Am                      Em                      E                       Am             
1. The hills grow ancient, green and tall, as they have always done there,

          Am                Em             E                           Am  
  And press together over all, to shield the earth from sun there.

  Dm                             Am                               Dm                  E7 
  Seedlings grow, young trees grow old,  old ones die and turn to mould,

        Am                 Dm                         E7                         Am  
  Till bush returns to hills once clear, and man, it seems, was never there,

             Dm                   Am                               E       E7           Am
  But the apple trees still bloom each year, in the hills . . . of Coromandel.


2. It was the gold that brought the men, when thousands here did rally.
  Their secret shattered shafts remain, abandoned in the valley.
  Roads they fashioned in the clay, are overgrown or washed away,
  And fences built by settlers' hands, are gone restoring broken lands,
  And a rusted gateway lonely stands, in the hills . . . of Coromandel


 3. No more the taverns where they stood, no more the thousand people,
  And timber church is gone for good with ruined, rotted steeple.
  It's years now since the miner came to work the gold, exhaust his claim,
  Then leave the place for better game than that he'd found, but just the same
  The toppled tombstones bear their names in the hills . . . of Coromandel.


 4. Those days of gold are past and gone with the men who took their chances.
  The bush is slowly marching on in a silence no-one answers.
  Now birds call loud to empty air - no-one comes, there's nothing there
  But a gate that's open to nowhere and names on sandstone faint but clear
  And the apple trees that bloom each year in the hills . . . of Coromandel.