Today we visited the Karangahake Gorge, a site redolent in disused gold mining equipment. We visited old power stations, now just a pile of concrete foundations peppered with rusty iron, old stamping work sites, now a mess of plants with odd pieces of ruins peeping through the greenery and old mines, fenced off with rusty gates.
As always DOC have done a wonderful job of adding in paths and information boards, though some of the bush growth needs trimming before all traces of the old works disappears. We could explore some of the old mine tunnels, though a torch was a near essential accessory.
Most of the old mine workings and sites were along a steep sided gorge by the sides of the Waitawheta River. In it's hey day over 2000 people lived and worked in this gorge.
After exploring as much as we could in the gorge we had sandwiches for lunch, then walked the Rail Tunnel Loop on the other side of the Ohinemuri River. This involved a walk through a 1km long tunnel, before a lovely winding walk alongside the river.
I took loads of photos, as always, but I didn't always get the results I expected when I asked the others to pose!
Our next stop was the Wakino Tavern for an ice cream, then Robert took us to Wahia. This is the site of the Martha Gold Mine. Originally worked from 1887 to 1945, it was reopened in 1987 as an open cast mine, right next to the centre of town. It extracts about 3g per tonne of rock mined, and produces about one million dollars worth of gold a week. The scale of the works was quite awesome, huge trucks were tiny dots in the distance.
Back at our lodgings we all had fish and chips for supper, washed down with wine (sparkling, white and red in stages) before an earlyish night. Tomorrow Robert and Stella drive north for a wedding while Mick and I have one more night in this area.
Try spotting the people and trucks in this picture!
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