Next to the wharf and waterfront in town is the Coal River Heritage Park. It sits beside the Grey River and was created by the Greymouth Heritage Society in conjunction with the Grey District Council. It has views out the river mouth, the Tasman Sea and towards the Southern Alps.
This short walk tells the story of the town's coal mining history - many boats would've pulled up to this wharf to pick up their order of coal which would've been taken to other places around New Zealand.
Some leftover railway tracks and electric cranes still sit here today as an example of what was used back then.
And this building on top of the hill has inside some explanations and history about it's past. Coal was an important export from the 1870s and by 1881 the population of Greymouth was bigger than Hokitika.
Here's a short video I found on youtube about someone elses visit to this spot. Linking up with Skywatch Friday, All Seasons and Tom's signs.
Comments
We lived in a little coal mining community in central Utah when I was a kid. We heated our house with coal. My parents would order the coal and they would come and load it into a room in our basement. My brother and I took turns shoveling the coal into the automatic stoker ever night.
Everybody used coal to heat and when it snowed the snow would turn gray after three days. Who knows what it did to our lungs.
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