Karangahake Mines

This weekend several of us went up to the Karangahake Mines. It is basically a bunch of old gold mines that they have turned into hiking trails. It was so pretty up there. We spent about three hours walking these trails. About the first twenty minutes of the hike was along this old railroad tunnel through some hills. Then we went up into the hills, along the river and into the old gold mines. We saw some glowworms!!! I had never seen any of those...they are cool little suckers!!! Anyway, we had a great time. There is a river that runs through there. Mark (from Oregon) and Lisa (from Germany) were trying to cross part of the river to take a shortcut to the other trail. They were trying to jump from one rock to the other but Lisa had her backpack and she thought that it would be a good idea to throw it across. Well it slid right off the rock and floated probably 150 yards down the river before Mark caught up with. It was so funny! It took a couple days, but finally her camera dried out and is working fine! There were a couple of suspension bridges that were nice and bouncey....we did a little experiement on what it will be like on the ship at sea. I think I may have a struggle with sea sickness. HA! So...thats that! Hope you are all doing good! I miss everybody! Heaps of love!