Waihi Beach- Karangahake Gorge

Day 36- March 13^th

We played games and talked for the morning and decided to stay another night, since there were a couple of things in that area that we were interested in doing. Around noon drove to Karangahake Gorge. There used to be a gold mine there, so we walked around in some of the old tunnels and looked at the old mine relics. Since both my parents and Rick were geologists, they were very interested in the mine. While Nan drove to Thames (30 minutes north) to pick up her daughter, we walked through a kilometer long train tunnel.

  

Rick drove in his truck with Sheeshao and Bryan while I went with my parents. Right after we left, we saw something bouncing down the middle of the road. It looked sort of like a cell phone, but we weren’t sure. We stopped at a little place that sold organic blueberries and ice cream next. But we found out that Rick was now missing his cell phone. While he went back to look for it in the middle of the road, we bought two box of blueberries and ice cream for everyone. Later Rick told us that he had found the cell phone right in the middle of the road. It still worked and didn’t appear to be damaged.

The beach in front of their house was very flat with huge waves, so it was the perfect place to go bodysurfing. My mom and dad and I went out with boogie boards and spent a hour trying to body surf. I wasn’t very good at it, but I had fun. My sister usually loves to swim too, but this time she was too busy playing with her new friend Bryan.

Later that night Nan returned with her daughter Megan, who was my age. Megan had been in Auckland with her ballet class and was just returning. After dinner we played a game of 10 days in Eurasia, which took a while. I didn’t get to bed until around 11.