An opportunity to travel together to India in the name of “work” was not one to be taken lightly, but like all committed cachers, a google map cache search was a "must do". 

India, unfortunately is not well endowed with caches, but as luck would have it, there was one near the city of Mumbai (where we were to be based). Past logs determined that retrieving this cache was likely to be a challenge, with it being necessary to keep a close eye on and a good hold on our GPSr.

We subsequently set ourselves a target – milestone 350 cache in India.

Our journey began on 9 December 2007 in Ashburton on 342 caches, we headed for Christchurch via (hopefully) seven successful finds.  Alas, we ran out of time with only five of the seven required finds: Cordial Invitation (Canterbury) Jolly St. Nick (Canterbury) – this was very nearly a disaster – losing the car keys at the cache site.  The log was edited for family reading…..Sam's Birthday Cache (Canterbury), Nicely Native (Canterbury) & Touchdown (Canterbury).  The presence of muggles at another cache and an old paperless log misdirected us at another.  Still, that’s caching.

We flew to Auckland and then to Hong Kong, (11½ hrs) before heading to our final destination.  With only a seven-hour stopover in Hong Kong we passed through customs and took the airport express train to Kowloon to secure find #248:

West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade 

Chimes on the waterfront

The waterfront was lined with many tall columns, which first appeared to be lights, but on closer investigation found them to be chimes. It would not surprise us at all, if nightfall showed them lit up, but we were not going to find out whether or not this was so.  The cache itself was under the ‘signature’ pile of rocks near a fence, under the watchful eye of muggles (one of which appeared to be a warden of some kind).  This was a very attractive and scenic location.

Back on the train into cental Hong Kong for a look around. For a short time tho, we just sat and watched the people making their way to work.  Trains were approx 2 mins apart with carriages crammed full to capacity.  Amazingly more squeezed in than left with each train.  We also figured that as the time was approaching 9am, all logic indicated that the amount of commuters would eventually dwindle.  No luck so we took a run up and squeezed ourselves in – our companion was a large frame, and we had 3 small spaces – very cosy. This made the mere 4 minute trip seem like 40, and we were sure that when the doors opened we would literally pop … BUT . . . .  the doors opened on the other side. Phew!

First stop was a coffee – found in the surroundings of a local McD – and no, they are not all the same. First time we have spent $46 on two coffees. After exchange calculations, we let our breath out.

When we found ourselves on the 55^th floor of the finance tower, the view was stunning.  Seeing all the tall skyscrapers crowded with little room between them, they resembled coral.

It was probably fortunate that we were on a limited time schedule when Lyn came across a perfectly splendid diamond masterpiece on sale in an innovative jeweller a mere $120,000. Sadly, we had left the wallet in the other pair of pants. We were equally lucky to be able to ‘checkin’ for our flight at the central train station. This meant that when we arrived back at the airport we could go directly to customs (the advantage of this became apparent later) ready for the final 7hr flight to Mumbai.

It was two 14 hour days (work), which we will ignore as of secondary interest, before we could take the ferry (1hr each way) to the only cache within 50 km.  It was in those two previous days that we learned and appreciated just how far way 50 km was in Mumbai (average drive time of about 3 hours) as a previous day we had driven 200km to a work site – 10 hours total in a car there and back – and no toilets in the traffic! [1]

Elephant Island Cache Site

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Pesky Monkey - he stole that V!

We were not to return until 1.45 pm, just in time to be collected by our driver who was to take us shopping on the way to the airport, via an engineering office, to begin our journey home.

After catching up with a friend visiting home (for him) we flew out of Mumbai midnight Thursday – and Indian airports are extremely paranoid with security –which is reassuring for some of us.  We had taken a few internal flights while there, and even these were not without their “frisky” moments. Richard seemed to reflect all they hoped to find in the criminal element – even having the spare camera batteries confiscated.  A search at every airport.

After the faster 6 hour flight to Hong Kong, we positively leapt through customs and were off to the beach for our first find – number 350!  And the release of our jandal travel bug. We were still accompanied by our new travel companion TB – a Chelmo coin we will log in caches as we move around.

Shell Beach 

Shell Beach, Hong Kong

Flushed with success we decided to try for one on the hill close by, but as there was a bridge with heavy traffic, elected to catch the bus over the bridge.  Paid the $30HK each for the fare, jumped aboard after a wait in the queue and watched the driver turn off before the bridge and take us on a winding trip into the hills. About 45 minutes and endless hills later, we started to wonder if we had taken a day trip – not a good look when in transit.  After an hour, someone who knew where the bell was decided to get off, so we did the same figuring we could get a bus back the other way in time for our flight – and best of all, checking the GPS showed a cache about 200 meters away from our random stop.  A virtual! Not only that, but an incredibly unsubtle and beautiful one – the place was only about the size of a building, but we shall say no more….

Lantau          

Lantau Virtual Cache

And having logged that, we chickened out and caught a taxi back to the airport – arriving in time to find, unlike the first trip where we checked in at the central railway station, we had to wait for the check in desk to open. Plans of a shower in the lounge on the “other side” were further away.  An hour or two later the desk opened and we were able to go to the slightly more interesting side of customs.

After that, it was all downhill – we logged our finds on the really handy free wireless internet available all over the airport, then got on the plane and winged our way back to Auckland (the flight left late)….

From Auckland it was a dash onto Christchurch, barely making the connecting flight – took the bus from the international terminal to the domestic and we had to bypass transit checkin due to the lateness (and watch time tick by as the driver drops some chap off at the local shopping centre on the way – something they are trailing, however not appreciated when passengers in transit are late for their flight) arriving Christchurch eventually about 2 pm on Saturday.

To finish the weekend we drove directly to Dunedin, for a family celebration.  Sunday was a new day and we hunted out an Otago Peninsula cache (For King and Country) to drop the TB we had picked up in India.  As a bonus, we were able to attend the Otago Geocaching Awards Event in Dunedin - meeting new people and reacquainting with others. Finally completing Moeraki Boulders on the way home.

We would have to say that, per mile, this would be one of the more inefficient caching trips we have been on, but it would have to be the most interesting.