Hey- I live here in Waihi, get that right now!...

BUT! Newmont Mines Gold mine tour ROCKS!! Ive done it several times and Im always learning more about what they do and how they do it. Even people who are not into big yellow trucks and DUST!! are amazed at the place. I like to hear all the different peoples questions. The guides are good fun and really know their stuff. There is heaps of early goldmining history around here and the bush clad hills and deep Karangahake gorges bear testimony to this. Relics and ruins, artifacts and mine shafts. hillsides in the bush laced with spooky tunnels. The place is awesome for photography.

Oops! Meanwhile- back in the review on the mine tour!...

On the tour you may even see a gold pour. This only happens once every couple of weeks- and they wont tell you when. (just in case you're thinking of doing an Ocean's 14- ha ha).

However, they pour several million dollars worth at one time and it is so awesome to see the molten gold cascading down the bullion moulds and spilling out like hot treacle from a spoon. They take you from the pit to the proccess plant and also out to the waste rock area to show you the wildlife sanctuary on the top! How about that! Up there is the only mainland breeding colony of the endangered NZ Dotterel.

Soon I hear that they will be taking tours into their underground mine too. That goes almost a kilometer below ground and is even more produtive than the pits 1.5 million dollars each week. Down there they are using a revelutionary back filling tecnique that means no wast is brought to the surface. and the ground is left supported. Thats 'almost'

acceptable to the lobbyists.

Reviewed about 16 years ago