15 January 2017 - South Beach NZMCA Park, Westport

Lake Hanlon

This morning we hung about our camp beside the sea, hoping the overnight rain would clear. When we did finally leave after 10am to travel south toward Karamea, we were pleasantly surprised to see the skies brightening and the rain gone. In Karamea, we bought bread and yesterday’s newspaper then headed south again, stopping soon after Little Wanganui to walk the short track up to Lake Hanlon. 

The lake is quite picturesque and well worth the quarter hour ascent, the track well drained and firm underfoot. We stood on the raised platform over the lake edge, the lake-like a crater in the middle of the bush, nothing else about other than the tuis who occasionally called from the surrounding trees. 

Back on the road we continued on over the Karamea Bluff, today the visability so much better than our northlerly trip. Today the crimson bloom of the rata was more pronounced and the rugged range visable. Soon after passing over the summit we were able to see the road winding down far below us toward the Mokinui River.

Walking the rail corridor

Near sea level, we turned up the road to Seddonville, then continued on past this tiny has-been settlement on eight kilometres of gravel until we arrived at the end of the road and the remains of the Charming Creek Coal Mine. This was the other end of the walk we had undertaken several days ago from the Granity end.

Today we walked for one hour and ten minutes until we joined up with that spot reached then and stood wondering what the horrible smell was. We soon discovered a sulphur spring rising right beside the bridge end and seeping its oderous liquid down into the creek. In fact we had smelt odd smells along our route and thought it nothing more than the stirred up mud of the flooded creeks. On our return we clearly identified that the sulphur springs were not isolated to that one spot, but were all through the bush.

New Zealand Robin

We passed Mumm’s Mill which operated here in the wilderness from 1935 and employed four to five men. Unlike Watsons Mill which we had passed from the other end of the walk, where the men had lived on site, the men of Mumm’s Mill were no longer prepared to stay in a remote bush settlement and instead travelled up the Ngakawau Gorge Railway each day. The mill closed in 1958 and opeartions moved further up the valley to a new location served by road. The Mumm family continue to operate a sawmill in Charming Creek until 1982.

Mining relics of Charming Creek ... and Chris

But the timber milling was small scale compared to the coal mining operations, details of which I recorded when we walked the other end. Today there were mine entrances, tunnels and machinery relics all about the area, but a paucity of information explaining what each piece is, or was.

The walk was very easy, along the rail corridor, lined with beech leaf litter and coal “shingle”, this time not retaining water as that up the Ngakawau Gorge. We encountered another curious New Zealand Robin and a charming tomtit, and of course the weka were forever present along our way, as were the tuis and wood pigeons. It was all so very delightful and even better was the fact we were totally alone for the whole way.

We had contemplated staying in a clearing back along the road, or again at Hector on the tennis courts, but in the end decided to come all the way back here to Westport. We have a list of chores for tomorrow after which we will probably head away from this coast.