Gold!

Today we had a day of gold.  In the morning we drove through to Waihi and had a tour of a working gold mine.  They have an open pit (first extra) which they used to work, plus some tunnels under the town.  

The open pit is almost a kilometer long, but had a landslip a few years back, so isn't being worked at the moment.  There are plans to re-open it - there is more gold to be extracted.  The landslip is being monitored using radar that scans the entire pit every seven minutes.

We had a drive around the pit with some explanations, followed by a drive up to the current mine workings (second extra).  We were able to watch trucks full of ore being driven out of the tunnel (and they only just fitted!) and we had the process by which the ore is extracted explained to us.  The miners blast at certain times of the day, and this can sometimes be felt in the homes of the townspeople.  They are compensated with a small amount of cash (about $500 a year or so) depending on the amount of disturbance they have. The mining company are doing a good job of planting native trees and have plans to turn the main opencast mine into a lake once they've finished.

After completing the tour we drove on to have lunch at Waikino Station and watch the heritage railway train leave the station.

We then did a walk in Karangahake Gorge, which used to be one of the most productive gold mines in the region.  The ruins of the mineworkings are still visible, and part of the walk was within the old mine tunnels.  We needed our torches on our phones - there was still a lot of railway track in the tunnels.

On completing the walk, we drove through to Owharoa Waterfall (third extra) and then had a cup of tea and a cake back in Waihi.

We then needed to drive through to our hotel in Tauranga, but stopped off on the way at Omokoroa where we found a boat (main blip - colour fits with the theme of the day!) and a Kingfisher (last extra).  We've seen these Kingfishers sitting on telegraph wires but haven't managed to see one up close.  This one was sitting on the shore as we walked by the sea.

Kingfishers in New Zealand eat insects not fish - apparently UK kingfishers are amongst a few odd ones that do only eat fish, we just got there early naming it!