The Paparoa Range is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in the West Coast region of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. It was the first New Zealand land seen by a European –

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch sea explorer, seafarer and exploration, explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New ...

in 1642. Part of the range has the country's highest protection as a national park; the Paparoa National Park was established in 1987. Within that park, the

Cave Creek disaster The Cave Creek disaster occurred on 28 April 1995 when a scenic viewing platform in Paparoa National Park, New Zealand, collapsed, resulting in the deaths of 14 people. The victims, 13 of whom were Tai Poutini Polytechnic students, fell onto ...

occurred in 1995.

History

The Dutch explorer

was the first (known) European to come to New Zealand (

Aotearoa ''Aotearoa'' () is the Māori name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference only to the North Island, with the whole country being referred to as ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' – where ''Te Ika-a-Māui'' means N ...

), which he named '' Staten Landt'', and he first encountered it on 13 December 1642. Tasman had 110 men under his command and was travelling with two ships, the ''Heemskerck'' and the ''Zeehaen''. It is believed that the ships were off Punakaiki and if so, it was the Paparoa Range that they saw. Significant

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

deposits have been found in the Paparoa Range, with the Blackball Branch/Roa Incline and the Rewanui Branch railways built to provide access to the mines. Although these

branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

s are now closed, they were famous for their usage of the Fell mountain railway system to aid braking for trains descending the Inclines (though this was not a full use of the Fell system like the

North Island The North Island ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

's Rimutaka Incline). Some of the range is protected as the Paparoa National Park, which was established in 1987. Within this park, the 1995

occurred. Two Grey Valley residents, Trevor Johnston and Kevin Dash, became the first people to traverse the length of the Paparoa Ranges from north to south in mid-1986. They later wrote a book about the experience, ''Touch the Wilderness.''

Flora and fauna

Numerous species of flora and fauna are found in the Paparoa Range, as well as lower slopes and valleys below. One of the significant understory elements of the floral palette is the fern '' Blechnum discolor''.

Geography

It is located along the coast between the Buller and

Grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

Rivers, with the Inangahua River to the east. The highest peak in the Paparoa Range is Mount Uriah at , and a number of other peaks are higher than . The Papahaua Range north of the Buller Gorge is a geological continuation of the Paparoa Range. The southern part of the range is located in

Grey District Grey District is a Districts of New Zealand, district in the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast Region of New Zealand that covers Greymouth, Runanga, New Zealand, Runanga, Blackball, New Zealand, Blackball, Cobden, New Zealand, Cobden, and settl ...

and the northern part in Buller District. Some of the peaks are on the boundary of the two districts.

Named peaks

Many of the named peaks commemorate scientists, with this theme started by Julius von Haast. These include the Buckland Peaks (named after

William Buckland William Buckland Doctor of Divinity, DD, Royal Society, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian, geologist and paleontology, palaeontologist. His work in the early 1820s proved that Kirkdale Cave in North Yorkshire h ...

), Mount Faraday (

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...

; named by von Haast), Mount Curie (

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

), Mount Mendel (

Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel Order of Saint Augustine, OSA (; ; ; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinians, Augustinian friar and abbot of St Thomas's Abbey, Brno, St. Thom ...

), Mount Pasteur (

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, Fermentation, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the la ...

), Mount Einstein (

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

), Mount Rutherford (

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...

), Mount Euclid (

Euclid Euclid (; ; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the '' Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely domina ...

), Mount Fleming (

Alexander Fleming Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin. His discovery in 1928 of wha ...

), Mount Lavoisier (

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that i ...

), Mount Kelvin (

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (26 June 182417 December 1907), was a British mathematician, Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist and engineer. Born in Belfast, he was the Professor of Natural Philosophy (Glasgow), professor of Natur ...

; named by the botanist William Trownson), Mount Copernicus (

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

), Mount Galileo (

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

) and Mount Davy (

Humphry Davy Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several Chemical element, e ...

; named by von Haast).

References

{{Grey District Buller District Grey District Mountain ranges of the West Coast Region Paparoa National Park