My wife and I had a overnight away this weekend (possibly just as well we did it when we did as we have just had a government announcement that there is a probable case of Covid 19 in a woman who returned from Europe at the end of December and then spent 14 days in a Managed Isolation Facility, had two negative Covid tests, went home and then a few days later, felt ill....)
I didnt know where we were going until we were half way there, as she had organised it all. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, we walked about 30km through lots of beautiful native bush, saw some interesting relics of the gold mining industry in 19th century New Zealand and spent the night in the small coastal town of Whangamata on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.
Here are some pics
DAY ONE - KARANGAHAKE GORGE
View from the start point of the walk looking east along the river - main road to Waihi and then Tauranga on the left
Part of the sign explaining the route and historical context of the local gold fields and railway
Bridge across the main highway which in the past carried a single track rail line
One kilometre long ex railway tunnel
The other end of the tunnel
The track runs for about 5km along the route of the old railway line
A slight detour of 500m led to this nice little waterfall
A couple of views of a suspension bridge en route
The terminus of the walk, a 19th century gold battery - it looks very much like military defence works to me!
Final view along State Highway 2 from the bridge featured at the start of the walk. In total we walked about 12km and it took us around three hours.
INTERLUDE - EVENING IN WHANGAMATA
View along Whangamata Beach - the small town can be seen in the right distance
The entrance to the inlet where many boats were moored
Our dinner was a freshly baked pizza al fresco on the main street of the town.
Followed by a nice relaxing evening in the motel with a good book and an appropriately named craft beer - great way to end the day!
DAY TWO - WHAREKIRAUPONGA TRAIL
Dept of Conservation signage at the start of our second walk - today, we did around 18km
More bridges to cross!
My wife remarked that this section of the trail looked like an army trench!
Theses pretty orange flowers - probably a weed - were much in evidence
A much shorter tunnel than yesterdays - maybe 50m in length
Parts of the track were quite a scramble
Slightly disappointingly, the two bridges at the end of the trail are closed
The waterfall consists of three levels, this is the view from the top level down to the middle level
This is the top level of the waterfall - the previous image was looking down to the left from my position here.
Above a map showing roughly the location of the two walks in relation to each other and our home base at Pukekohe - top left. A very do able trip and one we both really enjoyed - around 300km was travelled in total over the two days. We plan to do more of the same in the coming months - assuming we do not have any travel restrictions imposed on us with the latest Covid scare!
Some wargaming content in my next post - promise!
Sounds and looks like a great weekend away, Keith. Three hundred ks in two days is a decent rate of march. Are you two in Davout's corps?! Lovely photos. A great way to get away from it all/everyone.
ReplyDeleteRegards, James
Ah, shoulda read more clearly before hitting 'publish'. You used the several horse-power carriage for much of the 300 km, I see?
ReplyDeleteHahaha....yes that's correct James!
DeleteCertainly a nice walk and great that you are able to have days out/nights away such as this. Certainly this sort of thing we are hoping we might be able to do come the Summer, but I'm not holding my breath:(
ReplyDeleteThe orange flowers are from crocosmia which is native to South Africa, so I imagine is was introduced at some point and can be invasive, albeit slowly.
Thanks Steve...hopefully freedom for the UK isn't too far away. South African flowers eh? Bloody typical, we have thousands of Saffers here in NZ....have the people I work with fir a start!
DeleteBeautiful countryside
ReplyDeleteThanks Neil....it is indeed
DeleteLooks beautiful and nice to know that somebody is living a ‘normal’ life we aren’t really supposed, strongly discouraged not to go out at all at the moment which is getting boring 😢
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt. Yes your lock down must be very hard. Even when we had our month of level four lock down here ..basically all of April...we could walk in our local area for exercise. You could not drive anywhere, gyms etc were all closed...but you could go out your own front door and walk for half an hour then walk back.
DeleteThanks for the Travel Log Keith- certainly great to get out into the great outdoors. I do not do near as much walking as I should. New Zealand is a lovely place. Regards. KEV. (Sydney-Australia).
ReplyDeleteCheers Kev...I don't do enough walking either...that's why I can feel the thirty km in all sorts of places this morning!
DeleteThat looks beautiful. You are very lucky.
ReplyDeleteThanks...yes we have been lucky so Faye...lets hope we continue that way and we manage to snuff out the latest Covid scare.....
DeleteBest kind of day. Outdoors, beautiful scenery, pizza after excercise!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree ...we need to do it more often (the pizza that is!)
DeleteBeautiful scenery, Keith! Good to get away for the weekend to enjoy the outdoors.
ReplyDeleteThan you Jonathan...we do have a lot of easily accessible outdoor walking for all levels, and generally not very heavily utilised. Hope to do something similar next month.
DeleteA lovely looking trip Keith...
ReplyDeleteAnd yes... l am very jealous.
I don’t suppose we could have Jacinda run our country... a couple of weeks would probably be enough.
All the best. Aly
Haha....nice compliment Aly but I am not sure even Jacunda could undo the cluster the UK has made of their response to Covid!
DeleteSpectacular trip!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dmitry - you should share some images of your local environment one time - I am sure there are many interesting sights to see
DeleteNice scenery Keith, and I seem to remember Whangamata being the scene of some rather feisty New Year's Eve celebrations when I lived in NZ. We had our three-day lockdown due to the new variant a few weeks ago, but thankfully no further cases beyond the two they identified.
ReplyDeleteCheers Lawrence....yes you are correct, a very odd phenomenon that I have always been at a loss to explain. NZ has very little public disorder a la football hooligans from the UK etc - but at New Year, the 16-20 year olds seem to go berserk and celebrate by fighting with the police - it happened again this year - just Google Whangamata New Year Riot!
DeleteSunny photo's Keith, sharing out at 8 inches of snow here.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Stu
Haha, yeah Stu. Like I always say, the snow and ice looks really picturesque but its a bloody nuisance in real life!
DeleteVery nice travel shots,as I scrape ice,snow and mud off my boots and waterproofs, jealous, me? Surely not!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Yeah I put up with that on steroids for the first 25 years of my life Iani ....I remember seeing temp at Banchory of -20 odd one winter!
DeleteGreat looking photos. Seemed like a nice surprise. 😀
ReplyDeleteThanks Stew...we had been to various walks at Karangahake Gorge before, but the trip to Whangamata was a nice change...looking forward to a repeat in Feb hopefully!
DeleteThat is agret trip Keith. I haven’t been down that way for years... must get around to it. We have a trip back down to the South Island planned for some time in March.
ReplyDeleteCheers Mark, yes nice to visit a different part of the country for a change!
DeleteYou live in a fabulous land, Keith. Those look like terrific walks, and so much to see too! Loved that long tunnel. I wonder how many people run in the opposite direction holding a lamp and making train noises to try to scare fellow walkers! I'd love to walk there and take a camera - maybe one day.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Jason
Thanks Jason I certainly agree, New Zealand is a beautiful place - however, there are many beautiful parts of the UK too - most of Scotland (obviously!), the Lake District, Peak District and Devon/Cornwall, not to mention the very picturesque "Olde Worlde" villages in many other parts of England (even though all around them, it may be densely populated!) I hope you get to make a trip out here one day - its not as far as it was when we were young.
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