OceanaGold | Waihi North Project | Recreation and tourism assessment 39 TO GET TO THE PUT IN: Owharoa Falls is about 1 km east of the township of Waikino. Park and find the easiest way down to the water. If you don't want to paddle the top section there are many other possible put in spots as you drive down the gorge. THE TAKE OUT is where the walkway through an old tunnel comes out on the road, about 800 metres east of Karangahake. Egarr (1989) refers to limited kayaking options above the Gorge: The Ohinemuri can be run from a little below Waihi, but il is a narrow stream there, without a great deal of interest to paddlers. Once it was very much choked with willows, but these have been almost completely cleared above the gorge, in the area around Waikino. As the road and rail lines follow the river through the gorge, there are a number of accessible putin points. The rail line is now a walkway which gives fine views of the gorge. The most commonly used put-in is at a highway rest area a little less than 2km below Waikino. There are other put-ins lower down. The paddle boat Tamati offers river cruises on the Waihou and Ohinemuri Rivers from the Historical Maritime Park north of Paeroa downstream of the Waihou confluence.24 5.1.3 Swimming The Waikato Regional Council monitors bathing water quality on the Ohinemuri River at only Karangahake Gorge just upstream of Mackaytown. The site is monitored for only 12 weeks over the summer period (the start of December to the end of February). Summary results for data from 2018 are presented on the LAWA data portal (Figure 24).25 5.1.4 Terrestrial recreation Strava heatmap data (as described in Section 3.2.4 of this report) gives a good indication of the popular walking and cycling options near the Ohinemuri River. Figure 25 shows the heatmap for both running and cycling (with running a good proxy for walking) for the Ohinemuri River from the OGNZL water treatment discharge to downstream of SH2. Access is popular around the border of Ngāti Koi 24 https://historicalmaritimepark.co.nz/park-services/river-cruises/ 25 https://www.lawa.org.nz/explore-data/waikato-region/swimming/ohinemuri-river-at-karangahake/swimsite Figure 24: Waikato Regional Council bathing water quality results 2018 – 2021. Lawa data
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