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Take a trip over the Southern Alps on the scenic route across Arthurs Pass. Explore the limestone rock formations at Castle Hill, follow the old coach road or take one onf the many short walks from the road into the Arthurs Pass National Park before descending through the spectacular Otira Gorge to Jacksons and Kumara on the West Coast.
The highway across the Southern Alps from Christchurch in the east to the Kumara Junction on the West Coast, passes
through the magnificent Arthur's Pass National Park. Huge braided rivers define its
borders, with the Waimakariri and Poulter to the south and the Otira and
Taramakau to the north. These river valleys are popular tramping
routes through the mountains, while the road across the pass
provides many opportunities for visitors to explore this beautiful alpine environment. Moss-covered forests line the
roadsides and short tracks venture onto mountain slopes covered
in alpine flowers. The surveyor Arthur Dobson first heard from Maori of this pass
at the head of the Otira Valley. In 1864 he explored the route
while seeking a way across the Southern Alps so that supplies could be taken from
Christchurch to the gold diggers on the West Coast. Dobson reached the pass and then later returned to complete the trip by making
the descent into the Otira Valley. His brother, who was also a
surveyor, reported that building a road over 'Arthur's pass' would
be too expensive, nevertheless the following year construction began, with
hundreds of workers braving the bitter cold to complete
the road in a year. This heralded the start of a new era for the West
Coast with the beginning of a coaching service, followed by the establishment of a railway line
across the Alps. There is a monument to Arthur Dobson standing at the top of
the pass.
1YALDHURST
The trip starts from the Yaldhurst Transport Museum on School Road just off Yaldhurst Road on SH 73.
Yaldhurst the Transport Museum on
School Road, set in the grounds of an 1876
homestead, has a collection which has grown
from a single 1910 Renault to over 400 vehicles, including numerous vintage cars, motorcycles, racing
cars, steam engines, aircraft and the best collection of horse-drawn vehicles in the country. An American buggy of 1810 is probably the oldest surviving vehicle in New Zealand and there is also a unique 1860 Phaeton as well as an 1866 glass sided hearse, said to have carried the body of former Prime Minister, Richard Seddon. A six cylinder Leyland fire engine housed at the museum is thought to be the last survivor of this type left in the world and there is also a rare 1938 International with a coupe body, one of only five made in the world.
Castle Hill rock formations.
2CASTLE HILL
From Yaldhurst drive west 1.7 km on West Coast Road and cntinue 39.3 km on Old West Coast Road to Waddington then continue 46.4 km on West Coast Road and SH73 to Castle Hill. The road climbs from the plains and crosses Porters Pass, which at 944
m, is a few metres higher than Arthur's Pass, before descending into the limestone country around Castle Hill. There is a carpark on the right side of the road near the start of the track leading down to the Cave Creek resurgence.
The Karst limestone landscape at Castle Hill with its fascinating rock
outcrops, can be clearly seen
from the road. These distinctive formations
were created by weathering over centuries
to produce the smooth rounded forms that
can be seen today. Maori hunting parties who
used these rocks as shelter about 500 years
ago, mixed
charcoal with fat or oil and used this to draw pictures on the
smooth limestone rock. Four hundred years
later Castle Hill became a staging post for
the Cobb and Co. coaches that provided
transport from Christchurch to Hokitika. From
the road you can follow a 10-minute walking
track down to Cave Stream which is one of the most accessible caves in New Zealand. The water is cold and you should be prepared to get your feet wet if you want to follow the 362-metre passage upstream from the resurgence. Streams that disappear underground before re-emerging from a cave system are typical features of karst landscapes. Make sure that you have at least two good torches, warm clothing and sturdy footwear before you enter the cave. On the other side of the river you can wander up onto the hills and explore the boulder-strewn
slopes of Castle Hill.
Lake Pearson.
3LAKE PEARSON
Continue north 12 km on West Coast Road and SH73 to Lake Pearson.
Lake Pearson is set against erosion-torn
hillsides, burnt off by early runholders, and
is well stocked with both rainbow and brown trout. It
is also home for the sleek crested grebe, a
tail-less waterbird with a long slender neck
and pointed bill.
4THE OLD COACH ROAD
Continue north-east on West Coast Road following SH73 and the Waimakariri River towards Arthurs Pass. The river is a popular location for fishing, jet boating, tramping and features numerous
picnic and swimming spots. The Waimakariri
is also the gateway for some classic tramping
routes leading deep into the Arthur's Pass
National Park. The start of the Old Coach Road track is on the left 29 km from Lake Pearson.
This easy 20-minute track leading from the
roadside follows a section of the old coach
route across the Alps. Throughout the exceptionally cold
winter of 1865, over a thousand men toiled
with picks and shovels, digging and blasting
their way through the main divide. This road
was considered a major engineering feat for its
time and was initially opened in 1866 for drays, but eventually, after more preparation, was also used by
horse-drawn coaches.
ARTHUR'S PASS TOWNSHIP
Continue north on West Coast Road 5.5 km to the Arthurs Pass township. The visitor centre is on the left and the start of the walk to the Devils Punchbowl Falls is on the right.
At the DOC visitor centre in the Arthur's
Pass township you can view one of the old
Cobb and Co. coaches that used to regularly
cross the pass to service the gold towns of
the West Coast. These leather-sprung
vehicles covered the 270 km of road in 37
hours. Passengers were crammed inside and also
rode on the roof, often glad to get off and
walk up the steeper grades where the wheels
were sometimes perilously close to the edge
of a sheer drop. Runaway horses, broken
brakes, flooded rivers, snowstorms and drunken drivers all took their toll, but the
coaches kept running until 1923, when the
Otira tunnel was opened and the Midland
Railway was completed. About 1.5 km further north, a short walk leads to the Devils Punchbowl Falls. Named by Arthur Dobson, the falls
plunge 131 m into a steep-sided valley. It is
an easy l0-minute walk to the lookout point
and 30 minutes if you want to continue all the way to the base
of the falls. The last part of the walk can
become icy and difficult during
winter, but the sight and sound of the falls
plunging into the valley at close quarters makes an impressive spectacle.
Tranz Alpine Express
Work began on a rail crossing of the
Southern Alps soon after the road
across Arthur's Pass was completed.
The major obstacle was the completion of the 8.6 km long Otira Tunnel,
which was begun in 1907 and by the time it was finished in
1923, was the longest tunnel in the Southern
Hemisphere and the seventh longest
in the world. The 233 km of narrow-gauge single track on the Midland line,
uses six viaducts and 16 tunnels to
reach the station at Arthur's Pass
before descending through the Otira
Tunnel to Greymouth. The line drops
from 620 m above sea level on the
Canterbury side to 483 m on the Westland side of the tunnel, a gradient of
1:33. Riding the Tranz Alpine Express
is one of the world's great railway
adventures and is even more dramatic
in winter.
Alpine daisies, Arthurs Pass.
DOBSON NATURE WALK
Drive northwest 5.1 km on West Coast Road, SH73 and continue 1.1 km on Otira Highway, SH73 to the start of the Dobson Nature Walk on the left.
An interesting 30-minute exploration can
be made from the road near the summit, on
the Dobson Nature Walk which circles
through tussock and marshland on a series of boardwalks, providing a close-up look at
exquisite alpine flowers surrounding
beautiful alpine tarn named Lake Misery.
During the gold rush days, sheep and cattle
grazed these fields when they were being
driven across the pass to feed the hungry
miners on the West Coast.
5ARTHUR'S PASS LOOKOUT
Continue 1 km on the Otira Highway, SH73 to the Arthurs Pass lookout on the right.
Below the lookout point the Otira Gorge closes in and
the highway hugs the sheer rock faces of the
mountains towering above. From the lookout there are superb views
down the Otira and Taramakau valleys towards the sea. The road on the Canterbury side of the Southern Alps is a relatively easy grade, but on the western side of the pass, the steep gorge in the upper part of the Otira valley is prone to landslides and rockfalls. The scenery is spectacular and the gorge has been the subject of numerous paintings, but while you are enjoying the view, you should also pay attention
to the kea that hang around the car park.
These cheeky alpine parrots can often be found ripping the windscreen wiper blades and other
rubber fittings from vehicles while the other
members of the flock distract the car owners.
6JACKSONS
Continue northwest 25.5 km on the Otira Highway and SH73 to Jacksons.
The old Jacksons tavern once provided
accommodation and fresh horses for the
coach parties who made the arduous trip
over the alps. Named after Adam Jackson who built the first accommodation house here, the first of a number of hotels have been built in the area. Nearby, 1 km to the west, the only bridge across the Taramakau River, leads to Lake Brunner and the Grey Valley.
7Kumara
Continue west 39 km on the Otira Highway and SH73 to Kumara.
Located on the west side of the Taramakau River, Kumara was named by surveyor Arthur Dobson in 1863 after a distortion of kohimara, the Maori word for the spectacular flowers of the bush lawyer. One of the first people to move to Kumara after gold was discovered in 1876 was Richard Seddon, who opened a hotel and later became mayor. He was a successful politician and later became premier from 1893 to 1906, but never forgot his roots in Kumara. One of his favourite topics was the Waimea sludge channel, on which he would often speak about at length. The area around Kumara had been overlooked in the gold rushes during the 1860s, but in 1876 coarse gold was found in glacial gravels, leading to the last major gold rush on the West Coast. There was considerable amount of gravel piled up on top of the gold bearing layer, so hydraulic sluicing was the only feasible way to remove this material, which was called ‘overburden’ and recover the gold. Over the next 20 years, huge water races and sludge channels were constructed, with much of the land behind Kumara being sluiced away into the Taramakau River. Gold mining had declined by the late 1890s, but dredging for gold in the Taramakau valley continued until as late as the 1960s. The Kumara Racing Club held its first meeting in 1887 and the tradition continues today with its annual meeting on the second Saturday in January having become the largest event in the town, retaining many of the traditional features of country races that are no longer maintained by larger clubs. The start of the annual Coast to Coast race, crossing the South Island, including cycling, mountain running and kayaking, is held near the Kumara Junction, 7 km north-west at the intersection of SH 6 and SH 73, each year in early February.