Waihi Beach and Whaihi Gold Mine

Today is our last day on the Cormandel Peninsula and we have been a little ‘beached out’ from our 3 weeks in Chacala, Mexico and our time here but ... we wanted to visit a quiet, non touristy beach area that our Air BnB host had recommended, near the Bay of Plenty, Waihi Beach.

It took us about 1 hour to drive to the Pacific Coast from Thames. There aren’t many roads that cross the peninsula and we drove on the same road that we took to the Karangahake Gorge, but further.

The long, sandy Waihi Beach stretches 9 km along a narrow peninsula to Bowentown. There are lots of campsites and the beach is non-touristy and quiet. It is a lovely place to visit.

It was a very intense sunny day, so we didn’t linger there, but drove up the coast to see the views and have a light lunch.

In the afternoon, we slowly wound our way back to Thames and decided to stop off in the town of Waihi, which is only 11 km away from the beach. Waihi Beach and Waihi are completely different! a surfing town vs a mining town.

At the entrance to the town, there is a lovely little park with a lake, Gilmour Lake, where we took a peaceful walk upstream to a mill stream and then around Union Hill which is a historic mining area. When the miners left, all the old equipment and cyanide (for separating the gold from the quartz) tanks were just left, creating a very eerie scene. There were several signs telling us to not walk off the paths as it was dangerous - open mine entrances and holes. We really enjoyed this walk! You won’t find anything about this area in guidebooks.

It was the lure of gold that brought people to Waihi in 1878. Gold was found in quartz on a Maori burial ground and that soon became the site of the famous Martha Mine, NZ’s richest mine.

We were able to park the car and walk up to the rim of the open pit mine which is 300 meters deep and 5 km in diameter. What a sight we had. It is huge! In its heyday, between 600 to 1500 men worked in the 175 km network of tunnels on 15 levels. The deepest vertical shaft goes down 600 m.

We didn’t have time to walk the Pit Rim Walkway but we did get a few photos from the top. Runners come here on the weekends to do a run around the rim.

An interesting old building (1904) is a skeleton of a derelict Cornish Pumphouse. We read that the pump house was moved a few years ago from a site 300 meters away, as the land was unstable and the town wanted to keep the iconic building for historical reasons.

We found out that a few years ago, Donna almost bought property in this cool old town. If she had, we would have been visiting her there. Funny.Read more