Karangahake Feature

Tony Steemson

The road through the spectacular Karangahake river gorge -- you might prefer to call it a canyon -- two hours south of New Zealand's Auckland City by car or campervan, carries a lot of traffic with a lot of people. To most of them, it is just a rather slow and winding few miles between cliff and river on the main road south to the Bay of Plenty region.

I have travelled through this gorge road many times over the years but only recently have I become aware of the depth of history there and the heart-leaping beauty of it. That is because as a driver I am more inclined to concentrate on the road rather than the scenery, in this case either the river or the rock faces that soar above on both sides.

The Ohinemuri River alternately leaps and dreams through its rocky course, past not-quite ghost towns. Until fairly recent times, the Ohinemuri in its gorge stretch was a dead river, poisoned to lifelessness and lethality by potassium cyanide from the huge Victoria Battery plant that, until 1952, extracted gold from crushed quartz at the gorge's upriver southern end. In fact, the whole gorge was widely regarded as more or less an ecological dead zone for most of last century.

The river has now recovered to near-pristine beauty, complete with trout and swimming areas. You have to stop and look and walk around a bit to get the feel of the magic, and since it's a roadway blasted out of the northern cliff face way back when, there were until quite recently hardly any reasonable stopping places. That has changed in the last few years. In fact, the gorge and surrounding zone, with help from government agencies, has become a tourist attraction in its own right, with numerous cleaned-up gold-mining structures and relics, plus the many walkways that traverse them.

New Zealand's Department of Conservation, known colloquially as just ``DOC'', has been putting a big effort into making the gorge and its attractions more visitor-friendly, with much improved parking and information services. DOC has also done extensive upgrading of the area's many walking tracks, long and short, easy and harder, often through forest and gold-mining relics and old workings. These days, anyone fit enough and interested enough could spend several days exploring the gorge and its hidden wonders and histories.

The main Karangahake walkway, much of which used to be the gorge rail line route, is now rail-free. It gives the best views along the river. It crosses the river twice via converted rail bridges, and part of it is an old kilometre-long rail tunnel, lit and maintained to make it comfortably walkable. It is a good idea, though, to take a torch for easier walking. Also, there is the tributary Waitawheta River cascading down its own gorge to link with the Ohinemuri.

The walking track up the Waitawheta is not for the elderly, faint-hearted or clumsy, but interestingly follows the line of the tramway once used to bring quartz down from tunnel-mining high in the hills.

The Karangahake Reserve, a large riverside parking area with lawns, toilets and information displays, plus a pedestrian bridge that takes you over the river to the massive remains of old quartz-crushing stamper batteries. It also gives access to a number of signposted walkways.

The cafe right across the main road from the reserve offers good coffee, along with quality food.

The Ohinemuri Winery some 300 yards up a side road right by the cafe, makes its own wines, and also offers coffee and a range of meals.

The Waikino Tavern, a mile or so south, offers a cafe, plus the curiously named Flood Bar, a name that commemorates the 1982 flooding of the river that reached the tavern's doorsteps while completely obliterating several small shops across the road on the river bank opposite.

The Owharoa Waterfallis just up Waitawheta Road off the main road. There is a pool below the falls that is accessible by a five-minute walk, and it is okay to swim in, with normal caution, of course! The same road goes further up the attractive Owharoa Stream a couple of miles to a dead-end. But a walking track leads on to the Waitawheta Camp, which is at the top of the Waitawheta Gorge walkway.

The old Waikino Railway Station now serves as a cafe as well as being the terminus for the rail trips run from Waihi, operated by a trust on the only remaining section of the gorge rail.

There is some accommodation in the gorge, and a lot more in the nearby old-time country town of Waihi. This town is no metropolis, but has just about everything the touring visitor might need, including hotels, restaurants, cafes and an information centre. Plus free parking.

Watch out for the wide deep roadside gutters, tricky when parking, some now reshaped. These used to carry warm water pumped out of the old-time gold-mine workings in Martha Hill, which is now reduced to a vast open-cast mine right by the town and is scheduled to become a lake eventually.

Good luck!