KEY POINTS:
Fancy standing over a 200m mine pit with nothing between you and the bottom but a pane of glass?
That is one of the attractions envisioned for the Waihi Gold Discovery Centre - a $20 million project aimed at ensuring the Coromandel town has life after gold.
Not
for the fainthearted, the "vertigo experience" will take visitors along a tunnel cantilevered over the rim of Waihi's Martha Mine.
Doors will close and open as smoky glass underfoot clears to show the stomach-churning depths of the pit.
The Vision Waihi Trust and its chief executive, Eddie Morrow, have been working with the local community to find ways to ensure the town's economic survival once the mine ceases operation.
Waihi has been a mining hub since the 1880s and it is not known how long the gold and silver will last.
Although it is likely to be a few years yet, the Gold Discovery Centre - projected to generate $6 million in annual turnover and create 53 full-time equivalent jobs - is seen as one means of creating a sustainable future for Waihi.
"Gold mining has been a big part of the town's history but it won't last forever, so we need to act now to ensure we are able to manage our own destiny," Mr Morrow said.
The trust and New Zealand Mint are partners in the joint private-public venture, which also has the support of the Government, Hauraki District Council and Newmont Waihi Gold, which operates the mine.
Prime Minister Helen Clark attended the launch this week to announce a $1.8 million contribution from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
She ran her hands through a pan of gold - something it is hoped visitors to the centre will also be able to do, as well as watch liquid gold being poured.
Rather than a museum, the centre will aim to be an "underground experience", beginning with an entrance that emulates a mine opening.
In addition to the glass tunnel extending over the Martha pit, another tunnel will connect the centre to the old Cornish pumphouse - a 2000-tonne, 20m-high structure used in mining operations at the turn of last century and recently moved 300m from its original location at a cost of more than $4 million.
At the pumphouse, visitors will be able to step into an enclosed platform to experience the feeling of descending via a mesh cage to a miners' tunnel, while in reality not moving.
The centre hopes to become a stopover for some of the 100,000 tourists who take State Highway 2 through Waihi.