Only one percent of Taupo’s volume is available for electricity generation. Even when full, the lake provides only 4-6 weeks or 800 million cubic metres of storage for the Waikato hydro scheme. There is little effective storage in the eight hydro dams on the river, so the Taupo Control Gates, located under the State Highway 1 bridge, provide the ability to control the amount of water flowing down the Waikato River.
Construction of the gates began in 1940 and was completed in 1941. Later the structure was been strengthened to withstand the increased traffic it carried on State Highway 1, then after the new Taupo Arterial Bypass highway was opening in late 2010 it reverted to a local, but still very busy access to the town..
This cache, once found, will give you a segment of the co-ordinates of a bonus cache – see the cache POWER TO THE PEOPLE (GCVXA2) for details. Look in the box for a card with details
The published waypoint brings you to the structure.
To resolve the location of the cache, look for the described signs and work out some numbers.
There is a prominent warning sign near the waypoint, with the heading DANGER in white letters on red. Read the words that follow this heading, in black letters on white background and decode the following numbers:
A= The number of letters of the THIRD word.
B= The number of letters of the SECOND word.
C = The number of letters of the FOURTH word.
The bridge has a number. It is shown on signs at each end of the bridge.
DDD = The bridge number minus 6790.
The final cache location is at:
S 38 40.ABC
E 176 04.DDD
There is a very busy road by the listed waypoint and the final cache, so we suggest you park at S 38 41.032 E 176 04.171 and stroll down to the river from there.
You are looking for a 1l sistema box. Please be sure to hide it well again under leaf matter.
Note that at no stage of this cache hunt will you need to scale any fences, enter any secure areas, or climb down any bank from the lawn level. Please also be aware that the river is not a place to swim, and there is a big drop to the water - hang on to your kiddies. Do not attempt to enter the water anywhere.
CHECKSUM: If you add up all the digits of the waypoint (South and East) the total is 62.
The final cache was moved, and the puzzle updated in May 2023