Day 4 – North Island – Tuesday 9th March 2010

This morning we left Maraetai and took the country route south, rather than charging down Highway 1. We then joined Highway 2 and headed for Paeroa and soon afterwards met up with Ed and Trish at Karangahake Gorge. This is a beautiful gorge that used to be a gold mining centre. The old workings and machinery have been left as a tourist attraction. Trish brought a load of food and drink and we had a lovely meal and then walked around and climbed up to the old mine workings. Great views.

We then bade adieu to Celia and Hugh and we ventured out into further unknown terrain. We reached Waihi, which is famous as the home of an open-cast mine which produces $1 million worth of gold and silver a week. This biggest hole in the World is 250m deep and huge trucks bring the ore up from the workings via a circuitous and, seemingly, a very narrow roadway that trundles around the wall of the big hole. Took some great shots. This one of Ed and Trish has a truck in the background climbing the roadway to the top. Can you see it?

We continued onwards and reached Flip’n Bear at Athenree. This is a cafe and pancake den! We had a glorious pancake with banana and blueberry sauce pored over ice cream and cream (see photo below). Delicious! We felt we had earned it! We continued on into Katikati (don’t ask?) This is a town famous for its murals. Captured a few for posterity, along with a photo of Barry – A Kiwi Bloke, sitting on a bench, reading his newspaper with his little dog sitting patiently alongside. OK, it wasn’t a real chap but a sculpture by Donald Paterson from 1999. It was good!

We then reached the sea at Waihi Beach and had another little break. We followed the coast road but then had to turn inland a bit as the coastline gets a bit ragged behind the shelter of Matakana Island. We then drove through Bethlehem and Judea (honest) to Tauranga and on to Te Puke and reached the coast again. We left highway 2 before Whakatane and drove down to Kawerau and Ed and Trish’s home.

After all that driving it was great to crash out and have a beer! We sorted ourselves out and had a lovely meal then played around a bit with three or four computers then retired for the night.