Position 36 50.318S 175 42.085E

And it rained all day, well almost.  Paul wanted to walk around the Martha open cast goldmine at Waihi.  I prayed for rain or …guess that movie … but unfortunately neither happened.  They get more silver than gold.  The price of precious metals like silver and gold is quoted per troy ounce.  One troy ounce equals 31.1 grams,  The term troy comes from the town Troyes in France which was a major trading city in the Middle Ages.  Now I didn’t know that.

The pit goes down some 200m.  When the mine finsishes the lot will be turned into a lake.  It will take 6 years to fill it!  The black towers are drills, and a whole grid of holes had been drilled in that section.  Hard rock needs to be blasted out before its excavated by diggers and loaded onto trucks like the one in the picture.

In 2013 each truck carries about 90-100 tonnes of rock and each truckload of ore will contain about 2 tablespoons of gold and twenty tablespoons of silver.  180 of the mine.

Just when we finished walking around the pit rim it started to rain and rain and rain.  We stayed the night in a place called Whitianga on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.  Miserable day.  Whitianga tiny little town with the campsite right in amongst houses.  Not far to walk into the town so we went out to eat and had some lovely fish.  Paul happy.  Lucky Lady shined on us as it bucketed down when we got back to the van.  Seriously, if you have been to the tropics you’ll know what I mean.  If not, think cats and dogs x 20!