The Hobbit goes into the mountain

Warning: a plethora of river, rock, tree, and tunnel photos await you. And stories about mining. Proceed at your own risk.

I can hear you all thinking, Oh crikey, more mining stories? Must be time to move on.

Don't worry, I will make it as painless as possible.

And then we can get back to the riveting stories of outings with grandies and such.

After leaving Waihi and its lovely, amazing art galleries, we drove some more winding roads through the Karangahake Gorge until we reached the historic walkway through the old gold mines. 

There is a ton of mining history here, but I will spare you the details and just say that at one time, this was a rip-roaring mining camp that used to look like this:

And now it looks like this:

Gold mining took place here from the 1870's to the 1950's. The historic walkway runs along the old railroad track that was closed in 1979. There are several great walks through tunnels, native forest, and along rail tracks.

We walked many of them, as you will see. 

 

The bridges are cool. You can make them sway quite wildly.

Ask me how I know.

The way is littered with concrete structures and the detritus of mining and it is somehow much more thrilling than an everyday walk in the bush.

There are, of course, stairs.

Lots of them.

Walk with me along the beautiful Karangahake Gorge.

Um. Yeah. I meant to focus on the spider. Didn't work out so well.

The Windows Walk is quite spectacular, with its dark tunnels that require a flashlight (or, if you're of the younger and unprepared variety, a very insufficient iPhone) and windows that overlook parts of the gorge.

In the depths of one long tunnel, we ended up in a cavern-like space that was barred off with railings like these above. Beyond the railings was mining equipment. As we stood in the space, I gazed upward and noticed little pinpricks of light. We turned off the lights and the roof glowed brighter and brighter with...glow-worms! We were so thrilled. We stood, craning our necks, marveling at the tiny creatures. They hang from small threads and when we turned on the lights we could see the threads too. 

The best part was that we didn't have to pay the exorbitant entry fee at Waitomo Caves to see them!

We walked and walked and walked and then walked some more, through the Karangahake Rail Tunnel, which is over a kilometre long.

There was a point where the pinpoint of light at the beginning was the same size as the pinpoint of light at the end and it seemed to be a very long way away.

 

But we eventually came out into the light on the other side of the mountain.

And then we had to walk back around.

And my sister and I both had a dreadful need to visit a toilet but there wasn't one.

So we kept walking.

And after a while the urge receded and we were thankful.

And we laughed because it happened to both of us.

John, of course, was above such things.

And then we went home.