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Reports......Karangahake
to Dickies Flat
Date: 21 June 2009
Leader: Peter Wooderson
After a light frost in Papakura Sunday dawned fine and clear as 18
of us head off to Karangahake.
At Ngatea the countryside looks like a European Christmas card, a
heavy white frost from horizon to horizon. At the car park there are
some gasps as longs are pulled off and bare legs exposed. The party
increases to 21 with 5 visitors from the Air New Zealand club.
Soon, after an introductory talk, we are heading for Scotsmans gully
and on to the old county road which takes us to level 8 one of the
major entries to the old Talisman mine and still under investigation
today. We find a sunny spot and stop for morning tea. [A revolt in
the ranks would not be good] We continue on the old county road and
climb high around Mt Karangahake with spectacular views down into
the Waitawheta gorge and out to the North and East.
We turn on to the Dubbo 96 track which takes us off the mountain
down through a nice stand of regenerating native bush across Dubbo
stream to join the Crown track near Dickey’s flat [so called because
every time Dickey one of the mine horses went missing he was always
found grazing here] where we had lunch on the sandy bank of the
beautiful Waitawheta river. After lunch we rejoin the Crown track
and soon we get our torches out as we enter the 180 metre long
tunnel dug to carry the old Paeroa water pipe through a spur by the
river. Some of us discover a colony of cave wettas. We continue
downstream meeting more and more people out enjoying this beautiful
area.
Most of us went into the now derelict Woodstock pump house, a huge
chamber 100ft by 40ft by25ft high which housed the winding engine to
operate the hoisting gear to raise and lower the cage used to move
men and bring the ore up from the lower levels and a large pump to
keep the lower levels of the mine dry. We recross the river and
return to the cars via the windows walk.
A big thankyou everyone for another great walk-in the Beautiful NZ
outdoors.
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