Waiting at the pick-up point in anticipation, our Unimog pulled to a stop to collect us. On went the high visibility vests, and the hard hats, and we were all set for our “OutWest Tour” around Stockton Opencast Mine.
Rosetta was taking the tour today, and told us that she had lived up on the Dennison Plateau for the first five years of her life, and herself, her hubby and both sons all work at the Stockton Mine. Coal dust is in her blood, she exclaimed. The compulsory heath and safety briefing took place, including how to summon help by the radio if something untoward happed to Rosetta.
Arriving at Ngakawau, where the coal is ferried down from the mine high above in the hills, it was obvious that all was not right with the Unimog. The mechanic confirmed that one of the wheel callipers was faulty, so our tour was cancelled. Oh dear. But all was not lost, and Rosetta talked about the mine while hurried phone calls behind the scenes tried to rustle up some alternative transport to enable us to see a small part of the operations.
Stockton Mine started life as an underground mine, then changed to open cast mining in 1980. The aerial ropeway was opened in 1953 and the wagons glide effortlessly down, depositing the coal before continuing on their journey back up the hill.
A whole lot of coal is produced here – five coal trains a day pulling 30-35 wagons transport the “black gold” over Arthur’s Pass to Lyttleton. The bulk of the coal is then sent by sea to India, South Africa, and China.
Our alternative transport arrived and our driver Tony took four of us in his Ute up to Station 6 to have a close look at the aerial ropeway. Each wagon carries 1.5 tonnes each, he told us. The ropeway works continuously, with planned maintenance taking place on Tuesdays and Friday mornings.
After this shortened version it was time to go back to the works. Tony invited all the tour group into his area of expertise, the weighbridge and rail loading operations, showing us the TV screens he monitors with live camera feed from all over the mine workings. “Big Brother is everywhere”, he said wryly, but no doubt the cameras are a necessary part of monitoring a high risk industry and to find the first signs of any impending problem.
The Stockton Mine Tour is heavily subsided by Solid Energy, and the company donates the $15 fee charged to the Solid Energy Rescue Helicopter. Although we were offered our money back after the full tour did no go ahead, we decided to leave it with Rosetta as our donation to this good cause. It was still early so we took a ride up to see what remained of the Stockton township. Nothing much, as it turned out, and we could not get past the security gates, which told us “Blasting Today”. So how about Millerton up the road, another early mining settlement, we’ll drive up there. One of the old cottages had been made into an Info Centre with many old photos inside. There were a couple of houses dotted around, but Millerton is practically a ghost town these days.
We were surprised to drive through the “Grand Canyon” on this road. Not quite up to USA standards perhaps, but still very interesting.
This road up the hill had one more surprise for us – we spotted a waterfall in the distance and went to investigate. And very pretty it was too. Locals have told us that the normally wet West Coast hasn’t received any rain for many weeks, so perhaps the waterfall would run with a lot more force.
So all in all, another busy day here on the West Coast - this is certainly a very interesting part on New Zealand. But it’s time to move on tomorrow, and our next stop will be Reefton.
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