Karangahake 1906 (Auckland Museum photo)
Brief History of Karangahake:
10th century: Ngati Hako people ventured upstream from their pa on the swampy plains.
17th century: Tainui tribes settled in the area.
1860: Joshua Thorp (the first pakeha farmer to settle in the district) found gold bearing quartz. However, local tribes disallowed prospecting.
1864: Government Commissioner, James Mackay, started to gain the trust of local chiefs by loaning money. When the debts grew to an unrepayable amount, he offered to write the debt off against the rent and royalties for ‘miners rights’ if the chiefs would open the Ohinemuri area for mining.
1875: The Ohinemuri field was opened to prospectors. Over 800 mining licenses were issued. Miners soon discovered the terrain was dangerous, the stone hard to break up and the gold was difficult to extract. Many gave up. Bigger companies took over and tried roasting the quartz in kilns. The results were dissapointing.
1895: The Government declared Ohinemuri and Waihou rivers to be sludge canals. Thousands of tons of tailings were poured into the river, causing serious flooding and killing all aquatic life.
1889: A cyanide process for extracting gold and silver was introduced. Crown Gold Mining Company became the first in the world to use this on a commercial scale.
1904: Crown and Talisman had taken over most of the claims and built two large, efficient stamper batteries.
1915: Gold production began to fall.
To find out where the cache is hidden, solve the following (answers can be found online):
a = population of Karangahake township in 1911 (sum of digits)
b = length (feet) of the aerial tramway that was used to carry ore down to County Road (sum of digits)
c = number of levels of the Talisman mine
d = the month (number) in 1875 when the Ohinemuri field was opened to prospectors
add (a x d x b - c) to the S coordinate (ignoring the decimal point)
subtract (b x c + a - d) from the E coordinate (ignoring the decimal point)
