So the sun was shining again when we got up this morning, so after breakfast we packed up the final few bits and loaded up the car ready for the journey to Waihi Beach, luckily it is only about 2 hours drive away as by the time we had finished talking to the owner of the apartments it was almost 10.00! The drive to Waihi is mostly on SH25 but to be honest the roads seem to come in paved or un-paved and straight or bendy! This was a paved bendy version, most of the journey was inland and it was quite cloudy although still warm. We arrived in Waihi about 12.00 and after a visit to tourist information we set off to do the “Martha” gold mine pit rim walk. Although originally mining was underground, in the 1980’s the mine was re-opened as an open cast mine for gold and silver, it is right in the middle of the town but to be honest we didn’t see it as we drove in, although it is visible from other directions, but it is massive! It is not currently being worked as 18 months ago they had a land slide and and until it has stabilised they are not going to work it again, apparently it is going to take 2 years to clear the mud from the landslide so I am not sure when it will re-open as they can’t start clearing yet. We walked all the way round which is 4km although you can’t walk all the way next to the rim. The mine is 250 metres deep, and when it was operating they were still taking $1 million per month out of the mine, which sounds a lot, but when you think that the diggers cost $1.4 million and each tyre costs $15,000 actually it requires a lot of investment for not a lot of gain. After we had finished walking round the rim we went and had a late lunch in a restaurant by the beach which was nice, then we went to Owharoa falls which are on the road to Karangahake which is where we are going tomorrow. We walked down to the falls and it was starting to drizzle, but we put on our macs and set off up to the top of the road to look down on the falls. By this time is was almost 5pm so we set off for the apartment to check-in and settle down for the evening.
