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 arise ...

in the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

region of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. It was the first New Zealand land seen by a European – Abel Tasman in 1642. Part of the range has the country's highest protection as a national park; the

Paparoa National Park Paparoa National Park is on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The park was established in 1987 and encompasses 430 km2 (166 sq mi). The park ranges from on or near the coastline to the peaks of the Paparoa Range. A separ ...

was established in 1987. Within that park, the Cave Creek disaster occurred in 1995.

History

The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first (known) European to come to New Zealand (

Aotearoa ''Aotearoa'' () is the current Māori-language name for New Zealand. The name was originally used by Māori in reference to only the North Island, with the name of the whole country being ''Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu'' ("North Island and South ...

), which he named ''

Staten Landt Staten may refer to: ;People *Randy Staten (1944-2010), American politician and football player *Roy N. Staten (1913–1999), American politician ;Places * Staten Island, a borough of New York City, New York, United States * Staten, West Virginia, ...

'', 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 Punakaiki is a small village on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located between Westport and Greymouth on , the only through-road on the West Coast. Punakaiki is immediately adjacent to Paparoa National Park, and is a ...

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 elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

deposits have been found in the Paparoa Range, with the Blackball Branch/Roa Incline and the

Rewanui Branch The Rewanui Branch, sometimes referred to as the Rewanui Incline and known as the Point Elizabeth Branch in its early years, was a branch line railway located in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. It branched from the Midlan ...

railways built to provide access to the mines. Although these branch lines 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, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

's Rimutaka Incline). Some of the range is protected as the

, which was established in 1987. Within this park, the 1995 Cave Creek disaster 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 common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

Rivers, with the

Inangahua River The Inangahua River is located in the northwest of New Zealand’s South Island. It is a major tributary of the Buller River, which it joins at the town of Inangahua Junction. The Inangahua River begins near the Rahu Saddle and flows northwest f ...

to the east. The highest peak in the Paparoa Range is

Mount Uriah Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

at , and a number of other peaks are higher than . The

Papahaua Range The Papahaua Range is a mountain range on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island east of the town of Westport. It is a geological continuation of the Paparoa Range that is south of the Buller River and it runs north from the Buller Gorge t ...

north of the Buller Gorge is a geological continuation of the Paparoa Range. The southern part of the range is located in Grey District 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), Mount Faraday (

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

; named by von Haast), Mount Curie (

Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...

), Mount Mendel ( Gregor Mendel), Mount Pasteur (

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

), Mount Einstein (

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

), Mount Rutherford ( Ernest Rutherford), Mount Euclid (

Euclid Euclid (; grc-gre, Wikt:Εὐκλείδης, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the ''Euclid's Elements, Elements'' trea ...

), 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 w ...

), Mount Lavoisier ( Antoine Lavoisier), Mount Kelvin ( William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin; named by the botanist William Trownson), 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 elements for t ...

; named by von Haast).

References

{{Grey District Buller District Grey District Mountain ranges of the West Coast, New Zealand