Visits around Westport: Denniston & Cape Foulwind

Today was supposed to be themed: mining and history of mining. I had initially planned to walk the town of Lyell remnant trail early in the morning before driving towards Westport.

But it was a wet night, and I slept horribly. Alexis seems to have fared better. The sand flies were still there and as soon as the sun rose. I just said that I had enough. We literally packed in 20min and were on the way to Westport. We initially hoped to find a nice picnic spot along the river on the way for breakfast but everything was wet, and cold and there was no sun. So we just skipped the ones we found. 

It’s a shame, the road from Lyell out of the Buller Gorge is really beautiful, the river below is wide and the road snakes along it at a bottom of the cliffs. Sometimes the road is carved into the cliff.

We arrived at Foul Wind Cape Lighthouse carpark, which thankfully had toilets and nice picnic tables. So we just got our coffee, did our business and changed clothes for the day. 
The walk from the lighthouse to the furred seals colony of Tauranga is about 2h returns and has amazing views of the beaches at the bottom of the cliffs. Since we were there quite early, the wind was still a little strong and there was massive waves crashing below. It made some mighty roars. It’s a flat-ish walk and easy, full of information boards about the Cape, it’s history and the seals. I would recommend it.

We were done by lunch and drove into Westport to gather some supplies ( again – it seems that all our stuff break on this trip, this time we looked for gas refuel for our cooking set up and cutleries… ).

Then we drove up to Denniston Mine historical area – which seens on top of the nearby hill ( well – more like mountain ). The view up there was absolutely amazing ! The story about Denniston and the  mine as well. There was Coal mining activities on the plateau and from Denniston was the incline, a system of coal wagon going down a very (very ) steep slopes. Nothing much remains of the settlements, but it’s incredible to think that an entire mining community lived isolated up there until about 1968 ! The explanations and photos about the place are quite interesting and explains well. The tracks that snakes through the old mining settlement can take a good 2h if you read everything.

There is a long trail ( a good 7h ) that connects all the coal mining mines and settlements from the plateau to the valley below. It looks like a very interesting one to do.

As we walked through the site, there was an old gentleman with his grandson who was explaining about the way the incline works. As we approached, we engaged conversation. It happens that he was 92 years old and worked on the incline, and that his father was also working there and came all the way from Wales. Not all that he said was easy to understand, but he shared a few facts of life up there – saying that everything from supplies to ferrying the dead below was going through this steep funicular coal railway. Some very interesting snippet to make the visit more alive.

It was quite funny because he was travelling with a super fat Corky dog, called Meg. The poor thing was barely trotting about and you could see her struggling to move (she was so fat), she would just go a little then look for shade and hide there. The entire time we visited you could hear the old men looking for his dog: Meg! Meg ! That made us laugh and smile, what a funny pair they made.

We enjoyed this visit, plus at the carpark you had 3 picnic table for lunch with an amazing view of the coastline below. Just perfect for our lunch.
We were quite tired by then and still had a bit of a drive to go to Punakaiki for the night. The coastline road on the last 20 km to Punakaiki is stunning, it’s higher on the cliff side, so you have better views of the beaches below. Again, not a place I would swim, the see looked dangerous. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints on the way.

The campsite we are staying at is very nice, they alos have a small foodtruck that serves coffee – tomorrow morning, we will definitely treat ourselves.
Internet seems (for once) free but is lagging like crazy. I hope to get some research done for the next days tonight. We have to book for the next few days activities and campsite. We are approaching the more touristy spots.