7 January 2017 - Punakaiki Beach Camp, Westland

The rope road to Coalbrooktown

Rainy unsummery days have filled the interim but we have not sat about waiting for positive change.  I am pleased to report that as I start this update, the sun is shining and I have had to lower the rear blind so I can see the computer screen. I shall not mention that it was drizzling just an hour ago.

We spent our last morning at Denniston walking through history, having driven further up on gravel to the now long gone township of Burnett’s Face. There we parked and walked up past the spot where once Ropers Hotel sat, before turning up the rope road to Coalbrooktown. Now only a two kilometre walkway for the likes of us, it is littered with fraying iron rope, railway sleepers and upstanding bolts, following the valley to the site of the old Coalbrookdale sheds, then following  the Whareatea and Cascade rope roads to the mine mouths, passing remains of tunnels, building foundations, a haulage winch and delapidated bridges.  At the top end is New Zealand’s best example of an early coalmine fanhouse, built in the early 20^th century to suck foul air from the vast network of mine workings. We poked about the fan house for some time and peered into mine entries, now all barred from the curious. Once this was an area of industry, now only host to the odd tourist, wekas and a multitude of tuis and bellbirds which we observed feeding on the nectar of the flax flowers. The walk is supposed to take an hour but we spent longer; it was lunchtime when we returned to the motorhome, after which we drove back to the Friends of the Hill Museum. 

The rains of old rope road bridges

This is situated in the old hall and is a work of love by volunteers who have done their best to gather memorabilia and stories of past residents. Spoilt by well curated modern museums, we thought it left a lot to be desired, however it does offer a wonderful resource for those wanting to follow up details of the life and times of the miners and families who lived on the plateau during those industrious years. We found the old bus which transported the miners from their homes to the mines quite fascinating;  the slatted seating like park benches and the driver’s controls a very minimum. Somewhere amongst the snippets of information I had seen that the bus would never actually stop once started, it simply slowed right down to make the pick up or drop off, and one could well imagine why. It may have never started again!

We headed back down to the coast, descending the very steep road without event and settled back into a spot at the Westport South Beach NZMCA for the night. In fact we stayed there the next night too, making three nights in total in this very secure spot.

The fam house

The next day,  after dealing with business matters in town, including having printing and scanning done at the library, we spent some time in the Coaltown Museum, once in a shed on the southern edge of town, now immediately behind the iSite. This is well curated, however we felt there was little new here beyond what the previous museum had offered. Certainly the displays are very modern and we would recommend visitors to Westport spend some time here, because coal has, after all, been the backbone of the West Coast, and here the mining, transport and social history, giving special emphasis to the power of the unions, is dealt with well.

Yesterday we spent checking out the area immediately to the south of Westport, lunching at Carter’s Beach on the expansive domain. Here the residences are more modern, more upmarket than those mainly found across the Buller River in the town however there are no facilities here apart from a café. 

View over Cape Foulwind carpark

We drove further south to Cape Foulwind and walked up to the lighthouse. The car park area has all been revamped since we were last here and there are signs everywhere forbidding overnight camping. Years ago we stayed here, but then there were not well tended gardens and toilets, only the wekas and seagulls. From here one can walk nearly four kilometres down to Tauranga Bay, passing by the seal colony. 

The lighthouse sitting on the knoll closely surrounded by scrub was built in the 1920s to replace the original hexagonal wooden lighthouse built in 1876. The original had a kerosene fuelled light tended by the keepers who lived on site. The replacement is a less appealing concrete structure housing an automatic light system.

From the tidal flats of the Okari Lagoon

We chose instead to drive around to the Bay and walk the kilometre back up to the viewing platform. Chris is not keen on seals at all, and really only because of the stench that normally accompanies their habitation. Yesterday the winds were just right and the bulk of the seals must have been out at sea fishing or perhaps had moved away; there was no great odour problem and we stood on the lookout platform for some time spotting the seals far below us, mainly very small pups, much darker than their elders, watching their antics in small rockpools and labouring across the rugged rocky terrain can entertain for hours; certainly there were plenty of foreign tourists to be so.

From the same pathway there are views across to Wall Island, a rugged rocky isle home to a variety of seabirds including  Red-billed gulls, White fronted terns, Sooty Shearwaters, Fairy Prions. There are traps on the mainland to capture any predators that might consider the short swim and a set of binoculars available to those interested in checking out the colony. 

Road and cliffs behin our camp

Back on the road, we continued on south along Okari Road gathering dust and cow dung on the exterior of the van, in search of the reserve that is apparently home to other bird life, however access to any such public way remained ellusive. We wandered out onto the lagoon sands, drying out as the tide receded, admired the surrounding area then returned to our filthy vehicle. Back in Westport we called by the dump site and Chris spent five minutes using the town water supply for purposes other than supply. We returned to camp clean enough to not embarrass ourselves.

Rain and cold temperatures have plagued us through the last few days and this morning was no different. We travelled south down the coast road toward Greymouth in pesky showers, passing through Charleston which has several flash new buildings offering services to the passing tourist and Mitchells Gully Gold Mine now much busier with the curious than it was when we called eight years or so ago. 

Looking back down toward our camp

We paused at Tiromoana to check out the free camping spot by the Fox River mouth and noted its size and popular patronage. Then on we went to Punakaiki, now about fifty kilometres south of Westport. Here there is another spot for freedon campers, provided they are certified self-contained, however the spaces are too short for our vehicle and few anywhere near flat. We called into the motorcamp to enquire about space. I had checked out the app as regards prices and while the host’s pages neatly avoided stating the price, a customers comments suggested that we would only have to pay $25 for the two of us on power. The grammar in the comment was poor, which suggested English was not the first, second or third language of the customer; I should have been suspicious. In reality, it would cost us $20 each for the privelege of staying here before our small NZMCA member discount ; we hesitated and then relented. We had little choice and nor do most of the others in here tonight being fleeced of their hard saved dollars.

Rock caverns at Punakaiki

The camp is right on the beach and is dotted with South Island rata, all in the throes of glorious crimson bloom, and the steep sheer cliffs rise immediately behind. It is a stunning spot, but there are a mere three toilets and showers to serve the women here, and no doubt the same for the men. There are something like eighty five sites here, so that equates for one toilet per twenty eight people. There may well be a rush in the morning!

Punakaiki's Pancake Rocks

But this afternoon after we set up and had finished lunch, we set off a kilometre down the road, up to Dolomite Point. There we joined dozens of other tourists and walked around the paved twenty minute track to the Pancake Rocks and Punakaiki Blowholes. The tide was wrong for the best of the blowholes but the thundering waves in the sea caverns, pools and archways of limestone rock were still incredibly impressive. The limestone has been weathered by air and sea to resemble an immense stack of pancakes creating stylobedding, a chemical process in which the pressure of overlying sediments creates alternating durable and weaker bands. Although we had been here before and were less star struck than many of the tourists today, we still took much longer than the specified time, before heading back down the hill, past the camp to the car park at the entry to the Porarari River track. 

The Pororari River

This is an absolutely lovely walk following the course of the river, through nikau and native bush, between spectacularly high cliff walls, and of relatively good grade, although there are a few steps and rocky riverside caverns to pass through. We walked as far as the junction with the Inland Pack Track, a much longer and challenging route, walked a little further to cross the swing bridge over the Pororari River, then turned and retraced our steps. We were back out on the road within two hours and soon at the motorcamp where we took long hot showers and plugged our electrical appliances  in for a good solid charge.

As the evening has progressed, more and more motorhomes, campervans and cars have come in; I am sure there is a full house, as there has apparently been every day over the past three weeks. There will be a battle for the loos in the morning for sure!