West Coast New Zealand

Karamea sits at the end of a no-exit highway sandwiched between rainforested hills and the Tasman Sea. The town serves hikers and adventurers who are looking for a taste of New Zealand wilderness. Limestone arch formations are a special feature of the area.

You can walk to the Oparara Arch, which spans the Oparara River, or venture further to find the Moria Gate Arch. To see the Honeycomb Hill Caves and Arch, you’ll need to book a guided tour. Karamea is near the southern entrance to the Heaphy Track, a multi-day walk through the Kahurangi National Park. Day walks include the Fenian Track, Mt Stormy and the first leg of the Wangapeka Track.

Our second largest national park, Kahurangi has a wonderfully diverse landscape and is home to many of the plant and animal species that make New Zealand unique. Much of the park is untracked wilderness, other areas are laced with a network of tracks that allow you to explore wild rivers, high plateaux, alpine herbfields and coastal palm forests. The Heaphy Track, a four to five day walking experience, is one of New Zealand's "great walks".

Kahurangi is a geologically complex area, and that's one of the reasons it was made a national park. Much of its rock is sedimentary, originally laid down in an ancient sea, then uplifted and scoured by glaciers. Other parts of the region are limestone or marble - there's an abundance of caves, bluffs, natural arches, sinkholes and water-worn outcrops. New Zealand's oldest fossil (540 million years old) was found in the park. Maori lived here from the 14th century, and the coast was used as road by those seeking pounamu (greenstone).

In the east, beech forest is dominant while to the west you will see podocarp forest with a rich understorey of ferns, vines and shrubs. On the coast, stands of nikau palms give the forest an almost tropical look. 80% of New Zealand's alpine species can be found in the high reaches of the park.

Several threatened species survive here, from the diminutive rock wren to the great spotted kiwi, one of New Zealand's largest birds. The park is also home to our largest cave spider and the smallest of our giant weta (a flightless insect a bit like a grasshopper). 20 species of carnivorous land snail (Powelliphanta) live in Kahurangi; they can sometimes be seen near limestone outcrops, though they tend to only come out on damp nights to feed on native worms that grow up to a metre long.

Motueka, Takaka, Karamea, Tapawera and Murchison are the park's gateway towns. Roads from all the gateway towns lead into carparks within the park and a network of tracks.

Near where the mighty Buller River meets the sea is the relaxed lifestyle port town of Westport, the largest centre of the Northern West Coast.

Westport was first a gold town and then a coal town. The coal mining museum provides a glimpse of what it’s like to work underground.

Westport is also a centre for outdoor adventures – jet boating, underground rafting, caving, white water rafting and kayaking. Scenic highlights in the area include old coal towns, goldmining relics, forest hikes and coastal walks. There is a seal colony nearby at Cape Foulwind. Depending on the season, there can be up to 100 New Zealand fur seals in the vicinity. Pups are born in early summer. Browse the local arts and crafts galleries – much of the work is produced locally.

Cape Foulwind is a prominent headland on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island, overlooking the Tasman Sea. It is located ten kilometres west of the town of Westport. Here you can enjoy a close encounter with New Zealand fur seals in their natural habitat on the wild west coast of the South Island.

A female New Zealand fur seal lives at the same colony all her life. After giving birth in late November, and mating a week or so later, she takes feeding trips to sea for a few days at a time followed by up to seven days nursing her playful pups. This means a breeding colony - like the one at Tauranga Bay, Cape Foulwind - offers plenty of activity to observe at any time of the year.

The males arrive in late November and begin competing for the right to mate. The successful males will attract a group of up to 16 but normally less than seven females. The males remain ashore and do not feed for up to two months during the breeding season. Most return to the sea by mid-January.

From the car park at Tauranga Bay, a very well formed 10-minute track leads to viewing platforms over the seal colony below. Interpretive panels at the platforms provide information on the activity in the colony and the seals' breeding cycle, as well as historical information about the sealing industry that once existed in New Zealand.

A 1.5 hour coastal walk from Cape Foulwind south to Tauranga Bay passes along the edge of an escarpment, undulating grazing pasture, a sandy beach and granite bluffs. The walk offers panoramic views of the cape and the rugged coastline. A side track leads to the Cape Foulwind lighthouse.

Abel Tasman was the first European to sight the cape on 14 December, 1642. To commemorate this, a mounted astrolabe (early astronomical instrument) and interpretive display are situated on a spur overlooking Tauranga Bay. Tasman named the promontory Rocky Cape, but it was Captain Cook who later gave it the name Cape Foulwind. Cook's ship the Endeavour was blown well out to sea from this point in a particularly unpleasant patch of weather.

Named for the extensive gold bearing quartz reefs that were discovered here in the late 1860s, Reefton still has a great deal of historic charm. Follow the town’s heritage walk past the Reefton School of Mines, the courthouse, Oddfellows Hall, St Xavier's Convent and the Band Hall. At the Miner’s Hut you can sit in front of the fire, enjoy a cup of tea and watch steel being shaped by a blacksmith.

Reefton calls itself ‘the town of light’, because it turned on electric street lighting before any other town in the southern hemisphere (1888).

The Victoria Conservation Park, which surrounds Reefton, has a network of walking tracks.

The west coast settlement of Punakaiki is on the doorstep of the Paparoa National Park, which is full of secret caves, disappearing streams and river gorges. Punakaiki is also the closest population centre to the amazing Pancake Rocks and accompanying blowholes.

Nature began this work of art about 30 million years ago. Over thousands of years, alternating layers of small marine creatures and sand became buried and compressed on the ocean floor. This created areas with multiple layers of hard limestone and softer sandstone. Earthquake activity then lifted the ocean floor high and dry, and those slow motion artists - the rain and the wind - began to erode the softer sandstone. The outcome is cliffs and ravines with hundreds of horizontal slices along their vertical faces, like huge stacks of pancakes.

In many places, deep inside the cliffs, narrow vertical air shafts created by the rain met with horizontal tunnels created by the pounding ocean. Today, around high tide, the ocean swells rush headlong through ever-narrowing tunnels and force large amounts of water and compressed air to race upward through the vertical shafts. The result is a hissing, heaving, thumping countryside that rhythmically emits geyser-like plumes of salt water. At high tide in a strong westerly swell, this creation of nature is a very impressive sight.

A well-maintained walkway to the pancake rocks leads through native forest before emerging into areas of coastal flax and scrub. The track offers magnificent views of the inland mountains, the rugged coastline and the main attraction - the pancake rocks and blowholes. Informative signage along the way helps you to make sense of what you're seeing.

The Paparoa National Park was created in 1987, to protect a unique limestone karst environment from mining and forestry. In the interests of science, the boundaries of the park were carefully established to encompass a complete range of landscapes and ecosystems - from the granite and gneiss summits of the Paparoa Range down to the layered rock formations of Punakaiki.

By following the historic Inland Pack Track, formed originally by gold miners, visitors can discover some of the park's most special places. Camping under a natural rock shelter - the Ballroom Overhang - is an unforgettable experience.

Limestone underlies most of the park, and is responsible for the area's impressive landforms. Sculptured mountain ridges, mysterious river canyons, delicate cave decorations and the bizarre, pancake-like coastal formations will keep your camera busy. Maori travellers knew Punakaiki as a place for feasting (Punakaiki means 'a spring of food').

The park is the overlapping point between subtropical and cool climate trees. Nikau palms, northern rata and cabbage trees give the lowland rainforest a lush, Pacific feeling. Further up, silver beech forest merges with sub alpine shrubs. Higher still, daisies and gentians provide colour among the alpine tussocks. Some plants are unique to the area, suggesting that it was a botanic refuge during the ice ages.

Birdlife is prolific in the Paparoa National Park. The endemic Westland Black Petrel breeds only on the Punakaiki coast, and the Great Spotted Kiwi combs the forest by night.

Once the site of the Maori pa Mawhera (which means ‘wide spread river mouth’, in reference to the town’s river mouth location), Greymouth is the largest town on the South Island’s west coast. The area has a history of gold mining, which can be appreciated at the local museum and nearby Shantytown.

The local brewery is something of a New Zealand legend; it runs tours that include a tasting session.

Other Greymouth entertainments include sea fishing, fly fishing, a quayside walk and hiking the Elizabeth Track, which passes through a scenic reserve and old goldmining sites. Around the town you’ll find galleries specialising in pounamu (New Zealand jade).

Situated at the edge of Lake Brunner, Moana is a tiny settlement with a camping ground and a store. The TranzAlpine railway stops here.

Fishing is the main attraction in the area. Lake Brunner holds excellent stocks of wild brown trout and is open all year. It can be fished in almost any weather – boats are available for hire. There are several other lakes and more than 40 rivers or streams within an hour’s drive of Moana. The main tourist attraction is the thermal pools.

The town of Kumara is located on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, near the Taramakau River. The junction of all the main highways to the coast, Kumara Junction is situated midway between Greymouth and Hokitika.

During 1863 various transient parties prospected for gold in the Greenstone Creek (Big Hohonu) Valley. The existence of payable gold was established in the following year. The road from Arthur's Pass to Hokitika was completed in 1866. It passed through Dillmanstown, where rich gold was found in 1876. A rush followed, and Kumara came into existence as a town. A tram line built through Paroa, south of Greymouth, in the late 1860s was extended to Kumara after the rush of 1876 and provided convenient access to the nearest port. The town developed rapidly as an important goldmining centre and, it is said, the population was 4,220 by October of the rush year. The Government constructed water races to enable gold to be won by hydraulic sluicing methods. By 1926 the goldmining industry had declined and by the late 1930s it had practically ceased.

Taramakau River has now become popular for its whitebait, trout and salmon fishing. Experience West Coast hospitality with dining and panoramic views of the Alps at the Junction Art and Craft Café.

Hokitika was first settled in 1860, after the discovery of gold on the west coast. It was an important river port, but many ships came to grief on the notorious ‘Hokitika Bar’ – a sandbar that shifts with every tide. There are some lovely old buildings on the town’s historic walk.

You’ll also notice galleries specialising in pounamu jewellery and art works. The Arahura River, which enters the sea just north of Hokitika, is a traditional source of pounamu (greenstone). Gold jewellers, wood turners and potters provide other souvenir opportunities. Hokitika’s icon event is the Wildfoods Festival, which is held at the end of summer (early March). Hokitika has become a major tourist stop on the West Coast's main highway route and a growing ecotourism industry is growing.

Even if you have just a few minutes to spare, within a few metres of town is the wild & beautiful blacksand and pebble beach where anyone can walk with care.

The glacier is currently 12 km long and terminates 19 km from the Tasman Sea. It exhibits a cyclic pattern of advance and retreat, driven by differences between the volume of meltwater at the foot of the glacier and volume of snowfall feeding the névé (young, granular type of snow which has been partially melted, refrozen and compacted).

This cyclic behaviour is well illustrated by a postage stamp issued in 1946, depicting the view from St James Anglican Church. The church was built in 1931, with a panoramic altar window to take advantage of its location. By 1954, the glacier had disappeared from view from the church, but it reappeared in 1997.

The glacier area is one of the main tourist attractions of the West Coast. Guided and unguided walks up to and onto the glacier are possible. The latter require some specialised equipment, namely ice axes and crampons that latch onto a sturdy boot.

Franz Josef Glacier was first explored in 1865 by geologist Julius von Haast, who named it after the Austrian emperor. The glacier is five kilometres from the town of the same name, and a 20 minute walk will take you to its terminal face. From the glacier car park, you can hike to a choice of lookout points for a bigger view of this awesome river of ice. If you want to actually make contact with the glacier, take a guided ice walk or a heli-hike. Aerial sightseeing is another option.

In the town you’ll find plenty of places to stay and eat. At nearby Lake Mapourika there are kayaks for hire.

There are more than 60 glaciers in the Westland/Tai Poutini National Park. Two of them - the Fox and the Franz Josef - are the only glaciers in the world to flow down to temperate rainforest.

The glaciers stem from snowfields high in the Southern Alps, but Maori legend explains their existence more poetically. It is said that a beautiful girl named Hinehukatere loved the mountains in this park and encouraged her lover, Tawe, to climb them with her. He slipped and fell to his death and Hinehukatere's tears formed the glaciers. The area is known as "Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere" - the tears of the avalanche girl.

From peaks that are over 3000 metres high to lowland rainforest at the edge of the Tasman Sea, this park is an exquisitely beautiful slice of wilderness.

For many travellers, the fast-moving Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are the primary reason to visit. They move up to four metres every day, which in the glacier world is uncommonly rapid (the Tasman Glacier, on the eastern side of the great divide, moves at only 650 millimetres a day). At the foot of each glacier, you can hear the grinding, crushing sounds of ancient ice forcing itself down the time-worn valleys.

Between the glaciers and the sea, the park is a bird watcher's paradise. Rainforest and large areas of wetland shelter rare species such as the Okarito Brown Kiwi, Southern Crested Grebe (kamana) and White Heron (kotuku).

Named after Sir William Fox, New Zealand’s Prime Minister from 1869 to 1872, Fox Glacier describes both the glacier and the nearby village.

Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier falls 2,600m on its 13km journey from the Southern Alps down into temperate rainforest just 300 metres above sea level, and although retreating throughout most of the last 100 years, it has been advancing since 1985 at an average of about a meter a day. The outflow of the glacier forms the Fox River.

To see the glacier, you can walk to the terminal face, arrange an ice-hiking adventure or book a sightseeing flight. There are glow worm caves just a short walk from the town centre, which offers a good choice of cafes and restaurants. Close to Fox Glacier is beautiful Lake Matheson, one of the most photographed lakes in New Zealand (on a clear day it reflects Mount Cook).

Named for German geologist Julius von Haast, the Haast area includes three settlements - Haast Junction, Haast Beach and Haast itself. You get the feeling you’re on the edge of the frontier - helicopters fly deer hunters into the rugged ranges and local pubs make a feature of mounted animal heads. The surrounding World Heritage Area is the main attraction here. Everywhere you look, Westland rainforest tumbles across the landscape.

Haast is a bird watcher’s paradise, with fantail, tui, bellbird, pigeon, silvereye, grey warbler, parakeet, falcon, kaka, kiwi and morepork all located in the abundant lowland forests. Other wildlife include the fur seal, blue penguin and the Fiordland crested penguin.

Haast entertainments include river safaris, visits to fur seal and penguin colonies, sea fishing, trout fishing, hunting and the drive to Jackson Bay, one of the most remote villages in New Zealand. Haast sits in the heart of the South Westland New Zealand World Heritage Area.