‘Damn Denniston’ - Part 1

Ever since Mum & Dad gave me the book ‘The Denniston Rose’ by Jenny Pattrick for my birthday back in 2003, I have been waiting for the chance to visit the historic coal mining site on the West Coast.

The novel, based in the 1880s, is about a young girl, Rose, & her mother who lived in appalling conditions, along with mine workers, in their makeshift collection of huts, tents & saloons in the bleak & isolated coal-mining settlement of Denniston. Denniston is located high up on a plateau where the only access was by a steep bridle path or by riding the coal wagons up and down the terrifyingly steep Denniston Incline. The people in the novel are fiction but the events and conditions are historical facts.

Between 1879 and 1967 the greater Mt Rochford Plateau mines were New Zealand’s largest producing coal mines, producing an estimated 12,600,000 tons of premium quality coal. Once the coal reached the Denniston Plateau it was loaded into railway wagons and lowered by cable down the steep incline railway, the famous “Denniston Incline” (referred to as the eighth wonder of the world by locals) and a remarkable feat of engineering & industrial innovation.

There is now a 9km steep, winding and narrow road to the top of the plateau, a road that is shared by many coal trucks coming and going from the Bathurst Opencast Mine which is located further back on the plateau. The trucks have radio contact with each other and wait patiently for any larger vehicles making the ascent.

I hoped for a fine day. In fact we probably wouldn't have visited if it was anything but a fine day- the view seaward is spectacular and part of the experience. The weather up on the plateau is notoriously bad and it’s often shrouded in mist, fog and cloud, or all three. Then there’s the snow, wind and rain. Luckily we had a gloriously fine day.

While the historic Incline has always been a point of interest, in recent years the Incline area has been upgraded & restored. A path leads visitors past old machinery, mining relics, rail lines, the brake head, hopper wagons and building remains with many informative interpretation panels along the way. The building above was once the workshop, it now houses comprehensive information panels about the lives and times of the people living on the barren & windswept Denniston Plateau. It’s where the start of the self-guided walking tour departs from.

After giving the old mining gear on the top level a cursory glance, I was keen to get down to the Incline level.

And there is was, the view I was waiting to see. Spectacular. The plateau overlooks the coastal plains of the Karamea Bight and the mouth of the Waimangaroa River.

The path led around the brakehead & bin shed area to the Brakehead Shelter(red roof) and to the top of the Bridle Path behind (which has been closed due to major slips). There were more information panels…

…and this interesting ‘look into the past’

And there, finally, was the poem I had been waiting to see. The poem that appears at the beginning of the ‘Denniston Rose’. The poem which had grabbed my attention & imagination and has remained with me. The poem that I copied into a journal and thought I’ll visit there one day. A poem that reflected how tough life was for our early miners & pioneering women.

We approach the top of the Incline.

Back in 1878 there were many challenges to be faced when coal was discovered on the plateau. One was how to get workers up the steep bluffs that soar 518 metres above the coast, the other was to get the coal safely down. The plan was to drop coal filled wagons straight over the side on rail tracks. The wagons were paused at Middle Brake, a  253 metre vertical drop to the mid-way point before they were dropped a further 263 metre vertical fall to the bottom, at Conn's Creek. The total distance traveled was 1.6kms. The weight of a full wagon dropping over the side brought up the empty wagons from below. These were frequently used as a 'lift' for workers & families and their household items. Although extremely dangerous to travel on, compared with the climb up the bridle track it was well worth it.

A Q-class hopper wagon ready to drop.

David doing his Marc Antony speech- ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears’

Looking down the famous Incline, which doesn't actually look too steep from here. But believe me it is. The coal wagons came to a halt in the first white patch (now a carpark) in the valley below. The coal carried on along rails to main railway at Waimangaroa (the settlement at the bottom of the bluff) It was then carted to Westport and loaded into colliers for shipping overseas.

Rather than copy over all the statistics, I took a photo- click to enlarge

Looking back up to platform from where I took the incline photo above.

Back up on the Brakehead; the information panels have photos of how it looked before and showed a red spot where you would have been standing then. It was fascinating & also hard to imagine the buildings that filled the platform in front of us (click to enlarge) and to think that many of the buildings and houses remained here until the 1980s. Although they stopped using the Incline in the late 1960s- road transport had taken over.

There were a number of old coal wagons made of various materials and in different shapes that had been used over the years.

The Denniston Incline-

then…..

and now

I couldn’t get enough of the wagon about to drop over the incline. To think that many people rode the wagons to the bottom, and quite a few lost their lives doing it too.

To be continued…..Part 2

Westport- Beach Park & Tractor Trekkers

Just to let those that eagerly await my next blog post know, unfortunately cellphone & internet reception will be intermittant over the next few weeks as we travel the West Coast so there may be a few more days than usual between posts. 


The NZMCA (NZ Motorhome & Caravan Association) has over 50,000 members nationwide who are entitled to many benefits and perks including heavily discounted Cook Strait ferry crossings, discounts with a major appliance & electronics store and various other discounts elsewhere. The Association also has 27 NZMCA Parks located around the country in some stunning locations. For a very small fee ($3pp per night) members can stay in a safe & secure environment for anything from 3-7 nights per month depending on the park. Some parks have a dump station, laundry, most have rubbish recycling & fresh water. They are a Godsend for us and we always enjoy our stays.

I was a little worried as we followed the co-ordinates that I’d entered into TomTom for the Westport NZMCA Park. They led us through town and down towards the beach, onto a bumpy gravel road, past a swamp and rough scrub and out onto a sandy parking area that looked like an afterhours meeting place for the local hoons- in fact they used the wide expanse of beach at low tide to ‘hoon’ down. Freedom camping is allowed in this area and most nights there were half a dozen vehicles parked up. 

Down to the left of the sandy carpark a gravel road led to a large enclosed area with a firmly packed gravel surface and a locked gate; the NZMCA Park. What a great spot, right on the beach and only about 3kms from town.

The caretaker is obviously having a bit of trouble with visitors arriving at the park and not being able to get in even though they have the combination- I like his humour. I would have to admit though, that unless you read the sign board (and you don’t if you’re quite familiar with the routine) then you can get pretty frustrated trying to crack the code. And I would think you’d be especially peeved off if it was pouring with rain. Most combinations line up with the centre line on the padlock, not a top one (I didn’t even know they had a top line). While we were there (4 nights) at least 80% of arriving vans had trouble getting in.

But in the end it is worth the hassle, there’s not too many places where you can park up overnight so close to sea and watch the sun set below the horizon while you’re cooking dinner (or having a glass of wine).

I do think the caretaker should put up one of these signs though, 4 or 5 very friendly weka spend their day cruising around the park, resting under vans and fighting each other if someone throws out some food. Which is often.

As you can see the Park is a pretty popular place, most people using it as a base while they explore the top end of the West Coast. Those with caravans & fifth-wheelers were able to leave their vans in place while exploring each day; the motorhomes & buses had to take pot luck and find a new position when they returned each evening.

The beach was also popular with the Kiwi Experience tour bus. On our first night I heard a whole lot of chatter and laughter and when I looked out the side window a crowd of young people carrying supermarket bags of food plus wine & beer were walking along the fence line past us and over to the beach. They gathered up some driftwood and added it to a already charred fire pit, lit a bonfire and partied on for the next couple of hours. Now that’s a real “kiwi experience”. The same thing happened the next night but they were a little later and missed the sunset. The next night it was raining heavily.

It was a great surprise to find some friends from Tauranga parked up just along the fence from us. I was walking across the park and saw a couple of guys talking, as one walked off towards his motorhome I thought he looked familiar. I called out to him but he didn’t hear me and disappeared around the side of the motorhome. I was sure it was Ian so I followed him around the side calling his name. He still didn’t hear me and for a moment I thought I’d got it wrong but then he turned and saw me, and then Jess appeared at the door.

It was wonderful to see them. We had a couple of very happy ‘happy hours’ for the next two evenings and caught up on our travels, & gossip from ‘home’. It is rather strange that had I not seen Ian we could quite well have not known each of us were in the park. We often don’t see our neighbours as everyone comes and goes each night & morning.

The town of Westport is nothing to write home about, it’s your usual small provincial town (pop. 4000) with not much to offer. There’s a short main street with pretty hanging flower baskets on each side which add a bit of cheer, a number of restored historic buildings & plenty of empty shops and shops selling tacky imported junk. There are no decent clothing stores but a good number of cafes and a large i-Site that is always busy- tours leave for the coalmines & up the coast from here.

And then there is the most beautiful Municipal Chambers (former) building I have seen on our travels. It is absolutely stunning. It was built in 1946 and is coated in Motueka sand which gives it this beautiful colour- remember the sand from our time at Kaiteriteri? The Phoenix palms are the perfect accompaniment to the Art Deco style.

And what better place for a procession of tractors towing various forms of accommodation to be welcomed into the town. The convoy, 27 in all and called the Tractor Trekkers, are towing a range of pop-tops, caravans and wooden sheds around the South Island raising funds for the Westpac Chopper Appeal.

They were on their way to Karamea (at the end of the road) before returning to Southland (where they are from) via the east coast.

We passed them two days later as they were returning from Karamea, spread out like Brown’s cows along the highway. Which was just as well as some were moving along at a cow’s pace.

Sunset over Westport’s NZMCA Park.

Lyell- The Old Ghost Road

Our next overnight stop after Murchison was the DOC camp at Lyell in the Upper Buller Gorge.

Gold fever swept through this area in the 1870s and Lyell was once a booming settlement serving the gold mines in the area. Now the junction of the Lyell Creek and the Buller River is a popular DOC camp.

All that remains of Lyell and the settlements of Gibbstown, Zalatown, 8 Mile, & the Alpine Battery which were inland from the Buller River, is the old dray road that connected them all, the remnants of the Croesus Battery with other gold mining relics scattered about and the remains of Lyell Cemetery.

The dray road is now part of an 80km three day cycle & tramping track that starts at Lyell and finishes at Seddonville on the coast, 50kms north of Westport. Historic mining pack tracks form each end of the The Old Ghost Road with a difficult alpine section for experienced trampers & bikers in the centre. Going by the number of bikers we saw in the short time we were there, the track is very popular, although most only do the first section up to the Lyell Saddle.

I walked a short 4km loop to see the old battery and the cemetery. It’s amazing to think that there were houses, hotels & a bustling community living along the edge of the deep gully where the gold bearing Lyell Creek runs. Now it’s all native bush and birds.

At the end of my walk are the remains of the Croesus Battery including two berdan dishes, which revolved to crush the gold bearing quartz using heavy steel balls, and various other rusting relics from the gold mining days.

I took the above photo from a platform where there are information panels about the site and also a sign suggesting people not venture down to the remains. (Click on the photo to enlarge to read)

I decided I wasn’t going to walk 2kms to see the battery and not get up close and personal with it. Many others must have thought the same, there was a well worn track down to the creek bed.

After having a scout round I climbed back out of the creek bed and returned back along the same track. Half way along, a well worn track dropped down to the creek again, There weren't any signs saying where it led to but I was hoping it was going to be to the cemetery. I had a map but not my reading glasses and the tracks on the map were so tiny I couldn’t see where it ended up.

Problem solved! I zoomed in with my camera, taking a shot and then blowing that up on the LCD screen.  It would seem that I should have walked the track in the reverse direction, hence the reason there was no sign pointing to the cemetery. Although I think they still should have had one for directionally challenged people like me.......although I wouldn't actually say I'm directionally challenged. In fact I'm actually pretty good- I'm my father's daughter afterall, there's no denying that. It's more about not following the norm, I'm like a bull at a gate sometimes. I should have walked up to the top level and read the sign and map board up there instead of the biking and hiking 'Ghost Road' board on our level.

After a tough climb up the other side (another reason the walk started from the other direction) I finally came to the picturesque Lyell cemetery tucked into the bush.

Clinging to the hillside are a few surviving grave sites & headstones, in iron-fenced plots….

….with large trees growing out of some of them and in one case a fallen tree crushing the iron fence and knocking the headstone aside.

The headstones tell stories of short lives and tragic deaths, between 30 & 40 people were buried here from 1880 to 1900.

I pity the poor people who had to cart the newly departed to the graveyard, it was a fair hike along another ridge back to where the town (camp) was located.

Along the way was this gorgeous emerald green moss and fern covered rock face with a tiny little trickle of a waterfall, water seeped through elsewhere keeping the mosses moist and vibrant.

By the time I got back to camp, quite a few people had arrived in their sleeper vans & tents and had set up around the perimetre of the campground, all trying to find a level site and most spending time flapping their arms about trying to dispatch the sandflies. We are so lucky to have our insect screens and good bug spray (Bushmans).

These weka can't count!

The next day we were back on the road heading for Westport, I was looking forward to driving through the beautiful Lower Buller Gorge and seeing the 'famous in New Zealand' prominent landmark of Hawks Crag for the first time.

We stopped at the Kilkenny Lookout (on St Pat's day no less) and then my ever patient husband left me there while he drove through the cutting in the rock wall…..

…then turned around and came back to pick me up, giving me ample opportunity of taking some great shots of the rig.

There is actually quite a bit of room above the vehicles but it sure doesn’t look like it when you’re in the cab.

He was chased back through by a petrol tanker who caught him up as he was doing a slow drive past for my benefit!

And here’s the view from the front seat. From the lookout the wooden pole looks like it’s supporting the rock overhang when in fact its quite a distance away from it. I wonder what its there for.

Volunteers Without Gumboots

That’s the terminology DOC (Department of Conservation) use for people that don’t necessarily get out in the ‘Great Outdoors’ volunteering their services for monitoring, trapping, weeding or planting. There's a whole host of volunteers contributing to conservation while staying warm and toasty in the office, at home or in their fifth-wheeler as the case may be (Gumboots, for my overseas readers, are Wellington boots).

About 18 months ago I was contacted by a lovely lady from DOC who had seen some of my photos on Flickr. She wanted to know if I’d be willing to let DOC use them in a brochure. One thing led to another and after thinking a lot about it, I decided here was something I could do to help DOC and New Zealand conservation. Rather than the physical work involved with the usual volunteering, the fact that we’re on the move most of the time and most importantly, because we spend a lot of time enjoying DOC’s hard work in the parks and walks we visit, I decided to give DOC access to as many of my photos as they wanted.

Over the last year or so I’ve been aware of the odd photo being used on information boards located out in the field and also in some of the new brochures printed for various walks etc.

But it is with some pride that I can report (I’m allowed to pat myself on the back aren’t I?), last night, after many months of hard work, the brand new DOC website went live and there, in over 300 places throughout their complex website, are many of my photos taking the prime banner position with many more in the small photos and albums linked to the activity or bird. Unfortunately I missed out on the opening home page banner but really, who could resist that cheeky looking weka! (You’ll have to click the DOC link below to see)

Above & below are a few screen shots I gathered together of some of my photos that were used. Even David makes an appearance on a few occasions. If you would like to check the DOC site out, here’s the link-

DOC- Department of Conservation

And if you type Shellie Evans in the search box in the top right corner you’ll be presented with a very long list of links that have my photos in them. Once the link is opened you can see who has taken the photo (me!) by clicking on the little camera icon showing at the top right of the photo. Of course the ‘camera’ icon in these photos doesn’t work, they are just screen shots from the actual website.

I’m thrilled to bits to be a part of the volunteer team at DOC and very proud to be able to do ‘my bit’ for New Zealand conservation. Of course I couldn't do it all without my best mate beside me; whether it's driving, carry the pack, finding birds, being very patient as I take shots or most importantly, being my walking buddy. Thanks darling for your contribution to NZ's conservation too!