Steven and I had arrived in Greymouth too late the day before to see anything of New Zealand's South Island's West Coast's largest town - wow, what a mouthful that was! The town of approximately 32,700, about half of the West Coast's population, is known to the Māori as Māwhera, which means "open" or "widespread." The Grey River, which sits at the mouth of the waterway, served the town well during the 19th-century gold and coal mining boom, but it also caused devastating floods. After a floodwall was erected, it doubled as a walking and bicycling path.
We backtracked a few miles to Runanga so I could take a photo of the coal car I'd noticed the day before.
The bridge leading to Greymouth over the Grey River:
In 'downtown' Greymouth, there was a two-ton sculpted piece of New Zealand jade, also called greenstone and known locally as pounamu. Rainforest Origin - Jade Mountain was created from an even larger piece that the artist found in a remote part of Northern Fjordland. We were encouraged to touch the dark green pounamu that brought to mind the West Coast's mountains, rivers, and lakes.
Māwhera Pā was described as an immersive Māori cultural center and interactive museum, but it wasn't open at the time.
The Greymouth timepiece was attractive, except that it didn't tell the correct time!
Even though it was a Sunday morning, I had rarely seen a town as dead as Greymouth was that day.
The former courthouse, built between 1911 and 1912, served the people of Greymouth until 2007. It faces potential demolition after no one stepped up to buy it for a dollar due to the cost of necessary earthquake strengthening.
The floodwall:
The view across the river:
A plaque on the floodwall beside a large piece of pounamu recognized that Māori settlement was the foundation of the Grey District as it is known today. The commemorative pounamu recognized their contributions to the district and also acknowledged the decision (made only in 2019!) to award a seat on the city council to the Māori.
More than 130 coal mines have operated in the Greymouth area since coal was first discovered in 1848. Miners from individual mining unions formed a powerful union, the Miners' Federation, in 1908 following demands to increase their lunch period to 30 minutes. Some of the mines remained in operation until 2010.
The 2013 memorial on the floodwall was created "In Memory of Those Lost in Coal Mining Incidents Within the West Coast Inspection District." Of the 400 men who lost their lives in coal mining-related accidents, about 250 were from the Grey District. It was sad reading about the country's major mining disasters that occurred between 1870 and 2010.
When I spotted the coal car on display by the floodwall, we realized we hadn't needed to return to Runanga earlier for a similar shot!
With such a chilly 'grey' day in Greymouth, we needed to wear all our layers. I don't know when I was packing back home, how I thought that my headband would be warm enough here on the South Island!
The wooden sculptures on the floodwall represented tools of the miners' trade, honoring Greymouth's mining history.
At Coal River Park, there was more information about the town's troubled coal-mining history. Although gold had brought (white) people to Greymouth, it was coal that kept them. New Zealand's greatest workplace disaster occurred in 1896 when the Brunner Coal Mine, located a short distance east of Greymouth, exploded after gas ignited underground, resulting in the deaths of 65 miners. The mine had the country's greatest coal production, with over 300 men and boys employed.
In Westport yesterday, we'd visited a memorial to New Zealand's largest maritime disaster. We hadn't known that the Greymouth Port was one of four treacherous river mouth harbors on the West Coast. That was because rough seas, a short, steep, shallow bar, and narrow entrance combined to make it one of the country's most challenging.
Over a 150-year span, almost 50 boats wrecked on the bar, in part because the port is only three meters deep at low tide, so boats risk becoming stuck on the sandy bottom or being caught by a large wave. But until the railway opened to Christchurch in 1923, the only other way to the Coast was a grueling stagecoach trip over the mountains.
One harbor master proclaimed darkly, "There's only one horror Dante forgot to include in his flaming Inferno, and that was a bloody bar harbour."
Close by was the Southern Breakwater Platform, where we watched surfers endlessly ride the waves. I was just glad we were admiring their exploits from the dry pier, even if it was so windy that our car rocked!
The 2022 Blaketown Beach Memorial honored six local men who drowned while attempting to rescue visitors on holiday who were swept into the surf by a sudden, dangerous rip current a century earlier.
Just steps away from the pier was a reconstructed World War II Pillbox, one of what had been a series of bunkers capable of holding a machine gun and a man that had been installed along the coastline during the war years amid fears of an invasion by Japan. The New Zealand Army commissioned the design of a series of curved concrete panels that could be locked together and easily manufactured.
They were then dropped into prepared holes and surrounded by sandbags and boulders. There was a trench to the pillbox so soldiers could crawl into it. A machine gun would have been mounted on a wooden swivel and used at both openings. Fortunately, the pre-fabricated Pillboxes were never used in a serious fighting capacity.
I could barely appreciate the dedication of those manning the pillboxes for long stints during the war, as the space was ungodly small, boredom would be a terrible enemy, and the chance of spotting the 'enemy' was minuscule unless he was spotted through the tiny opening.
The surfboard-shaped washing station
Steven and I were both pleasantly surprised at how many 'sights' there had been to see and appreciate in Greymouth before we hopped back on the Great Coast Road south toward Hokitika.
Before touring Hokitika, however, we stopped at the Glowworm Dell, an improbable stop, admittedly, during the middle of the day! New Zealand glowworms are the larvae or maggots of a fly species called a fungus gnat. They have a remarkable ability to create a glowing light on their tails to attract prey. The tail light shines from an organ, which is the equivalent of a human kidney. While all insects have this organ, glowworms have a unique ability to produce blue-green light from it, a phenomenon called bioluminescence.
Fun glowworm trivia: They are sometimes cannibals and will eat their neighbors if they get too close. Did you know that when a glowworm is hungry, its tail light shines a little brighter?! In case you were wondering, glowworms are not related to fireflies, insects from the Northern Hemisphere that are beetles that fly around at night with their tail lights flashing.
Though we didn't see any glowworms, the walk in the dell was still enjoyable.
Hokitika is considered the West Coast's coolest town, and its population of 3,000 includes a sizeable number of artists. We were interested in its historic roots and took a walking tour ourselves. As we entered the small town, we couldn't help but notice its four-faced Clock Tower on the central roundabout. The historic war memorial was unveiled on June 3, 1903, to commemorate the Second Boer War and the coronation of King Edward VII.
At the same intersection, the Westland Pioneers' Memorial commemorated the region's early settlers.
The former Carnegie Building, funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, was completed in 1908 as a library. It was transformed into the Hokitika Museum, the largest museum and archive on the West Coast, focusing on local history and culture. This was our second former Carnegie Library of this trip - the first had been in Suva, Fiji!
Nelson, a 123-ton paddlesteamer, was the first steamship to arrive in Hokitika on December 20th, 1864. Its complement of 60 passengers included impatient diggers and businessmen with El Dorado dreams, eager to set up for the 'golden harvest.' Beginning in 1866, the Hotikita port was one of the busiest in the country.
The historic Custom House was built in 1897 at a cost of £400.
The town's former Government Buildings, also known as Seddon House, were named after Richard John Seddon, the country's longest-serving prime minister, who died in office in 1906. You may recall his name from posts I wrote on Wellington.
The handsome building provided services for war veterans.
Westland Women commemorated "the women at the heart of our communities."
The Hokitika Beach Sign was a famous landmark crafted from driftwood. There was certainly plenty of it on the beach!
Some creative person had far too much time on their hands when they sculpted a concrete chair, painted it, and placed it on the beach!
Waitaha was a Māori word that referred to an ancient Māori tribe, or literally translates to "beside water."
At the Shipwreck Memorial at Hokitika Bar, we learned that the voyage across the Tasman Sea was far less of a problem for those traveling to Hokitika than simply getting ashore from 1865 to 1867. Every 10 days or so, there was a collision, grounding, or shipwreck. Out of 108 mishaps, 32 vessels were totally wrecked, 21 in 1865! Vessels got stuck going out, grounded coming in, or were beached due to pilot error, or by towlines attached to the busy tugs breaking as the ship was towed over the bar.
The parallels between Greymouth and Hokitika were striking, with both towns suffering huge losses of life from their main industries in their early years. However, I found the latter town's history far more compelling and its artistic scene more vibrant.
The town shops stressed the importance of taking care of pounamu, and like pearls, handing them down from one generation to another. I don't know how much of that was good marketing and how much was balderdash! I didn't want to buy any pounamu jewelry, which was almost everything being sold, but instead items to put out to remind us of the South Island's West Coast.
Some of the items were drop-dead gorgeous, but with prices that matched. The selection of more affordable items was so overwhelming that we didn't buy anything that afternoon.
Gloria: As you know, when we returned to Greymouth late that afternoon, I spent a few minutes at St. Patrick's Catholic Church next to our hotel, thinking of my brother, Paul, who had passed away a year earlier in my hometown of Ottawa.
Just before sunset, Steven and I drove to the Greymouth Scenic Lookout far above town for some lovely panoramic views.
Next post: Heading into the South Island's famous mountain country of Mt. Aoraki, aka Mt. Cook.
Posted on June 4th, 2026, from the indigenous Ita Thao village of Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.
