Wanderings

 

The urchins and I had 6 hours in-between dropping Erik off at Karapiro, and picking him up in Kopu.  He was going to cycle part of the Tour Aotearoa route. The Route  We were going exploring.

 Oscar kept calling the Te Aroha tower, the Eiffel Tower.  Not much traffic on our roads today.

 A picnic lunch at the Karangahake Gorge, and then exploration of the old gold mining tunnnel.

Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

It's a one km walk through the tunnel. The track is shared with cyclists.

There is lighting, we didn't have a torch.  Anneke found the glow worms.  About every 200m there was a hollow in the tunnel.  I guess that is from when the train used to go through, there was a place for the work men to be safe.

Oscar in the safe place.

 There is water dripping through the walls, and makes interesting patterns, washing away the soot.

 The tunnel was refreshingly cool, after being in the hot summer sun.

 Nearly there, and the air temperature has warmed up too.

 Oscar wanted to be first, so he ran ahead, and then waited for us.

Oscar also discoved the soot liked to stay on his face and hands.

 The urchins got their feet wet in the river.  We saw an eel, and some tiny fish.

After a while of enjoying the riverside, the urchins decided to walk back through the tunnel, instead of braving the heat in the gorge.

 Oscar decided to run the whole way back.

Can you see the other end of the tunnel?

Next stop,  Paeroa for refreshments after the walk.

 The urchins got to check out the famous bottle.

 I needed to see how we were going to spend the next few hours.  Luckily there was a playground close by, and lots of shady trees, so while I planned the trip for the rest of today and tomorrow, the urchins played.

An extra bonus was seeing Erik.  The cycle path was next to the playground.  He thought he had 15kms to go, but my map said 26km by road, and he was going by rail trail, so I guessed it would be about 20km for him.

Finally managed to get the urchins in the car, and on our way to Kopu, visited the site of Captain Cook landing on the Waihou River on 21 November 1769.  The six-ton ship's anchor was donated by the Navy.

Picked Erik up in Kopu just after 6pm, (yep, he did have an extra 5 km to ride) and drove to Auckland, as Erik is riding the Parakai to Clevedon route on the morrow.