The Waiotahi Track is accessible from Thames township. It follows an old packhorse track and passes several old goldmines with beautiful views overlooking Waiotahi stream.

After 2 hours it joins the Karaka Track and continues onto Crosbies Hut. The walk is often completed as a loop, heading back down Karaka Track to Thames township and after a 30min walk through town returns to your car.

Waiotahe – ‘the waters in which the menses were cleaned away’.

When young women were experiencing their first menstruation, they were placed under strict tapu and a whare was built where the waters from this stream were used to cleanse them, thus neutralising any ill effects. The stream once flowed out to sea at the site of an old Ngāti Maru pā known as Te Koronaeiti, located in the area that we now know as Grahamstown, but was diverted in the gold mining days.

The original Waiotahi gold prospectors were Parnell and Tournley in 1868. The mine was located near the mouth of the Waiotahi Stream valley, bounded by the Kuranui-Caledonian to the east, the New Moanataiari to the south, Victoria to the west. In 1904, long after other gold bonanzas had been exhausted in other mines in the area, a large patch of gold was found at the junction of the No. 1, No. 2 reefs and Specimen Leader, where the reefs changed dip to almost vertical. Gold was so plentiful it had to be cut out in places with a chisel.

Half a million pounds in dividends was issued in six months. The total produced by 1908 had been 97,704 tonnes of ore producing 241,690 ounces of gold while various mines in the Waiotahi area produced more than 500,000 ounces of gold

Location
To find The Waiotahi Track, turn from Waiotahi Rd and after a few minutes you’ll see a carpark on the road bend.

Info
5 hrs /13 km one way to Crosbies Hut
2 hrs / 6.6 km to Karaka Track junction.
5 hrs/16 km loop with Karaka Track
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