Sunday 3rd and Monday 4th May 2026
Ohope:
On Sunday, we travelled to the coast, staying overnight at the small town of Ohope, right next to the beach.
Nothing really to add, just another stunning beach to explore in New Zealand.
Waihi Goldmine:
On Monday, we moved on north, up the Pacific State Highway, to Waihi, where we managed to get onto a tour of the goldmine at the last minute.
Gold has been mined here since the 19th century. Initially, using traditional shafts and tunnels, with horse and cart to remove the ore. This eventually became uneconomic, but advances in techniques more recently have tipped the balance, helped very recently by the huge hike in the price of gold.
The original excavations were into the side of a large hill, then down as far as 400 metres deep. This is way below the base of the existing open-cast pit, which now replaces the hill which has completely been removed through mining operations.
The open-cast operations have recently ceased, following a landslip which prevented access. Current mining is all underground with an access tunnel around a couple of kilometres away.
The excavated ore is then processed on site. Gold is found in quartz rock here, in very small concentrations. There are no nuggets or flakes. A ton of ore yields about 3 grammes of gold after processing. The ratio found is around 80% silver to 20% gold and ingots of this mixture (called dore) are produced on-site. The gold and silver is ultimately separated in Australia.
The process involves crushing the ore into a fine powder, then using chemical processes to extract the metal content.
That is all for today. TTFN and see-u-later.
"See-u-Later" 