Access

Nelson Creek Recreation Area is signposted along Nelson Creek Road, 25 km north of Greymouth along SH7. The recreation area is signposted on the left 7 km further on, at the settlement of Nelson Creek. There’s a large picnic area with toilets and playground by the river. The track starts by crossing the bridge over the creek.

Track

This is the rougher of the two walks at Nelson Creek.

Cross the shallow stream then climb to the top terrace to start the loop. Take care following the orange triangles, as any deviation from the track and you could end up at the bottom of a deep channel. These were cut into the rock to allow used water to return to Nelson Creek.

European History

The first prospector to announce a find at Nelson Creek, was a Mr Nelson. Most other prospectors thought he was bullshitting and threatened to kill him, or at least cut of his ears.

Fortunately for him and his ears, the area did yield gold and infrastructure was set up to extract the metal from the rock.

The first system used sluicing, where the gravels were blasted with water and the finer material washed through sluice boxes. This “long tom” of horizontal parallel bars separated the larger rocks from the fine gravels, which could them be panned to get the gold.

The returns were good and more water was required to power the sluices. The Government of the day thought big and stumped up £90,000 for the construction of a 30 km long race. Lake Hochstetter was dammed to provide the head. It took 6 years for the project to reach completion, by which time impatient prospectors had already built smaller scale races. The return on investment yielded £125,000 with a further £15,000 for upkeep and maintenance.

Tailraces were used to return the used water back to the river. These deep cuts in the rock are now sometimes bridged with unsupported vegetation.

In the early 1900s bucket dredges were brought in after trialling on other Otago and West Coast goldfields such as at Gillespies Beach. These steam-powered machines supported conveyors of large buckets, which literally dredged the creek beds to uplift the gold bearing sediments. It was a job not without hazards, as submerged logs would often snag the buckets causing a sudden and perilous lilt in the floating barges upon which the machines were mounted.