder of No. 1 to hunt for this and provide me the coordinates. Fortunately GH6710 did that on 11 Feb 2017 and while he couldn't find the original, he cobbled together a new cache and placed it in the same area.
The cache is an insect repellant container with a log sheet inside, BYOP.
Can the first person to go hunting for this cache please take a new log sheet in a zip-lock bag. As the original was cobbled together from bits found at the bottom of a day-pack, its longevity is not guaranteed.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pnpur va penpx ng gur onfr, pybfr gb gur tnc.
Treasures
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