When we met up. We had two surprise guests, Jack and his girlfriend Ivy. We told them that we were going on this day trip. But we didn't expect Jack to actually turn up. As somebody said, Jack starts showing up when he's about to leave for another country.
Karanagahake Gorge is near Paeroa. There are a number of tracks in that area. The Karangahake Historic Walkway may be considered as the main track. It takes 2 hours one way. We had three cars so we could park cars at both ends of the track so we didn't need to walk the same way back. However, we still hesitated to take such a long walk. So instead, we started with the Tunnel Loop Walk which took about an hour.
We walked along the river. The scenery was beautiful. After sometime, we reached a bridge that leads to the tunnel. The tunnel is an old railway tunnel. It is about 1.1 km long. It's a really long tunnel to walk! We walked into this dark, chilly and damp place. It was quite eerie. Thinking back, I'd be scared to enter the tunnel if there were fewer than four people in our group. There were nine of us so I felt fine. We had about five torches so we could see enough to walk ahead. After a few minutes, it started to feel endless. We just kept walking and walking and the end of the tunnel didn't seem to approach us. A common estimate of walking time is 15 minutes per kilometre. So we probably walked more than 15 minutes in this dim tunnel. Eventually we emerged into daylight again. Too bad Ming wasn't left behind. :P
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| That's a long tunnel ahead. |
After we returned to the world with daylight, we took a break and had our lunch and snacks. We walked back to the car park after lunch and decided to do another short walk. Yay~ The second walk was the Windows Walk. It took about an hour round trip too. The "windows" refer to the small openings in a few locations along the tunnel in this walk. Gold mining was in this area in the early 20th century. There were remnants of the gold mining on the Windows Walk. At first, we walked along a tramway track. Somehow, Ray sat in this old metal basket/tram.
We then went into the tunnel section. It was dark. You really need a torch to walk inside. After walking for a couple of minutes or so, we reached this window. Here is what it was like to look outside. You can see a path on the other side of the gorge. We walked that path later and appreciated the nice scenery.
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| View from one of the "windows" |
After we went out of the tunnel, we continued on to find a nearby "underground pumphouse". We didn't know what it was. It turned out to be a few short, interconnecting tunnels that led to a chamber with old equipment. I suppose that was used for pumping. The equipment was locked behind bars so we could only view from a distance. Mind you, the chamber was pitch black. We could only use our torches to light it up dimly. In this dim light, we saw… Ray impersonating a zombie, like it's a shooting video game. He looked too happy to be a zombie, though. I've never seen a zombie that wears glasses, either. I don't know why. Anyway, there was a another surprise in the dark. We saw a few glow worms on the ceiling when we switched off our lights.
After we finished Windows Walk and returned to the car park, we set Owharoa Falls as our next destination. We drove there, and it took us less than a minute to walk to the waterfall after we parked. The waterfall looks quite short, doesn't it?
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| This photo looks badly composed and fake. That's why I put it up. Ha |
I'd been directing the group pretty much all day. I then drove onto a nearby unpaved road/driveway and led our group to Victoria Battery. It was a site that remained from the age of gold mining. There was this abandoned structure. Somehow, Ray stood on top of it. The copycat Jack climbed up too. But the kitten was scared of heights and he was stuck up there. Ray came down first and he messed with Jack. He initially thought Jack was just acting. After a long while, Jack finally came down. The structure really wasn't very tall, you know.
That was pretty much it. We drove in the sunset and headed back to Auckland.
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