371 Km / 231 Miles
“Rest day” – Heading to Karangahake Gorge. A place I learn later, after some serious deja vu and after a rummage through old photo albums on facebook back to March 2014, that I had in fact been to before.
Today I used the mountain bike I was so kindly lent! Ahhhh suspension! Riding a bike never felt so comfortable. I was on a $3000 mountain bike and told its “been written off on insurance” so I could ride it wherever and not to worry about ruining it. I could ride it up the mountain I was planning on hiking if I wanted… I wasn’t brave enough or skilled enough for this, but it did sound like a lot of fun!
The ride to Karangahake Gorge was a 13km ride along part of the Hauraki Rail Trail – one of the 22 New Zealand’s GREAT RIDES. The 22 great rides (and connecting Heartland rides) of NZ are a collective of trails across both islands known by the Maori name “Nga Haerenga” (The journey’s)
The Hauraki Rail is a flat trail that follows the Ohinemuri river through the Karangahake Gorge – a deep canyon cut through the Kaimai Ranges. The trail goes through the cascading Owharao waterfall, an old gold processing historic site (Victoria Battery) and as you approach the Karangahake gorge you go through a 1.1km long tunnel, of darkness to finally come out at the entrance to the Gorge!
My aim of this morning was to hike up Mt Karangahake. The summit was at 544m. The trail was unmarked but mostly well used. I had researched the trail a bit before heading up, which I was later glad of as there were many turn off’s and I’m not sure where I would have ended up if I had taken some of them. One was supposedly a mountain bike trail, but seemed to just end half way up. I took the most “direct” way up according to several blogs, but apparently there were 3 ways up. It was a long gradual hike up, and took almost 2 hours to get to the top. The top had a very old raggedy looking “trig station”, and had an amazing panoramic view of Waihi and the Kaimai Ranges Park! The summit went up another few metres, but to get to this would have meant some serious bushwacking, and it was pretty muddy and wet up there that I wasn’t fancying my chances.
I headed down the mountain a different way, what seemed to be ‘around the back’ instead of being amongst the trees and forest I was on the edge of the mountain and spiralling around very steeply and quickly! I was running down, trying to avoid the mud and ump through the overgrown-ness of the trail – the trail up was a lot clearer! Half way down…. Im down on my arse… (glad to have my bike shorts to change into!! I was continuing the run down with some padded shorts now – for extra protection :P)
At the bottom, I stayed and explored the lower gorge, Walking the “Window’s walk” and the “Historic walkway”. It was here I was getting some serious Deja Vu. I then saw a few big tour buses turn up, at this point I realised I was here in 2014 again, with the Kiwi Experience bus! A photo on a facebook album confirmed this! The same photo I had taken from the Window’s walkway I already had, along with several more of friends hanging out of the windows!
I ended the day at the Talisman Cafe and Crafts, eating the best chocolate cake! and soaking in the area before the rain started and I hopped on the bike to speed back to the town!
“Because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.”