Walking in the Bush on the West Coast

In addition to the mountains and beaches along the west coast we did some walking in the bush. In New Zealand, the bush usually refers to the very dense, subtropical rainforest.

 

 

 

Many varieties or mosses, ferns and lichens

We drove out of Westport and north past Karamea to “the end of the road” as it is referred to. There is talk about continuing the road around the northern part of the South Island, connecting to Nelson, but the end of the road designation is probably safe for quite some time.

There are some remnants of the coal mines from the 1870's to 1960 near the old rundown mining town of Denniston . But coal mining has been revived and we also saw a big, new, opencast operation. Most of the coal is exported to India and Japan.  

 

 We had hoped to walk a bit on the popular Heaphy Track, but because of the rain and limited daylight, we had to make a choice and opted for the Oparara Arch Track, which is said to be the largest limestone arch in Australasia.

It was too dark to get a good view of the very large arch.

Would we expect anything else?

And, at the end of the road, we were rained out of a beautiful beach.