Martha Mine Pit Rim Walk

Earlier this month I had to return to Waihi for the third time in less than a week for car servicing (but that's another story).  As my right knee was incredibly painful and I was finding it difficult to walk even short distances, I ruled out a third 34km walk up and down the Karangahake Gorge.

So, with 2 hours (I was told) to kill, I limped through the Waihi township, with a rest partway on a bench, and then up to the pump house on the hilltop, which was undergoing some maintenance work.

The Martha Mine Pit Rim Walk runs for almost 4km around, you guessed it, the rim of the Martha Mine Pit.  Strangely, I had no idea this existed (the walk, not the mine) until my sister mentioned it that morning as a possible time killer while I was waiting for my car to be fixed.  With an idea to possibly limping around this trail I downed both a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory when sitting on the aforementioned bench.  I thought I would walk a short distance and see how I was feeling - I could always retrace my steps and give up if things got too bad.

I decided to walk the pit clockwise, more by some magnetic attraction pulling me that way after I had arrived (or possibly because the path in that direction was the first one I saw).

I accidentally took a photo of the gravel path at this stage (see below) and, later when discussing the local art award that had been recently awarded (to an entry that seemed more accident than art) with my brother-in-law, I mentioned this accidental photo and he jokingly suggested submitting it for the next art awards.  A number of humorous titles for the photo followed, one of which I've put as the caption.

"Accidentally Stoned"

The first section of the path skirts closely to the edge of the pit, usually offering steep and distant looks down into the vast hole that has been dug in the earth, however there was a huge cloud of mist, fog or dust initially obscuring the view.  On the right side of the path is a safety fence to prevent any accidental falls and on the left, behind a screen of trees and bushes, is the edge of Waihi township (every so often you get a glimpse out onto a road, or into someone's back garden).

An old railway platform?

Spider-web in the sunlight

I was finding it tough going, especially when making the extremely short, (what felt at the time to be) somewhat steep ascents and descents.  My leg/knee was aching and I was taking very short steps.  At one point I sat briefly at a picnic table and elevated the leg.

Eventually the trail pauses on the "northern" edge, which I believe is the highest point of this trail.  There was a woman walking her dog chatting with some older gentleman she had run into on the trail (both of them obviously locals from what I overheard of their brief chat).  I paused to take a panoramic photo of the pit now that the fog/dust cloud had lessened.

From this point on, I recall the pain in my leg becoming less and less (the pills kicking in, perhaps), and eventually I didn't feel it again.  (On a side note, I went tramping with the club the following day and had no issues at all with pain).  The woman with the dog left the trail for suburbia, but I continued on as the path wound away from the pit edge and through a brief patch of native forest.

A short stint through an active area (gravel roads & newish buildings) for the mine followed, but there was also an old mining building there.

Every so often I would see a short post with the words "Pump House" printed atop, and (stupidly) I keep casting about, looking for signs of some ruins indicating said building.  Later I realised those posts were merely letting me know the distance to the pump house at the start of the beginning/end of the circuit.  However, I did see some ruins of mining activity.

There seemed to be a small wetland area, with more ruins.

A section of rural pasture land followed, where a bovine decided that the sweat on my wrist was great for licking.

Give me some lovin'

There was a slightly surreal section where there were tarmacked roads leading to nowhere and had the entrances to non-existent driveways off of them.  This was obviously once a suburban area with houses and families, but due to the mining activities those houses had been vacated and removed.  The only evidence of them the sloping concrete leading off the road and, what might have been once, a gravel driveway.

All too soon the pump house was visible again as I skirted highway 25, crossed the main vehicle entrance to the pit, then walked the final section back to the beginning, passing by a number of people heading in the opposite direction (was clockwise the wrong way, I wondered).

Now that the mist/fog/dust had dissipated I managed to capture the pit from the southern perspective.

The panoramic view, albeit somewhat distorted

As I had a ton of time to kill still (in fact I had more than double the time in the end as the auto service place took ages to fix/service the car) I spent some of it reading on a bench near the pump house.  During a short exploration while there I discovered this chap hiding in the garden.