Brittania Track, Waimangaroa

Ruben had call again this past weekend so Friday evening we decided to explore one of the Department of Conservation tracks outside a nearby village called Waimangaroa. What is now the Brittania Track is the path miners followed to reach a battery operated by the Brittannia Mining Company, which extracted gold from this area between 1860 and 1937. Miners lived in huts near the battery during the week and on weekends walked out of the bush and into town or wherever their families lived.

Approaching the trailhead of the Brittania track. There were ropes stretched across the road
but no signs indicating the track was closed, so we parked and walked. 

A guy and his dog were camping in a bus at the trailhead car park.
There wasn't room for other cars so we're guessing perhaps that guy put up the ropes.

Stream crossing along the track.

It's pretty humid here on the West Coast, especially in the early evening when the air coming over the
mountain starts to cool and mix with the moist, warm air coming off the ocean.
This track was a gradual uphill and my cotton T-shirt was drenched pretty quickly. 

The canopy was pretty dense in some parts and had a huge influence on temperature and brightness. My sunglasses were off and on quite a bit! The track was for the most part wide and well kept, but rocky and uneven so vigilance was required. At some point rails and ties had been laid, probably to assist horses or mules hauling timber and supplies in to the battery and hauling gold back out. The spacing of the remains of the ties can making striding difficult. 

The turnaround point of this 12-km run is the remains of a gold battery and the equipment that was used in the process of extracting gold from chunks of quartz dug out of this mountain. 

The crushing heads of the battery.

The battery

The waterwheel that powered the battery. 

We are definitely noticing that the days are becoming shorter. Although the camera makes it look darker than it really was, we determined that it was time to make our way back to the car.