WEST COAST Look after yourself Your safety is your responsibility Walks in the Choose a walk that matches the weather and your own • Plan your trip experience, and interests you. Know what the weather • Tell someone your plans is doing – it can change dramatically in a short time. • Be aware of the weather Westport area Call at Department of Conservation (DOC) offices or Visitor Centres to check current weather and • Know your limits track conditions. • Take sufficient supplies Times given are a guide only, and will vary depending on Visit www.mountainsafety.org.nz to learn more. fitness, weather and track conditions. For walks longer than an hour, pack a small first aid kit and take extra food and drink. Insect repellent is recommended to ward off sandflies and mosquitoes. Cape Foulwind Walkway Photo: Miles Holden The combined output of coal mines and sawmills helped create a remarkable railway up the sheer-sided Ngakawau Gorge to Charming Creek. It is now used by thousands of walkers who rate it one of the best walkways around. Westport had the West Coast’s earliest gold diggings The Westport area extends from and has some of the best-preserved reminders of this the Mokihinui River in the north vibrant period. Your historical wanderings can range from the haunting hillside site of Lyell, which many to Tauranga Bay in the south, and motorists pass unaware of, to the lonely Britannia inland to the Buller Gorge, including battery, reached by determined trampers via a several mountain ranges. It is valley track. wonderfully diverse. Even the highways have historic features, including Hawks Crag, a low-roofed ledge blasted out of solid There is a great range of walking rock in the lower Buller Gorge, and the stone-piered Iron Bridge in the upper gorge. Beyond, there is a Photo: R Rossiter DOC R Rossiter Photo: opportunities. You can choose to road that has always been at the mercy of storms and Denniston Brakehead Walkway visit a seal colony in the morning earthquakes. Look out for superb views of the scars Seal Colony viewing area and then spend the afternoon on these have left on the landscape along the way. the Denniston Plateau. This brochure outlines walks that will take you to natural and historic highlights of the Westport area. Walking times range from 15 minutes Geologically this area has quite recent mudstones to 2 to 3 hours. and sandstones as well as some of New Zealand’s most ancient gneiss formations (coarse-grained, layered metamorphic rock). Plants range from exquisite localised daisies to tall timber forests. Native animals include rare native birds and large carnivorous snails fond of earthworms. Cape Foulwind Lighthouse Although there are vast unpopulated natural areas, over the years the activities of people have left their story. High plateau mines produced coal of such superb quality that the British navy bought it by the shipload to stockpile all over the world as fuel for its fleet. Demand eventually dwindled, but the towns of Denniston and Millerton remain, along with relics of their mining and transport systems that were once as famous as the coal they produced. Cape Foulwind. Photos: Miles Holden Foulwind. Photos: Cape to Karamea 1 Denniston Bridle Path 2 Denniston Brakehead Walk Seddonville 3 Coalbrookdale Walk Photo: Benhi Dixon Photo: 4 Britannia Track 67 SEE 5 Lyall historic cemetery 7 Hector CHARMING 6 Croesus battery CREEK Ng 7 Charming Creek Walkway Granity ak aw a 8 Tauranga Bay car park to seal colony viewpoint u R iv 9 Cape Foulwind Walkway e r 4 Waimangaroa r e v 1 Denniston i R Carters 67 2 Cape y Beach e Westport SEE l to Foulwind 67 k 9 A DENNISTON c Murchison 3 a PLATEAU Springs Junction 8 M r o 67 Denniston Brakehead Lyell SEE a k 5 6 CAPE FOULWIND a k i r O SEE LYELL CAMPSITE 6 Inangahua AND WALKS 6 6 Junction Denniston Plateau Inangahua to Reefton 69 Denniston has a history rich in coal mining and to Greymouth Public conservation State Sealed Metalled 0 5 pioneering spirit. Wild and remote, the township Tracks 6 area Highway roads roads was once bursting with life. Although many of the kilometres industrial and domestic buildings have long gone, remnants of the town and the mine remain as an Track grades evocative reminder of life on ‘The Hill’. Take a Easy access short walks – Short walk – easy walking Walking track – gentle Tramping track – wheelchair accessible for up to an hour walking from a few minutes backcountry skills and historic walk on the same tracks that residents and to a day experience needed miners used over a hundred years ago and explore the many relics still present. Interpretation panels alongside the track and at the main car park bring the history of Denniston to life. Access: Heading north-east from Westport, follow State Highway 67 for 18 km to Waimangaroa; then turn right and follow signs to Denniston. Denniston Bridle Path 1 Coalbrookdale Walk 3 DENNISTON 3 hr up, 2.5 hr down, 4.2 km 30 min, 1 km one way PLATEAU The track is a pleasant, if steep, walk, starting A good gravel road behind Denniston (still used by coal O’CONNOR at the Waimangaroa (bottom) end where it is trucks) leads to the start of the walkway that follows ROAD signposted from Conns Creek Road. It finishes part of the cable-car rope road that carried coal from the 67 at Denniston township. A short branch track mines to the top of the Denniston Incline. Relics include 4 near the top leads to the incline that carried coal tunnels, foundations, a haulage winch and the country’s down (and occasional cool-nerved passengers up). best remaining example of a mine fanhouse. Waimangaroa A lower branch to the Waimangaroa–Denniston road offers a shorter walking option. Britannia Britannia Track 4 gold mine Aside from the incline, the bridle path, completed in 2 hr, 6 km one way 1884, was the only access to Denniston. People either walked or used horses on it. In an area rich in history, this walk follows an old pack DENNIST track climbing steadily through varied forest of rātā, rimu 1 and kahikatea to the abandoned Britannia gold mine. Denniston ON BRAKEHEAD Brakehead Walk6 2 Here you’ll find a complete five-head quartz crushing 2 WALK 40 min, 1.1 km loop battery with most of its ancillary equipment intact. ROAD Starting from the car park above the Brakehead, this walk Access: 3 km north of Waimangaroa, turn off State leads to a viewpoint at the top of the famous Denniston Highway 67 on to O’Connor Road, and follow this road incline, past Denniston’s first settlement ‘The Camp’ and for 5 km to the car park and start of the track. on to the Banbury Arch (a drystone arch) viewpoint. It returns via the historic mine workshop site. You can see 3 many relics from Denniston’s past on this walk. 0 1 kilometre BRAKEHEAD WALK Mine fanhouse 1 0 50 100 Walking track Denniston Bridle Path Denniston Brakehead Walkway 1 2 Tramping track Denniston 2 metres 2 6 State Highway Brakehead Walk Sealed road 3 Coalbrookdale Walk Metalled road 4 Britannia Track 2 Car park Historic site 2 Toilets Car park 2 Denniston Brakehead Walk Viewpoint 1 Denniston Bridle Path Photo: R Rossiter DOC R Rossiter Photo: LYELL CAMPSITE AND WALKS 6 Croesus battery Lyell 5 B Lyell u cemetery l l e 6 r R 0 500 to Murchison metres Toilets 5 Lyell cemetery Camping 6 Croesus battery Car park Lyell historic walkway Historic site The Old Ghost Road Lyell cemetery 5 15 min, 320 m one way Signposted from the campsite, the track passes the former Catholic church site and enters native beech Lyell Walks. Photos: R Rossiter DOC R Rossiter Photos: Walks. Lyell forest clinging to a steep hillside. It leads on to a Lyell Cemetery Lyell Historic Walkway picturesque goldfield cemetary. Surviving headstones, some in iron-fenced plots with large trees growing out of them, tell stories of short lives and tragic deaths. Between 30 and 40 people were buried here from 1880 to 1900. Lyell Campsite and walks Croesus battery5 6 Lyell was once the chief producer of gold in the road in the Lyell to the Mokihinui River in the 45 min, 2 km one way Buller district. You can explore reminders of north. For more information on this track, From the campsite, and a short distance beyond the its rich past in a short stroll around the historic visit the Old Ghost Road website at Lyell cemetery, you will come to ‘Māori Bar’, the site of the first gold strike in 1862. There is a tunnel here Lyell Cemetery or a 2 km walk to the Croesus oldghostroad.org.nz. that miners drove through solid rock to de-water the Battery. From the campsite, a short track takes Access: The Lyell Campsite is located on State Highway creek bed for easier mining. you down to the river where you can try your 6 in the Upper Buller Gorge, approximately 17 km from Crossing the bridge, the walkway soon joins the Old luck panning for gold. There are 18 campsites. Inangahua Junction and 35 km from Murchison. Ghost Road for a short distance, then branches off again Access from State Highway 6 is via a sealed road. The Old Ghost Road, an old gold miners' on a side track to the right that leads to a viewing point overlooking the Croesus stamper battery. The battery road that has been revived as a tramping and Lyell historic walkway takes you to a cemetery and a mine site from the gold-mining days.