A Blast From The Past (Auckland) Traditional Geocache

Mr B grew up in Mangere Bridge - looking back now it was a great place and time to be a child with plenty of options to explore and play. Two favourites for Mr B and his friends were Mangere Mountain (especially an area we called 'Kiwi Canyon' - a place where I might try to take you sometime in the future) and another area we called ' The Creek'. It is the creek that I will be taking you to today although this area, like many, has changed considerably from when we used to play there. 

On your walk from the parking area to the cache you will actually go past the creek, it is still there but with much easier access as this area used to be a big mud flat which has now been reclaimed. There were several tracks to the creek - one quite overgrown track took you directly there from the end of the street while the other track went along the stream from the beach area. As a group we would come armed with broom handle, wire coat hanger and a pair of mums old pantyhose - which we would make into a fishing net for our favourite sport of guppy hunting. If you look down in the creek on the way past you will still see the guppies there, it is really nice to see that something of the past still remains. One of our favourite things to do here was to dam the creek - we would spend hours in the holidays seeing how much water we could back up in our ever growing dams before they would finally burst.

The area behind the creek was all overgrown with several rows of Macrocarpa trees (a few are still there) and there were no factories until you reached the road. The factories were a good source of materials and with a little bit of dumpster diving (things were a little less secure back then) we would find all sorts of treasures; wood and corrugated iron to build a tree hut, plastic to line it and the odd spray can to paint it. There were electronic circuit boards from another place and in the early days a sticker factory was also a favourite. 

Looking out from GZ you will see lots of mangroves, these weren't here back in the day, it was all open mud flats with the creek running through them. We would travel out by the creek to find eels that lived in holes alongside it and the odd mud fight would sometimes result. Mum was not too pleased to see the sight of us when we returned covered from head to toe in the thick black mud. Our ultimate adventure was going to be on a raft we built at the very point where you are now standing; with pallets and several drums from the local providers we lashed together a raft to sail the harbour. Unfortunately (or should that be fortunately?) the tide was out and we got stuck half way out on the mud flats with the heavy raft and had to abandon it to other local kids that wanted the prize a little more. We never knew what happened to that raft or the other kids as it was gone the next day.

We had lots of great times here as kids and I am glad I could share a little bit of this place with you, I hope you enjoy finding the cache.

NOTE: You should be able to be access this cache without using any significant force and no tools are required.