To celebrate the fact that we can still freely wander up to the portal/picnic pad, un-troubled by mining vehicles, to have an alfresco picnic in a beautiful space un-spoilt by a mining operation in the middle of a DOC estate is a day well spent.
So a group of us had a delightful lunch up in front of the mine entrance on Saturday, cooled by the damp air blowing out of the mine.
One of members and local school teacher, Sabine Hartmann, was surprised when New Talisman recently announced that in the near future they were going to be able to exclude the public from the area.
“The Portal Pad, or Picnic Pad as we call it, is a wonderful tourism asset to the gorge. Every month we do weeding working bees on the Karangahake Mountain and we often see people coming and going from here,” Said Hartmann.
“Mining has no place on conservation land. We have heard first hand from DOC that the Karangahake Gorge is the hottest tourism spot in the Kaimai Ranges and we want to see our local economy grow and build on that, not be undermined by environmentally destructive and unnecessary industries like gold mining.”
Sabine also expressed concern that the mine company would be allowed to access the mine via a narrow bush road currently used a great deal by walkers and bikers.
Protect Karangahake 