We leave Westport and head toward Greymouth.  In route, we come across a super cool hidden gem in Charleston called Mitchell’s Gully Historic Goldmine.  This goldmine was established in 1866 and produced over 130 tons of gold dust.

All over the entire property are old pieces of antique equipment.  Sure, some people may think it is junk, but I see it as century old relics begging to be fixed and made operational soon.

The owner has the original water wheel, which is in dire need of some TLC, but he hopes to get it working again soon.

He has the last remaining stamping batteries (crushing machines) in Charleston.

One of the old settlers cottage is still standing, but it is full of more antique mining equipment.

We were able to wonder through dozens of tunnels (with flashlights).  Most of the holes are carved right into the rocks and hillsides, but some are overtaken by tree roots (look at the bottom center photo).  Did the cave come before the tree roots or did the tree roots form along the entrance of the cave?

Many of the cave walls still have gold dust!  And one of the caves had glow worms!  The photo isn’t so good, but they were there, I promise.

The Process

The current owner is a descendent of one of the original owners and gave us a run down of the gold mining process.  He said that it would take sanding down 20tons of sand to get one ounce of gold.  Now that is a lot of work!

The piece of gold in my hand (lower right corner) is 1/3 of an ounce and worth $1000NXD.

We walked a giant loop around this immense property and the trail was marked by the original dolly tracks.  This place is so very cool. I sure hope the owner is able to get some help to restore it!

Beautiful views

We continue on our way and come across some gorgeous views!

Punakaiki – Pancake Rocks

This little town is famous for its pancake rocks.  You may think, “pancake rocks” what, why?  Well check them out – kind of obvious as they look like a stack of pancakes.

They have a really well tended 45-minute track that walks you around the mountain edges to see all of the beautiful formations.

These pancake rocks are really super cool.  I am sitting on a short stack of cakes 🙂

The blow hole was not too active as we went by, but the gully sure is amazing.

Let’s see how much imagination you have….can you see the images from the lower photo in the top photo?

The Pororari River Track

Time to get our daily walk in so we make our way to the Pororari River track.  This is about 1.5 hour hike on a well-maintained trail along the river, through a few caves, under a few trees and ending at a swing bridge.

This is a really cool trail that takes you through several caves carved out of the rock mountain side and through the tree roots!

There were some pretty darn steep portions, but overall I would rate this a moderate level trail.

We end at a beautiful swing bridge.

We stop in for lunch at Speight’s Brewery (one of the boy’s favorite NZ beers).

Shantytown – Greymouth

Our last stop is Shantytown just outside the town of Greymouth.  We arrive just before closing so they gave us a bit of a discount and told us we had an hour.  The good news is that there were not many people around, but the bad news is that we missed the opportunity to dress up for an old time photo, missed the steam train, and missed the hologram room.

All of the buildings are from the 1800’s.  Most have been relocated and restored from other cities around NZ.  They even had a few stables and liveries.

Of course a general store, barber, and theater.

A beautiful, tiny church.

An old stream train.  We missed the last ride by a few minutes, but the conductor humored us with all of our questions.

They had a collection of old engines back in the foundry.

We had some fun at the county jail and outhouse (check Matt out!)

Since Matt was misbehaving, we locked him up!

Old Friends in a New Country

We had met Fran and Grant (sailing boat Te Kinga)  in French Polynesia over 2 years ago.  They have property in the south island and had invited us to stay.  They converted an old church into an Air BnB but we got to stay with them in their beautiful tree house!  You can check them out at Hidden Valley Lodge.

• Hotel: Hidden Valley Lodge
• Kilometers Traveled:  175km
• Total Time Traveled:  3hrs
• Kilometers Walked:  13.1km

Events from this blog post occurred in early March.  Our posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual events.  Be sure to read our last blog post!