On Friday, we headed west from Nelson through some forested country back towards Punakaiki where we had previously spent a night. This journey completed the top loop of our ‘figure eight’ drive around New Zealand.
The country along the first part of the day was through mountainous pine forest. Many of the steep hills along the way had been harvested and in some places, active logging was under way.
Our first stop was at the town of Murchison which is quite remote. There is no other town close to it for almost 80 kilometres in any direction.
Murchison is known as the ‘whitewater capital’ of the country, because there are rivers everywhere – the Gowan, Mangles, Matiri, Glenroy, Matakitaki, Maruia and the mighty Buller. For anybody into canoeing or kayaking, it’s a dream come true with the region offering some of the best all-grades options in New Zealand. The rivers vary from Class 2 to 4 whitewater, so they’re not for the faint-hearted. Rafting, jet boating, gold panning and fishing are other activities on these rivers.
We stopped in Murchison for a coffee and to pick up some sandwiches for lunch later in the day. We found, perhaps, the smallest bakery in the country. It began to rain for a little while – only the second rain shower that we have had on this entire trip.
There are a lot of old buildings here and if walls could talk, they would tell stories one that I found in the main street of the town.
On one of the shops was a plaque that said its location was previously the sight of the court house. Early in the 1900s a disgruntled farmer was upset that the court found him guilty of cattle stealing. He turned up in the court on the next day with gelignite strapped to his body. The court staff managed to usher him out into the street but the gelignite exploded destroying the court building and completely obliterating the farmer.
A few kilometres along the road, we found New Zealand’s longest swingbridge. It’s 110m long and suspended 19 metres high above the mighty Buller River. I have to confess that I only walked a little way out onto the bridge before my discomfort with heights forced me to turn back to firm land.
We found a nice picnic and camping area along the way that is the place where the ’Ghost Road’ bicycle track begins. It was an ideal place to eat out sandwiches that we had bought back in Murchison.
It was actually the sight of the old Lyell goldfield’s town. In the early 1900s this was the site of a thriving town with over eight pubs. I took this photo of the sign on the history board hoping that it would illustrate how developed this town really was in its heyday. Today, nothing exits other than a small cemetery a little further down the road.
For many kilometres, the road followed the Buller River. It is the largest river on the West Coast of the South Island, and in flood carries a greater torrent than any other New Zealand river. Although for most of its course, the river runs in gorges through remote bush-clad mountains, its last few kilometres broaden to an expanse as wide as the Mississippi.
At one point, the gorge is so narrow that an overhang has been cut into the rock at Hawks Crag. Otherwise, the road would not be wide enough to allow large vehicles to pass.
Before turning south along the coast, we made a short detour into the town of Westport – a town in the West Coast region of the South Island. The town was established in 1861. It is the oldest European settlement on the West Coast. Originally named Buller, it sits on the right bank and at the mouth of the Buller River. The impressive town hall reminded us of the were known town hall at Ivanhoe in Melbourne
Cape Foulwind is a prominent headland on the West Coast near Westport. It was previously named Rocky Cape by Abel Tasman, the first European to visit it, in 1642. In 1770 it was named Cape Foulwind by Captain James Cook after his vessel was blown off course by the prevailing westerly winds.
From there, we traveled south for the last part of our day back to Punakaiki where we had also stopped fora night around a week ago. It was an attractive drive along a rugged and remote coastal area
