Today, we haven't moved very much, though we seem to have seen a great deal. It has been another quite grey day, but not at all cold, and fortunately there have only been a few spots of rain.
We didn't get up early, as checkout from the motel where we were staying was not until 11. We didn't delay that long however, as Paul wanted to catch the Goldfields Railway. We walked onto Waihi beach, and it certainly is beautiful - an expanse of sand almost as far as you can see.
The surf is good here, and people were already surfing, in spite of there being no sun and it being just before 10.30.
We drove back to Waihi and the station for the Goldfields Railway. The current railway is part of the original rail link from Paeroa to Waihi which was built in 1905 to serve the Waihi Gold Mining Co. The whole line was closed in 1978, and the Waihi to Waikino section was handed over to the Goldfields Steam Train Society in 1980. (The society later changed its name to Goldfields Railway Inc.) The whole thing is run by volunteers, and is absolutely wonderful.
The station is the relocated and refurbished former Paeroa railway station, and has many period touches.
I would have preferred a steam engine, but today the journey was by diesel engine. The choice for the ride was either a restored 1914 carriage
or an open wagon, giving you a freight's eye view of the countryside. And yes, those are picnic tables in the wagon. The train goes slowly, so standing is fine. They ask you not to sit on the yellow rail round the wagon!
Naturally, we chose to ride in the open wagon, and nobody else did, so we were able to photograph to our heart's content. The train maintains a speed of 5 km an hour until it has left Waihi, when it speeds up to 15 km an hour, so you get good views of the countryside. There are lots of reminders of the volcanic past of this area.
There are only a couple of bridges. This one is the only privately owned railway bridge in New Zealand, and you can see the volunteers are checking it carefully as the train passes. You can see how close this part of the line is to the road. All the local drivers wave and sound their horns as they pass, so you need to do a lot of waving back.
After almost half an hour, we pulled in to Waikino station, on the edge of the Karangahake Gorge.
There is a very nice cafe here for lunch, which you can eat as you wait for the train to take you back again. You don't really get a chance at this time of year to walk anywhere, but once the summer season starts there are several train trips a day, so you could do some of the gorge walks and catch the next train back.
There is obviously somebody with a weird sense of humour at Waikino Station. As you approach, you see a notice which reads
WARNING
Do not read this sign
and that's all it says!
I particularly liked the dog kennel.
There was no sign at all of any guard, or indeed, a dog of any kind. Thinking about it since, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Guard Hut is provided for a cat!
On the way back to Waihi, the engine is just brought round to the other end of the train, so in the open carriage we were right at the front.
Once we were back at Waihi, we got into the car and drove back again because Paul wanted to see the Victoria Battery, another gold stamping battery, but on a much larger scale that the one we saw in Coromandel. In fact, it was the site of the largest quartz crushing plant in Australasia. It was build in 1896 and continued in operation until 1952. It was originally water powered, and later, in 1913, converted to electric power. At that time, it had 200 stamps, and could crush 800 tonnes of ore a day. Before 1900, the ore was roasted after crushing, but after 1900, the process changed. After crushing, coarse gold was removed by machines called vanners, and the remaining fraction was treated with cyanide. The 15 meter high cyanide tanks were housed on the top of this building; you can still see one of the funnels from a cyanide tank, at the right hand side of the photo.
The residue was just washed down the river! The gentleman who gave us a tour of the museum was full of stories he had been told by people who used to work there. Apparently, the cyanide was mixed by hand - though the man who mixed it was given a pair of gloves!
There are plenty of relics of the battery itself - his shows one of the stampers, and some of the rocks it would crush.
This is a life sized model of the molten gold being poured
There are other relics as well. My favourite, Rules for Teachers (1915), is a real hoot, but I can't publish it here because the writing is too small to show up. It contains such gems as 'You must NOT keep company with men' and 'You may NOT loiter downtown in ice-cream stores' or 'You may UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES dye your hair' and 'You must wear AT LEAST TWO petticoats'. I wonder how todays teachers would react to this.!
Here are the cooking arrangements for a single man
I am not too sure what either of my sons would have made of anything like this!
After all this, we made our way to Katikati, a town which is famous for its murals, many of which refer to the history of the town or the history of New Zealand. We photographed quite a few of these. This is probably our favourite, which shows the exterior and interior of the General Store. It is on the wall of the Four Square supermarket.
This one also appealed to me; it shows the first Katakati Post and Telegraph Office
This one honours the Pioneer Kitchen
It was after 5 by the time we had wandered all round the town, so we drove another 10 km and are now staying in a little cottage in the garden of someone who came from England, used to be a Telecoms Engineer and worked very close to where we live in London. It's a small world!
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