Having managed driving the Buller gorge from Murchison we arrived in Westport and stayed two nights at the Top 10 at Carters Beach.
Our dog Fletcher loved this beach to do his ‘zoomies’.
There are walks and bike rides from this location. We enjoyed our walk to the lighthouse and bike ride to Tauranga Bay-a great surfing beach. While there we visited the seal colony
A surprisingly good new cycle way (12klm return) that leaves Carters Beach and travels around the wetlands and through bush to arrive at the Bridge to Westport town.
Westport town
STAR TAVERN-CAPE FOULWIND
We moved from Carters Beach to Cape Foulwind and the Star Tavern. Add this to your itinerary as a stopover-you will not be disappointed.
The Star Tavern is owned by Kay and she has retained the wonderful history of the Tavern. We loved our meal there with a packed crowd enjoying the atmosphere. Don’t go past the ‘sticky date pudding’ shared as it is marvellous.
There is a quirky’tip’ idea at the tavern. Wrap a dollar note or similar in a metal washer and throw it to the tin embossed ceiling where it will stay stuck there for the staff to enjoy later in the year.
Owner, Kay has a cliff top property overlooking Cape Foulwind. We parked our Motorhome there with a couple of others for 4 nights.
DENNISTON AND MINES
While in Westport we did a tour with OUTWEST Tours to view the once thriving Denniston town and surrounding mines.
Denniston does not have a mine, but the town there, was the collection point for the coal from the surrounding mines. The coal would arrive in wagons on endless steel ropes on rail tracks then once sorted would go down the amazing INCLINE to the valley below to be transported onto ships in Westport. There is no Denniston town now. The mines have closed and the history is trying to be preserved by some. I have met several local people in Westport that used to live in Denniston and they talk about it with fond memories particularly when they were young children.
Denniston is perched 600m above sea level up a windy road. The town and the surrounding towns by the mines had power (from coal) yes, power so many years ago when other parts of New Zealand did not. Denniston had tennis courts, hospital, heated swimming pool, bowling green for it’s citizens.
We are so lucky to have done this tour and learn about this history and how innovative they were. The Incline itself is mind-boggling. It worked on gravity with the full heavy wagons of coal going down the incredibly steep incline that would pull up the empty wagons from the bottom in a continuous wire rope system.
Mikey Ryan our tour guide of Outwest Tours has worked in the mine at Stockton just over the hill from Denniston (still operating) sending all its coal off shore to India and other countries. The Stockton coal is rated the best in the world and that is why it is so popular.
OUTWEST TOURS
If you want to learn about this history of coal mining in New Zealand and Westport and the true story of why coal is not used in New Zealand then book an informative, ‘blow you away’ tour with Outwest Tours.
Mickey of Outwest Tours took us away from the normal tourist route to view the townships (now overgrown with bush) that existed 100yrs ago. We were gobsmacked that little effort had be made to preserve this history. The only evidence was chimneys that had survived and endless piles of wire rope lying around with other abandoned machine relics. The ingenuity of the engineers of building some of these components that made the mining possible should be preserved.
When one views the huge fans built to suck stale air from the mine to make it safe and then wonder how they got them there with no modern tools is amazing.
