'Wai' means water, 'papa' means flat or flat rock. The name
possibly means the 'stream across the plain' or 'stream of the flat
rock'.
The site was first considered for power development in 1943 but
because of the area's construction challenges and the diversion of
government funds into geothermal power development, a final
decision to proceed was not made until 1953.
The initial work on the Waikato system's sixth project began in
1955. It was then discovered that the rock on which the core of the
dam was to be placed, was itself sitting on top of a layer of
sediments which had not been revealed during earlier
investigations. This made the selection of the dam site
challenging. The construction team was faced with the laborious
task of hand-cleaning large gullies and crevices in the rock, which
then had to be filled with nearly 4600 cubic metres of concrete
before the dam could be built.
The river was diverted in November 1958 and the first power from
the new station came on line in April 1961.
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.
The published waypoint brings you to an interesting viewpoint.
To resolve the location of the cache, read the information signs at
this location, and extract the require digits below:
The year the station was commissioned was 19A1
The number of Kaplan turbines = B
The total lake area = 1.Ckm
For 1 MW of electricity to be generated, D tonnes of
water every second is required
Total megawatt out put of this station is XY. E=X+Y
The generators produce voltage at 1F,000 volts
The final cache location is at:
S 38 17.ABC
E 175 40.DEF
You are looking for a large ammo box (heaps of room for your big
TBs). Note that at no stage of this cache hunt will you need to
scale any fences, or enter any secure areas. Please also be aware
that this is not a place to swim. The spillway gates may open any
time, so it is not safe to enter the water near the power
station.
NOTE: THE FINAL CACHE POSITION WAS MOVED A SMALL DISTANCE IN JAN
2007 AS THE PREVIOUS AREA BECAME OVERGROWN. THE PUZZLE WAS AMENDED
ACCORDINGLY.