History burns deep on the wild west road

Can you see the smoke coming from the ground in the valley over there?" Matthew Lysaght said, pointing into the hills alongside the road.

"That's a fire in the old Strongman Mine. It's been going for years now and the smoke leaks out of cracks in the ground. The mine's been closed since 2003 but they still can't put the fire out."

Actually, I hadn't the faintest idea whether what I was seeing was smoke, because the bushclad valley was also covered in mist and rain, but I stared intently anyway.

The smoke - or at any rate the thought of the smoke - was a poignant reminder the road we were on, State Highway 6 between Greymouth and Westport, is not merely spectacular enough to be named by Lonely Planet's Blue List as one of the planet's 10 best road trips.

It is also a highway through the dramatic story of coalmining in New Zealand with its bitter strikes, disasters, hard work and heroism, brutal crimes and punishments, with stories at every turn.

Our trip up the Coast Rd with Matthew, who runs Kea Heritage Tours, had barely left Greymouth before we came across the first drama.

A memorial on the roadside marks the spot where in 1917 a car carrying the pay for the Runanga miners was ambushed, one of the guards killed and two others wounded. A year later the highwayman, Frederick William Eggers, became the last man to be hung in Lyttelton prison.

A short distance further down the highway is Runanga itself, one of the most famous mining towns on the coast, cradle of early Labour politicians like Bob Semple, Paddy Webb and James O'Brien, and still a coal town today.

Amid the rows of neat wooden houses is the Runanga Miners Hall where a spectacular frontage hides a doubtful future. It was built to house a co-operative store during the hardship of the 1908 strike at the Blackball Mine but has fallen on hard times in recent years.

Just across the fields, you can see the newly built bathhouse for the Spring Creek Underground Mine where Runanga's miners now work. It was Spring Creek which took over from the Strongman Mine, a little way along the coast, these days marked by the smoke of the seemingly everlasting fire (according to Solid Energy it was first noticed in 1996).

According to Matthew "there's quite a few underground fires in old mines. I think there's seven on the coast alone. Solid Energy have done a lot of work to bring the Strongman fire under control but the oldtimers down the workingmen's club say, 'They'll never put it out now'. And it looks as though they're right."

We stop to view the smoke and, if the visibility wasn't the best at the time, it was compensated for by the impressive sight of huge waves smashing into the rugged coast.

But this layby is also home to the memorial to the Strongman Mine Disaster, in 1967, when 19 miners were killed after a wrongly fired charge sparked a massive methane gas explosion. "They eventually recovered 17 of the bodies," said Matthew, "but two were still inside when they sealed the tunnel ... and they're still there today."

The stories continue as we progress down the coast, stopping to see the likes of a remarkable hole in the rock where the creek meets the sea, huge veins of coal in a roadside bank and a grove of coastal trees which, Matthew says, "had their leaves stripped by sand and gravel blown up from the beach in a storm last year".

While there is plenty to see on this highway, the highlight has got to be the spectacular Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki.

Even on a day when it is raining the place retains its pulling power with dozens of tourists prepared to suffer water trickling down the neck to see the amazing stacks of limestone - yes, like piles of pancakes - the huge blowhole, glorious seascapes and nesting Westland black petrels. But I have to confess we didn't stay long and were soon taking shelter in the Wild Coast Cafe, with a dry seat and a hot coffee.

As we looked at the deluge Matthew assured us, "We get a lot of sunshine on the coast, too. Sure, there's a lot of rain, but it tends to fall all at once, so there are plenty of dry days."

No doubt. But in the meantime the weather rather put the kibosh - as the Irish miners who settled round here would have said - on further sightseeing.

We peered through windows of our Kea mini-bus at the remains of the goldmining town of Charleston that in its heyday had a population of several thousand, 37 hotels, the first concrete buildings in New Zealand, a regular shipping service to Sydney and Hobart, and the first branch of Hannahs Shoes, a chain which is still going today.

Matthew tells the story of a manager of the Post Office Bank in Wellington who in 1868 was promoted to run the bank in Charleston. "Promoted. That's how important Charleston was." Yet today not only has the bank gone but the town as well.

There's even less to see at Addison's Flat, a town named after a freed African-American slave who in the un-PC 1860s was known as Darkie Addison, the discoverer of gold in the area. In 1868 this was a big enough place to be the scene of notorious riots between Catholics and Protestants, known as the Battle of Addison's Flat.

Today all that remains of the town is a cemetery - "The town was built in wood," said Matthew, "so it gradually disappeared."

Fortunately one institution which has survived is the Bay House Cafe, at Cape Foulwind, an old bach which is now a superb restaurant.

There was just time for a bowl of their delicious seafood chowder - and to try a locally brewed bottle of Good Bastards dark ale - before heading for Westport Airport and our flight home.

Pity I couldn't complete my rail journey around New Zealand by train. But there is apparently talk of a passenger service resuming on the Greymouth-Westport line. And one day there may even be a rail link from Britomart to Auckland Airport.

CHECKLIST

Further information: You can find out about the Scenic Rail Pass, the cheapest way to see the country by rail, at tranzscenic.co.nz

Air New Zealand has a daily service from Westport to Wellington and regular flights from there throughout the country.

For details of West Coast trips see Kea Heritage Tours.

For tourist information about the West Coast see west-coast.co.nz.

Jim Eagles travelled New Zealand by rail, ferry and mini-bus with help from KiwiRail, Air New Zealand and the regional tourism organisations.