Biddy of the Buller
Bridget Goodwin, or "Biddy of the Buller" as she was known, was possibly Lyell's most famous resident. A formidable woman, even though she was only four feet (1.2 metres) in height. She left poverty in Ireland for the lure of the Australian goldfields in the mid 1800s. There she befriended two men, leaving with them for New Zealand in the 1880s, where they worked the Collingwood goldfields. Fossicking their way down the Buller, they arrived in Lyell in the 1890s - Lyell's heyday. There she lived with the two miners in a one room hut where the iron bridge crosses the Buller. The community may have been scandalised by her living arrangements, and her drinking, but she did not care - and worked alongside her two men, eventually outliving both, working up until she was 80. At that age she decided her body was worn out and she settled into a two-room cottage in Reefton, where she died in 1899 aged 86.
The Cache
The published coordinates will take you to some interesting information about Lyell that is worth reading however I won't make you battle with the sandflies while you find the answers to get the final coordinates, instead you can solve this at home if you choose.
The cache can be found 52.19 metres away on a bearing of 230.33°
Please be aware of muggles when searching for the cache Lyell is now the starting (or finishing point) for the Old Ghost Road, which has increased interest in, and visits to, the site since it was completed in 2015. The old gold miners’ road has been revived as a mountain biking and tramping trail – connecting the old dray road in the Lyell (Upper Buller Gorge) to the Mokihinui River in the north. The 85km-long Old Ghost Road traverses native forest, open tussock tops, river flats and forgotten valleys, after following the dray road to Lyell Saddle Hut.