와이히 마샤 금광 투어 - 꼭 가볼 만!

타우랑가 이번달에 가장 추천하는 교육 체험 투어는 와이히 마샤 금광 투어 뿌리튼튼반 학생들은 곧 한번 가야죠..? 타우랑가에서 1시간 거리의 와이히에 도착, 투어 시간은 약 2시간이 소요되므로 왕복 4시간을 계획하셔야 됩니다. 금광 투어를 마치고, 오래된 증기 기관차도 타보실 계획이라면 토요일 하루종일 걸리겠습니다. 뿌리반 학생뿐만 아니라... 타우랑가 가족들 모두가 함께 하면 참 좋은 교육 체험, 견학이 될 것 같네요. 의견을 모아주세요...

와이히 마샤 금광 투어   What is opencast mining really all about – and is it as environmentally fiendish as it sounds?  Hard core anti mining protestors might regard a tour of the Martha Mine at Waihi as a form of disaster tourism.   But while debate continues over conservation lands tagged for possible mining, it’s a see-for-yourself opportunity to view one of the country’s biggest opencast mining operations.   ‘Get to the bottom of it,’ is the catch line for thought-provoking two-hour tours of the yawning pit operated by Newmont Mining Corporation, and the stages involved in extracting precious metals from the rock.(The Denver-based company took over the mining operations in 2002). Waihi, population 4,500, is certainly a town with a ‘heart of gold,’ in the local public relations patter – the opencast mine not visible, but strikingly close to the downtown.      와이히 금광 투어는 와이이 비지터 센터에서 출발. 1903년에 세워진 펌프하우스 관람와 Heart of Gold 와이히를 먼저 둘러보게 된다. 260미터 깊이, 넓이 700미터에 달하는 금광을 한눈에 내려다 보이는 전망대에 도착,     Mine tours leave from the Waihi Visitor Centre in Seddon Street, near the magnificent 1903 Cornish Pumphouse, that sits on the skyline as the mining town’s new landmark. It was shifted at a cost of $4.2 million by Newmont, from a risky, unstable spot closer to the pit.   The fact-filled tours touch on lots of key milestones in the development of a town shaped by mining since the raw days of the 1800’s. The tours are refreshingly - far from a propaganda exercise - run by Vision Waihi Trust, not the company. And while obviously pro-mining, guide Murray Elliot, a good-humoured, long-time local whose grandfather arrived from Cornwall to work in the mine, doesn’t duck environmental questions. He points to some of the many regulations (and significant bonds), which prevent the company from walking away from environmental problems. And he outlines a wide range of environmental rehabilitation measures.    Over half a million native plants grown in Newmont’s own nursery have been planted around the mining operations. The tailings dam has a ‘non toxic’ lake that’s home to a healthy flock of water fowl, and the company has its own project to help breed endangered New Zealand dotterel. All the water from the various processes is laundered by a high-tech water treatment plant before it’s finally discharged into the Ohinemuri River. And Newmont’s plans for the pit itself centre on the creation of a landscaped lake.               We learn also, that the mine of course, is the town’s major employer providing jobs directly for 350, and many more who provide Newmont with goods and services.   First stop on the tour is a viewing platform with a hawk’s view of a breathtaking hole in the ground, 260 metres deep, and over 700 metres wide. The pit is so large that over-sized dump trucks hauling tonnes of ore look like Tonka toys.  “Incredible – in the middle of town,” exclaims an elderly English tourist, a little inaccurately.      An immediate surprise is the lack of high-decibel industrial din, and dust clouds from the mine’s workings. Diggers and trucks are not permitted to produce more than 55 decibels in daytime – far less than a group of school children at play, our guide notes. Water trucks constantly damped down the dust.  It takes around 20 minutes for one giant truck ($2 million-plus price tag) to crawl slowly back to the surface with 90 to 100 tonnes of ore for processing. The ore will yield 9 teaspoons of gold, and 90 of silver. At the pit-edge, behind a large safety fence, Murray Elliot tells of Waihi’s early days. In that era of hard, dirty, laborious work, Murray Elliot explains, miners ‘worked around’ the early compensation system for a lost digit – which worth 400 pounds, enough to buy a miner’s cottage. ‘Those desperate enough had their mates cut their thumbs off to obtain the compensation.’ They called them the ‘thumb houses.’  While the spectacular open pit grabs media attention, Newmont also operates Favona, an underground mine nearby, where 40 odd workers spend 11 hours underground at a time. We are shown an escape hatch (but there are 3000 steps to clamber up from the mine tunnels). Extracting the gold is a technical process of several stages, that involves the use of a weak cyanide solution to dissolve the gold and silver, and then carbon granules the gold and silver attaches itself to. At the end of the process, amid tight security, a muddy sludge dried to a powder is smelted at 1100 C to produce ‘molten lava.’ The bars produced, a mix of gold and silver, weigh around 20kgs and are worth from $100,000 to $280,000. The gold bullion leaves the site under ‘top secret’ conditions, says Murray, ‘I’ve never seen it.’ They are sent to a specialised industrial mint in Perth where the two metals are separated. (Editor Grant Dyson visited Martha Mine courtesy of Waihi Gold Mine Tours)   Fact File: It takes just over two hours to drive from Auckland to Waihi, or just under an hour from Tauranga. Waihi Gold Mine Tours cost $25, departing from the Waihi Visitor’s Centre, 126 Seddon Street. Tel 07-863 9015 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              07-863 9015      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, www.waihi.org.nz    출처: http://www.bestoftauranga.com/spotlight.php?area=spotlight&news_id=1318