Commodore
December 16, 2024

Tuesday 17 December – a walk to the copper mine

We woke up to blue skies and the wonderful view of the old Mansion House. It was a bit rolly so when one of the other boats left, we decided to take its place deeper into the bay. By the time we got the anchor up a motor launch had arrived and taken the spot. We decided to go further into the big bay towards the river inlet, which we can’t go up as it has power lines across it and we don’t think we would make it under it with our mast. We wondered down passing a number of cute little bays, we tried getting into Schoolhouse bay but it was a bit tight, with all local boats on moorings. The next bay along we anchored in, it was deep enough into the big bay to have no swell like at Mansion house which was the first bay as you entered. I’m not sure if I’m explaining this very well, I’ve just had a very restorative G&T….. it’s a big bay with lots of little bays off it.

We got settled and then hopped into JeldiJeldi and headed back to the Mansion house to explore Sir Grey’s house, which was the Mining Superintendent’s house before Grey bought it and remodelled it into the grand mansion it is today. Sadly the house and cafe were closed, only opening on the weekend, even though the ferry was delivering a boatload of people (10 People!). The whole area was bought by the government in the 1970’s and is a Historic reserve with lots of walks. Sadly it is all looking a little rundown with some paths closed but we headed for the Copper mine which was still open. What a stunning walk among the tree ferns. There are a lot of fallen conifers and redwoods, they must have been such a valuable commodity in the early 1900s. It almost looks like they are killing off the pines to let the indigenous tree ferns and Manuka trees thrive. It was a glorious walk up and over to the Copper Mines, passing the Lady’s cove with a lovely little beach.

Copper was discovered by accident. The original mining operations were to extract manganese, the copper was mined from 1844 until June 1852. There were up to 300 people living on the island during this period. The copper ore eventually became difficult to extract, because most of the mine workings were below sea level and had to be constantly pumped free of water. Eventually flooding and competition between two companies working the same ore body led to closure of the mine in 1852. There were further attempts to reopen the mine in 1854-55 and 1900-02, but it is likely that little copper ore remains. The ruins were pretty impressive, looking just like the mining chimneys in Cornwall, reminding us of our coastal walk we did in Cornwall with my sister Widge and Edmund.

We managed to do a circular walk back and found JeldiJeldi safe and sound, always a bit of a worry with the tide. We returned to PolePole and after an absolute deluge of rain that we narrowly missed we had a glorious evening with stunning sunset skies. We are really enjoying the late evenings.

Leaving the Mansion Bay for a less crowded spot

We tried to anchor in this little bay but there were too many shallow parts, just look at all the tall pines

Our final anchorage with a very cute old house

Arriving back at the Mansion house in JeldiJeldi, but sadly we are not allowed to tie up to the big jetty

The house has been beautifully restored to its 1850’s glory

Lady’s swimming cove, a lovely sandy beach unlike the pebble beach at the Mansion

A white sandy island, it could be Fiji!

The Copper mine from the top of the headland, reminiscent of Cornwall

Incredible trees

Manuka and tree ferns galore

Huge tree ferns swamping Rowan, making the path into a tunnel

Mine shafts

The oyster encrusted old boiler

The brick chimney with its sandstone bottom

More shafts

Crazy rock patterns

The chimney is a work of art

The sandstone eroding in the salt water

Is this green the copper they were looking for?

Dispute cove, one guy bought the land rights and the other the water rights. The guy with the water rights promptly mined under the land to get at the copper causing a big dispute!