Karangahake, Or, There's Gold In Them Thar Gorges

We drove on to Thames, at the base of the Firth of Thames (left side of Coromandel peninsula) and then beyond into the quartz gold-mining country in the Karangahake Gorge that made Thames famous and wealthy in the 19th century. After our explorations in Karangahake, we spent the night at the municipal camping aire in Thames, which, with a new shopping centre, appears a good bit more prosperous than in 2014.

First, at the Victoria Battery...lots of old mining apparati laying around

These were the foundations of the humongous cyanide tanks there

Thus, back in the day; we know about cyanide heap leaching from our time in
Montana, not so long ago; it's a process by which you can get an ounce of gold
from 20 tons of ore...

Very definitely Romanesque, no? Caius Julius Lacer would be proud

Buy locally

Not very far down the road were the Owharoa Falls, 30-40 feet high, spilling
into a gorgeous little pond

Moving right along, we are now in the Karangahake Gorge
itself, to do the Windows track; here I am posing in my miners
garb (I was more into placer mining, but that's a different story)

Beautiful waterway through the gorge

More rusty artifacts

Entrance to the mine tunnels we will now walk through for some time; looks
perfectly safe...

The gorge; a bit; one walks through the mountain/cliffs on the left, then crosses
the river on a swing bridge and walks back up the gorge by the river

"Did you remember to bring the flashlight like I asked you?"

Dead end

Light at the end of the tunnel; actually it was only a "window"

Looking out and down from one of the "windows"

Back in the light of day, Vicki on the swing bridge

Looking back up at one of the windows

And looking back up the gorge

Interesting and very accessible cultural/historical park, of which we did only a bit