All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go !

A little disappointing today, we drove to Granity where we had arranged to be picked up by Outwest Tours in their speciality Unimog for a tour of the Stockton Mine, a normally 5 hour tour.  The Unimog duly arrived and we were dressed in hard hats and hi-vis vests and initially headed to the Ngaukawa coal transfer station.

Rosetta our tour guide for today was concerned about a hot smell from one of the wheel rims and called her brother-in-law out for his opinion, the consensus was that there was a problem and after talking to her boss the tour was cancelled.

We were given plenty of interesting information on the coal transfer station

 Ngaukawa Coal Transfer Depot

and the workings of the mine by Rosetta who had worked for 4 years driving trucks up there.  She was a (scuse the pun) a mine of information.  Anyway the decision was made to cancel.   Two of the mine employees offered to take us to the top of the hill in two 4wd vehicles as a consolation so in groups of three off we went.   

The coal is trucked to the top of the aerial ropeway by trucks and dumped into hoppers where it gets washed and reduced to 3 cm bits before being dumped into bins on the aerial ropeway for the journey to the bottom.

Down This Side to the Transfer Station

                 Looking Back from Station 5 to the Truck Dumping Point

Each bin has a capacity of 1.5 tonnes and the ropeway (about 2.5km long) runs 24/7, a lot of coal being moved to the railhead at the bottom where up to 5 trains each with thirty wagons take the coal over the Arthurs Pass to Lyttelton.

So although a little disappointed about the cancellation it was still made interesting by Rosetta and the two mine employees and turned out to be an interesting day after all.

Dawn in Seddonville

Today is ANZAC day and we all got up at 5am to join the thirty or so locals for their dawn service.   The service started some years ago when one of the locals used to climb the short distance up to a set of memorial gates with his daughter to remember his father.

The Seddonville Memorial Gates

He was asked by another local if he would like company each year and gradually over the years it has turned into a regular ANZAC day event with more and more locals attending.

We were assured we were welcome and turned out for the  remembrance service.   It has grown now to have 3 pipers and a drummer who travel up from Westport and a trumpeter from Carters Beach.

The day started crisply cool as we formed up on the road about 500m down the hill from the gates.   We set off behind the pipers and were treated to a nice informal remembrance service at the gates.   Following the reading of a couple of poems the ode and the playing of Reveille we filed back down the hill and returned to the hotel for a welcome drambuie made and supplied by one of the local residents.   This was followed by a lovely cooked breakfast.

A nice way to remember the fallen from all wars.

After another lazy morning  we drove down to the Mokihinui Estuary on another beautiful West Coast day.

Return to Seddonville

After our trip walking around the arches and caves of Karamea we decided today would be a rest day and apart from a quick trip to the shop we spent the day lazing around reading in the sun.  Not a bad day to spend a Monday !

This morning (Tuesday) we return to the Seddonville Hotel for a couple of days where we are going to join them for the dawn service on ANZAC day.   A fairly low key affair here but attended by about 60 of the locals and a bagpiper and bugler followed by a cooked breakfast at the Hotel.

The road back is quite steep, winding and long and before descending to Mohikanui summits at 450m before a sharp descent to the turnoff to Seddonville.

                           Bell Bird                                      Fantail

Didn’t take any photos today (for a change) so here’s some of recent birds taken at Kohaihai at the start of the Heaphy Track

Karamea, Caves and the End of the Road

Yesterday we drove the very hilly, winding road from Seddonville to Karamea, not a huge distance but we took it slowly up and over the bluff before arriving at the settlement of Karamea with bush clad hills on one side and sea on the other.   We are still enjoying the good weather and it is quite warm here.

Today (Sunday) we drove the 26km along a winding narrow gravel road to Oparara to see the Limestone Arches and Caves in the Kahurangi National Park at the other end.  First up was a 30 min walk into the Oparara Arch one of the two accessible arches where you do not require a guide.   Nice well formed track from a DOC information shelter.  It’s only when you see the facilities (shelters, toilets and information boards) that you appreciate the work done by  DOC.

The Oparara Arch

Another 2.5 km up the road took us to the Crazy Paving and Box Canyon Caves, the crazy paving pattern is caused by dried out mud on the floor of the cave and just takes you into an increasing smaller space until it runs out.

              Crazy Paving                          Pauline on the Way Out

Up the next track and we came to the Box Canyon Cave a deep cave which you are able to walk in unguided.   Supposed to be full of Wetas and Spiders but none evident today.

Back in the cars and further up the road until we reached Kohaihai – the end of the road on this part of the West Coast and the starting point for the Heaphy Track.   A nice DOC Camping spot.

We walked down to the Suspension Bridge so we could say we had walked on the Heaphy Track   - even if it was only 500 metres or so !

The Start of the Heaphy Track

Granity-Seddonville

Sort trip again today as we are headed up the coast on the way to Karamea.   Our stop for tonight is Seddonville a little village inland about 12km from Mokihinui.   Passing through Granity on the way where we decided to have a coffee at the Drifters Cafe, another West Coast Cafe full of little bits and pieces on the walls.

               Drifters Cafe                                 Granitys Main Street

Nice coastal drive along here before we turned inland to Seddonville, a sleepy little village with about 70-80 residents.  It exists to servicthe local farming and mining communities.   We are staying behind the Seddonville Hotel, a nice place to park for the night.

These low cost parks are ideal as most have power, water,  showers and toilets for between $10 and $15 dollars a night.   The publicans wife pointed us in the direction of the old rail trail and tunnel and after a short walk across a couple of bridges which had seen better days we came across the tunnel.

These tunnels were in use servicing local coal mines until about 1984.
We  met a local out for a bike ride and he suggested a drive up the banks of the Mokihinui River.   A well graded gravel road in farmland turned into a little rougher tracks through the bush as we got deeper in.   Any excuse to go into four wheel drive !.   Across a couple of fords and we came to the end of the track as far as we decided to go, so turned around and came back out.  A nice drive.

The “Boys” having a play for the Cameras

On our return to the tavern we went over for an ale or two and a meal in the restaurant.   On a Friday they run an odds & evens dice game when you purchase your drinks between 5:30pm and 7:00pm.   The publican rolls the dice and you call odds or evens.   Call it right and the drink is free.   We did quite well,  I got a free pint and then Pauline called right and got her wine free.   After drinking those we went again for our second drink and this time Pauline had to pay for her wine and I got another free pint.   With Robin, Jenny and Derek all winning, they didn’t make much money off the drinks for our group !.   The meals were very good, the  locals made us welcome and the Highlanders beat the Blues ! an enjoyable evening for all.

Off towards Karamea tomorrow where there is no cellphone or internet coverage so there will not be any blogs for the next few days.   Hopefully we will catch up again next week.

Up at the Denniston Incline

Our plan today was to move 22km up the road to a Low Cost Park closer to the road to the Denniston Incline.   Pauline and I thought we might have a go at he Denniston Mine Experience which takes you, all kitted out in your mining gear, down into a mine where you can sample a bit of what the miners had to go through every day.   The others were going to join a tour to the Stockton Mine.  Unfortunately both tours were full and we decided to just drive up to the Denniston Incline and maybe catch the tours on our return from Karamea in a few days.

The Denniston Incline took coal from nearby mines and from 1879 to 1979 an estimated 12 million tonnes of coal travelled down the famous Denniston Incline track.   It plunged 510 meters over a distance of 1.7 kiometres at a gradient of 1:3.   The wagons loaded with 12 tonne coal hurtled down the incline at 80kmh.

Originally the coal was transported to the incline processing plant by skips along a surface road and dealt with by young fit “clippers” who used to unclip the skips to load the bigger wagons.   It was so cold during winter they plunged their hands into buckets of hot water in between skips to keep them from freezing.   The surface road system was replaced eventually by an aerial system until the whole system was shut down in 1967.

  

            The Aerial Skips and remains of the Tensioning System

Large pieces of the Incline workings have been preserved and a large collection of information boards give a background to the area with anecdotes and stories of life up on the Flat.

              Wagon at the Top           Same Wagon from below on the slope

View Down the Incline (Telephoto Lens)

It’s hard to capture the steepness of the incline, as one full wagon hurtles down the hill an empty is towed up the other side.   A middle point on the incline transfers the wagons  to the next rail section on a flat area before they continue on down as the topography wouldn’t permit a straight run to the bottom.

The Top of the Incline

A fascinating look into the past which would make the OSH Inspectors hair curl !

Westport

Another lazy day today as we headed into town from our stopping place out at Cape Foulwind.   Once again it was grocery shopping time (we seem to be in a supermarket every second or third day)   Our thinking was that Westport was the last of the “larger” towns if we are heading further north towards Karamea.

We met up with Denis, the air force workmate I mentioned earlier,  left our car at his place and were ferried around to see the sights of Westport.   Denis has spent the last few years of his Police Career in Westport and loves the place.   After a bite of lunch we went to the Coaltown Museum where we watched an interesting DVD on the Denniston Incline, an area we are due to visit in the next few days.   The recreated angle of part of the incline with it’s hopper of coal was amazing and would have been scary as it thundered down the incline with a full load of coal.

                                         Denniston Incline Angle

The remainder of the museum is divided into Gold Mining, Coal Mining, Maritime and Tree Felling areas with some good displays.

      Recreated Mine Display                       The Maritime Room