Martha Open Gold Mine

Traveled to Waihi to visit the Martha Open Gold Mine. Mind blowing! Just absolutely mind blowing!
It was so deep. Deeper than I had even expected! Plus, it was on top of a hill, so you couldn't even see it. Deceiving...

They collect rock from within the mine, crush it, put it through a sodium cyanide solution, and bind the gold and silver to carbon to extract the gold. They only get 1 0z of gold from 10 tons of rock! Hardly seems economically viable. Not too mention that the sodium cyanide solution is toxic. Sure the company says that they are doing things to reduce the risk of leaking, and reduce the environmental impacts...but still, is the risk worth it?

All in all the tour was really interesting. It was cool to see how it works. Crazy though. Our tour guide said that all of the gold that has been mined fits in a football field one meter high! Try to get your head around that.

After our tour around the Martha mine, we drove down to the Karangahake Gorge.

The place was peppered with hanging bridges, awesome...especially when we all ran and jumped across them. The place used to be a gold mine. There are ruins of the gold battery and old train tracks cover the hills which come directly out of the river.

Towards the end of our hike/walk through the gorge, we walked through the old tunnels of the mine. It was incredibly dark! So dark, that I couldn't even see the difference between my eyes open and my eyes closed. It was amazing. The ceilings were covered in glow worms too. Sadly I have no pictures because they only glow in the dark, obviously.

The next day we had a long discussion about the gold mining industry. We then had to prepare a debate on whether the Golden Cross mine should be re-opened for further gold exploration. My team took the negative. It was a solid debate, but my team lost.


We still had a great time debating, at least I did!

Going to Cathedral Cove and Secret Beach tomorrow!!!!!