Hahei and the gold mine

April 9, 2010


Another spectacular morning, but you can really tell it is fall, by all accounts it is cooler than normal and you see your breath in the morning. What we thought was to be an hour and a half drive up the coast turned into two and a half as the road was winding with hairpin turns up and down the coastal mountains. We stopped briefly in the town of Wahai – ‘New Zealand’s Heart of Gold’ to have a look at a huge open cast mine. Right in the centre of town is the Martha gold mine, the pit portion is 4 km around the rim and 160 meters deep. The underground workings which were started in 1878 go down 600 meters where it is too hot to work more than a few hours. There are over 175 km of underground workings and some of the oldest ones have collapsed swallowing up a couple of properties – one a few years ago with people still in the house (they got out OK). This is one of the oldest and richest gold mines in the world owned by Newmont Mining of Australia (much to the disgust of some locals). By 1952 when the most of the underground operation ceased, 174,160 kg of gold and 1,193,180 kg of silver had been removed so you can imagine the totals today – easily over a quarter of a million kilos of gold! When the mine is done they plan to let the whole thing fill with water – that will be one deep lake. It was interesting to see but the rest of the family wouldn’t let me take a tour, visit the mine or stick around for a pit blast – mores the pity!

Off to Hahei, a little town known for the surf school and the hot water beach. We went right to the beach and the surf was up – way up! We rented boogie boards to body surf however after half an hour we were so bruised and abraded from being slammed into the beach and bottom we gave up. It was fun but a bit scary. We set up camp and waited for the evening. As the tide goes out (the beach is very steep) two geothermal springs are uncovered. If you go out on the beach an hour or two either side of low tide the springs are bubbling right up out of the sand and you can dig your own hot tub. Low tide this evening was around 9:30 so we rented a spade, put our suits on, bundled up (it was cold) and flashlights in hand headed out to the beach. Initially we were alone as we were early and you couldn’t even get at the area where the springs are. After waiting an hour and a half more people started showing up and even though the surf was high we made it around the rocky headland to the hot beach area. We literally stumbled on it as you cross an area that is only as big as a trampoline where your feet start to burn. The water coming up is between 60 and65 degrees Celsius and scalding hot! We had great fun with about 20 other people dancing around the hot sand however it was impossible to dig a hole as the surf kept washing across it and filling it in. Our feet were boiling but our bodies were freezing however the night sky in the pitch dark was worth the hike alone. I have seldom seen the stars so clearly, you can even make out the greater and lesser Magellanic clouds, Frank would love it. Shivering we headed back to camp to de-sand and sleep.

Tomorrow it is into the big city of Auckland where we lose the van for the luxury of a two bedroom apartment for the weekend – our adventures are almost over.