Karangahake Gorge, and on to Coromandel

Today was mostly a driving day, so we broke it up with a hike through a beautiful gorge that was once the site of a huge silver and gold mining operation. Luckily the evidence of that is now mostly overgrown. The hike took us alongside the river, through a 1 km former train tunnel, and into mine tunnels with ‘windows’ carved out the sides.

Further along, we stopped at Hot Water Beach, where you can dig your own hole with rented spades to sit in your own personal hot tub. However, on this day the underground warm springs must have been dried up from lack of rain. No hot tub for us! Still, it was nice to sit by the Pacific Ocean in the warm sand.

We arrived at Hahei, a very small beach town for the night.Read more