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Ariki Falls (West Coast) Traditional Geocache

Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

This cache is near Ariki Falls, on the Buller River between Murchison and Inangahua.

Follow the rough road down from SH6. Low ground clearance vehicles may struggle on the first 50m. There's parking near the cache. Alternatively park on the side of the Highway - it's only a 2-300m walk. After rain, there may also be some large puddles/fords on the road.

The cache container is a camouflaged 400ml sistema box, with a few small swaps.

You can follow the track to the right of the cache location down to the river. At low river flows, Ariki Falls is the only waterfall on the entire Buller river. At high flows it can be a spectacular rapid.

Take extreme care near the edge of the water, and keep a close watch on children. Falling in would very likely be fatal.

Below the far bank of the river is a tunnel that was dug by miners to divert the river directly across a large oxbow in the river. This was intended to allow them to extract gold from the waterfall and the rapids below it. The scheme never worked. In a kayak, you can paddle into an eddy that water goes into, but not out of, and you can hear water rushing beneath you! Very scarey.

This area also apparently has NZ's only deposits of Uranium.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Guvax phgyrel

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)