This cache has been designed specifically for families with pre-teen children so they can go on a pirate treasure hunt. When this cache was published I said in the cache description "I would be ecstatic if the FTF was such a family group, rather than one of the usual suspects, though I’m not holding my breath about being that lucky…" and then it turned out the FTF was a family with 2 young children! Eureka!!
However, less than a year after the cache was placed some muggle pirates stumbled across the final treasure chest and stole both the chest and its contents. At this time I am unable to replicate either Captain Barnaby's treasure chest or the treasure that it contained, so I am afraid the final is now just an ordinary cache container with no special treasure hoard, unlike the original. Nowhere near as thrilling for young Geocachers I'm sorry to say, but the journey to get there remains largely the same, apart from the riddles in Clue 1 and the location of Clue 2, as the original spot for Clue 2 turned out to be rather inappropriate. All I can do is show you what Captain Barnaby's original treasure looked like.
Once upon a time…
Captain Barnaby was a pirate: not your ordinary nasty vicious pirate though, as he had been brought up well by kind parents in a big house in England. So unlike other pirates he was thoroughly nice and unfailingly polite. He even kept a sheep as a pet (which he called Baanaby) rather than something like a crocodile or monkey, like other pirates did!
When he boarded a ship that he was pirating it was always “Please madam, will you kindly hand over that tiara?” and then “Thank you madam” when they did, not “Your money or your life!” like other pirates said. And if he cut his finger on his cutlass he didn’t shout and swear like other pirates and say “#@!!**%”, he just said “Oh, bother, dearie me” and went to find the ship’s surgeon to get a sticking plaster to stop the bleeding, or to get it stitched up if it was a bad cut. And he never made anyone do nasty piratey things like walking the plank either. No, if someone displeased him or one of his crew did something naughty he would just say “Tut, tut”, wag his finger and look down his nose at them in a disapproving manner. If they were really naughty he’d make them stand in a corner or write 100 lines, saying something like “I must not drink rum when I’m supposed to be splicing the mainbrace”, so they’d remember to do better next time.
Now you might wonder how a pirate like that could make any money, but Captain Barnaby made heaps of money and collected a lot of gold and jewels. After a while his ship, the Flying Fish was so heavily loaded with booty that it stopped being the fastest ship to sail the seven seas. This was a worry, because, of course, being a kind and gentle pirate, Captain Barnaby never fought a battle: if he saw a navy ship bearing down on him he’d set all sail and race away, leaving them in his wake. So he decided he needed to hide a lot of his treasure on land to make his ship lighter and faster. Every time he came ashore for food or other provisions he and his men hid a chest full of heavy treasure, and the Flying Fish stayed the fastest ship on the seven seas.
One day he happened to be a very long way from home in the vicinity of Wellington, New Zealand, when he wanted to provision his ship. So on a moonlit night the Flying Fish stole into Wellington Harbour, moored off the beach at Petone, and over the course of the next week or so Captain Barnaby and his crew carted some of the excess booty to a safe location well inland up the Hutt River, where they stored it in a hidden treasure chest. Then he sailed away again, and as it happened he never got back to New Zealand waters, so the treasure is still where he hid it.
While he was getting a longboat and crew ready to head off up the Hutt River to look for a good place to hide his treasure chest, Captain Barnaby thought to himself “I’m a very long way from home and I may not get back here to retrieve my treasure. Perhaps I should leave some clues and maps to help people in the future find it?” And as he was by nature a kind man who liked children, he decided to make his clues appeal to children and to create a treasure hunt for them, so they could solve the clues one by one, each clue leading to another, until the last clue was a map that led to the treasure chest! He would have loved that when he was a child, how exciting that would be for them!!!
So on his way up the river he worked out some clues and then on the way back from hiding his treasure he stopped at places he’d already visited on the way up the valley and hid those clues as well, so that each clue led to the next and the final clue led to the treasure map. Finally he got back to the shore where the Flying Fish was moored and he had just one last clue to write. He thought and thought, then wrote and hid his final clue and set sail to do some more pirating. For you it will be the first clue on your journey to the treasure.
But first some essential information about this cache before you start your journey
You need to solve each of four clues in turn in order to reveal the whereabouts of the next one (a Waypoint in Geocaching terminology). Solve Captain Barnaby’s first clue by going to the posted cache co-ordinates in Petone where you will find a QR code. Scanning that code will then take you to a web page where you will find the first clue. Solve the clue to give you the co-ordinates for the second waypoint, then go to that location, where you will have to find some information that will enable you to access the second clue. That in turn takes you to another location where you search for a QR code and you continue doing this until you reach the fifth waypoint—which is a hidden treasure map—and following that will lead you to the nearby cache and log book.
At each waypoint where there is a QR code it has been stuck onto an object at the location and a Bison tube is dangling in a tree or bush nearby that also contains the QR code, just in case the main code goes missing. Waypoint 2 turned out to not be a very suitable spot for a QR code (both that and the Bison tube went missing at an early stage), so instead WP2 is a virtual waypoint: nothing is hidden there, but you must use information from a noticeboard there to complete a url that you copy and paste to your browser, rather than getting the url by scanning a QR code like you will everywhere else. At the last waypoint you will find a treasure map hidden. There is a QR code inside the treasure map container, which you will need to scan too for the final part of the story.
Whether you have scanned a QR code or pasted a url, your phone or tablet will display a OneDrive web page, which contains a continuation of the story of Captain Barnaby’s adventures plus the clue that you must solve to get to the next waypoint, hints to find the next QR code (when relevant) and details of activities that you and the childen can do at or near the waypoint if you want to break your journey for a while. It also contains a link to Geocheck so you can check that your answer is correct. If I need to move a QR code slightly or add extra hints I will be putting the revised co-ordinates or hint into Geocheck too, so make sure you use it to be sure you have the latest information.
Testing has revealed that not all smartphones or tablets open the OneDrive web pages the right way. On some Android phones the default browser in the phone just leaves you on a Microsoft sign in page and does nothing else. If this happens to you, copy the url that it was trying to go to and open it in another browser on the phone (I used Chrome to get this to work) and this time it should work. I suggest you test this at home on your phone before you set off on the treasure hunt in order to avoid frustration or disappointment in the field, so here is a test url of another file on the same OneDrive website. Copy and paste this url into your phone browser to check it opens for you.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!ArJcdnfyLAhqllrW9bG1rYKjBHcp?e=esiGVf
or if you are viewing this page on another device, try scanning this QR code with your phone.
Note that even when a file displays properly, OneDrive will display a Login button on the screen as it fetches the file for you. Ignore that and wait for the pdf file to open, it can take a few seconds: you don’t have to log in to anything, that button is only there for reasons best known to Microsoft, as even if you have a OneDrive account already and log in, it still won't give access to any more of this cache than scanning the code does.
A final technical warning. When I was testing the QR codes with an old Samsung phone, that uses Android 4.4.2, it failed to display the pdf file for Clue 3 properly, with The Maze picture not displaying at all. I downloaded a small and simple free app called 'PDF Viewer Lite' from the Google Play Store and that displayed the Maze puzzle just fine. So in the unlikely event you still have a phone that old, you may need to use a similar workaround.
GCHQ Alert: As you progress you will download a number of pdf files that contain details needed to find this geocache. As the geocache owner, I have ensured that all of these files are safe to download, using antivirus software to check them. However, their security has not been checked by Geocaching HQ or by the reviewer. Download these files at your own risk.
The format of the clues varies to keep things interesting, though all but the first are pictorial puzzles. The locations are all family-friendly (usually at or close to playgrounds) so you can take time out at each stop for the kids to play or for a picnic (there are picnic tables at or near every waypoint as well as the final). The first clue is right next to a small playground.
If you start early enough in the day you should be able to find the treasure chest in a single day, unless your children do a LOT of playing at the playgrounds! It is a high D rating due to the amount of time it could take to reach the treasure, not the difficulty in solving the clues, which are mainly aimed at children, not hardened puzzle-solving Geocachers. The T3 rating relates to the final section at WP5, getting to the treasure map, as there is a short stretch of steep unpaved track to negotiate there. Each clue will provide hints as required for finding the next waypoint as well as tell you what you will be looking for and activities available for children at or near the next location.
All the waypoints and the treasure lie within the Hutt Valley, and will take you on a journey from Petone to Kaitoke.
When you log your find online I’d particularly like to know how the younger Geocachers have managed the puzzles and how much they have enjoyed both the story and the challenges along the way.
Credits
- Artworks used in the story and the puzzles by Michelle, apart from The Maze (BarnabysTravels) ,The Park and Grub Inn (BarnabysTravels and Michelle) and the Treasure Map (BarnabysTravels)
Things you will need on your journey
- A car to get you around
- A smart phone or tablet with a QR code scanner and mobile data capability (and see the technical notes above) and MAKE SURE THE BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED! When we did the final test run Mrs B's phone had 50% charge when we started, but ran out before we'd reached the end.
- A compass, either a physical one (that will show true bearings) or in your phone or GPS device: you will need this for the final stage of the hunt when following the treasure map instructions
- Food and drink for the day, plus hats and sunscreen if it is summer
- Maybe a rug to spread on the ground if the available picnic tables or benches are in use, while you solve the clues
- A well-developed love of adventure
Optional equipment:
- Pen and paper to write down answers to clues if you prefer that to typing them into your phone/tablet
- Pirate outfits for the younger children
- Bicycles and scooters for the kids to use at a couple of the parks you will visit
- SWAG items for the children to trade: at time of original placement the cache contained a dozen low-cost trade items including pirate rings, eye patch, mini treasure chest, plastic animals, a dump truck and a pack of playing cards, and the replacement cache contains over a dozen low-cost trade items as well.
Take care and have fun me hearties.
Captain Barnaby