This website is the big picture, the overall view, but if you want detailed information on what to see, where to go, where to eat, where to stay go to my FREE E-book "A New Zealand Travel Guide"
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The South Island's West Coast, New Zealand "A heritage of mining shapes the land and the people"
The Coast - there's only one "Coast" with a capital C in NZ - is one of the most romantic and fascinating areas in the country, especially if you're into nature tourism. Indeed, in that case it is one of the richest of regions. The southern reaches of the West Coast are a World Heritage Park area . . . for very good reason: They are home to the world's only example of pre-dinosaur forest. More about that later. A recovering wilderness is probably the best description of the region. Its history is that of extractive exploitation. Now don't read me wrong - I'm not an anti-mining and anti-milling nutter and, overall, mining and milling were probably good for The Coast. Without them there wouldn't be more than a few metres of mud track - no roads, no development and therefore no significant opportunity to explore today. But no doubt about it, they have shaped both the past and the future of this long narrow strip sandwiched between the Tasman Sea and the sheer wall of the Southern Alps. No other region in NZ celebrates its individuality and regional identity quite as much as the West Coast. "Coasters" are different. They know it and they rejoice in it. Nowhere in the country does the pioneer past lie so close to the surface of contemporary life. Making a living here has always been hard. Mining, timber milling, farming, fishing . . . they're all hard yakker and they breed hard people. Individualists, self reliant, self-contained, and like all pioneering folk, wonderfully hospitable. Take your time here - time moves slower here anyway. Take time to wander off into the rainforest. Take time to explore a sub-tropical glacier. Take time to breast the bar in a fair-dinkum Coast pub and study the natives in their natural habitat. Nowhere else in the country will you get a more authentic "Kiwi" experience. Wanaka to Haast This is the forest as it was in the ancient supercontinent, Gondwanaland. This is a forest that pre-dates dinosaurs. When the dinosaur became the dominant animal species, they, unlike any predecessor, browsed on plant life. In order to overcome the constant defoliation, the plant life had to adopt a faster breeding cycle - so they developed bright flowers to attract insects as a pollination vector. Now you'll notice that in the NZ bush there are relatively few flowers. That's because the primeval forest here did not have dinosaurs, nor any other sort of broad-scale browsing animal. That's why introduced species like deer and opossums have had such a devastating effect. This forest land was never designed to take that level of grazing pressure. Don't let all this animal-rights pressure-group political indoctrination put you off wearing one sort of animal fur - possum, a.k.a. kiwibear. You'll do our economy and our forest land a big favour by buying anything made of the hide of this forestland pestilence. Have your camera well
loaded with plenty of available memory - along this stretch of road there have been many
prize-winning shots snapped. But the subjects are subtle rather than
bold . . . keep a watchful eye for them. There is something quite unique about these rivers of ice - they crash down into a temperate rain forest. Nowhere else on Spaceship Earth does that happen. (Think about it for a moment. It is a bit weird, ain't it??). How come? The juxtaposition of a steeply rising mountain chain and a warm ocean current not far off shore. The Southern Alps are very young mountains. Thus they are steep and high - time and torrent have yet to tame them. They rear up suddenly from the narrow coastal plain that we call the West Coast. In most places it's only a few km from the seashore to the toes of the mountains. Indeed, on the southern reaches of the road - the bit from Haast to Moeraki - the mountains paddle those toes in the tide along a coastline very reminiscent of California's Big Sur. But I digress. Just offshore, a warm current sweeps down the coastline bringing an almost sub-tropical lushness to the vegetation. Palm trees thrive here, only kms from the tongue tip of a glacier. The Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier. Fox is slightly the more accessible. A walk from the car park to the terminal face of the glacier is about an hour round trip. One word of advice - don't go clambering around on the ice itself without proper equipment and guidance. These are dangerous beasts. Local guides have a variety of expeditionary options to both the Fox Glacier and the Franz. To get a view from up above there is a range of flightseeing options including landings on either glacier: Fox Glacier Franz Josef There are several delightful short walks in and around the township. Whitewater rafting on the Waiho River, or kayak on beautiful Lake Mapourika. At nearby Lake Okarito is one of the nesting grounds of the rare kotuku, the white heron. You can go on foot, but take a guided tour for a really good look. Take a look at the
Anglican Church of St James. Its altar window is another famous
photograph (it appeared on one of our stamps many years ago before such
things were considered good commercial subjects). It's certainly a match
for any stained glass. Ross The City Hotel on the main road here is a gem. It looks as rough as sacks, and it is. But it's also a genuine piece of Coast history. In 1907 two miners discovered a nugget the size of a small loaf of bread and weighing 2.83kg. The locals christened it "The Hon. Roddy" after the then Minister of Mines, Hon Roderick McKenzie. It was bought by the City Hotel's publican and put on display in the hotel, and in true Coast style - you gotta admit these guys have style - he used it as a door stop!! In a pub!!! And it never went missing. Hokitika It's well worth a diversion because here you'll get some of the best quality artefacts in the country - I wouldn't demean the best of them by calling them "souvenirs". They are much more than that. In the rivers of the region greenstone is found - a high quality nephritic jade - and local artisans turn it into carvings that range from excellent craft to works of art. You can also see glass-blowers at work and workshops that convert natural gold nuggets from the region into unique jewellery. t. If you're here in March,
time your stay to catch the
Hokitika
Wild Foods Festival
. . . all the finest in wild cuisine from the bush, rivers and sea.
It's not only wild - some of it is outright weird.
Huhu grubs, gumboot milkshakes, gorse flower wine, sphagnum moss candy
floss, high protein earthworms, blue fin tuna, scallops, whisky
sausages, mussels, possum and bambi burgers, kumara patties, home made
ice cream, pigs trotters, West Coast whitebait etc. Fancy a schooner of the local brew? Take a tour of Monteiths Brewery. Top drop - ask any Coaster.. You can also a slew of adventure activities such as rafting and quad biking. Greymouth to
Christchurch The railway - because trains don't do hills all that well - had to burrow under said "hill" and the Otira Tunnel is still one of the longer railway tunnels in the world. It's a highlight of the now-famous Tranzalpine train journey that daily makes a return crossing from Christchurch to Greymouth and back. There's no doubt that this is a big attraction and in summer you'll have to book well in advance. Greymouth to
Nelson/Blenheim/Picton Get a closer look at the wild beauty of the coast by kayaking on one of the local rivers in the Paparoa National Park. Stop in at Mitchell's Gully Gold Mine - a genuine working gold-mine. Although it has won tourist awards, it is still run first and foremost as a gold mine, using traditional methods, rather than as a tourist attraction. As an alternative to the SH6 route between Charleston and Westport, divert off to Cape Foulwind to see the Seal Colony. In Westport stop off for a look at Coaltown Museum. It is museum, a recreation, of the coal mining industry. But if you'd really like to see coal mining in action Underground Union Experience is probably my pick of the Wesport experiences - a two hour guided journey underground in a real coal mine, reliving the lives of the old Denniston miners. You'll also get to see the world-famous (among miners) Denniston Incline. Download my FREE e-book "A New Zealand Travel Guide
A New Zealand Travel Guide is written by David Morris and published by 148 Hillsborough Rd, Hillsborough,
Auckland 1042,
New Zealand. [Return to the top of A New Zealand Travel Guide] |
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