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 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 Tasma ...

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

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

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 sepa ...

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 ro ...

occurred in 1995.

History

The Dutch explorer

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 Sout ...

), 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 Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Rich ...

'', 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 als ...

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 stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...

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 Midla ...

railways built to provide access to the mines. Although these

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote 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. Industrial spur An industr ...

s are now closed, they were famous for their usage of the

Fell mountain railway system The Fell system was the first third-rail system for railways that were too steep to be worked by adhesion on the two running rails alone. It uses a raised centre rail between the two running rails to provide extra traction and braking, or brakin ...

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-larges ...

Rimutaka Incline The Rimutaka Incline was a , gauge railway line on an average grade of 1-in-15 using the Fell system between Summit and Cross Creek stations on the Wairarapa side of the original Wairarapa Line in the Wairarapa district of New Zealand. The t ...

). Some of the range is protected as the

, 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 ''Lomaria discolor'', synonym ''Blechnum discolor'', commonly called crown fern ( Māori: piupiu), is a species of fern in the family Blechnaceae. This species is endemic to New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country ...

''.

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 compos ...

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 ...

north of the

Buller Gorge The Buller Gorge is a gorge located in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. The Buller River flows through the deep canyon between Murchison and Westport. Land Information New Zealand lists two sections for the gorge, Upper Buller ...

is a geological continuation of the Paparoa Range. The southern part of the range is located in

Grey District Grey District is a district in the West Coast Region of New Zealand that covers Greymouth, Runanga, Blackball, Cobden, and settlements along the Grey River. It has a land area of . The seat of the Grey District Council, the local government ...

and the northern part in

Buller District Buller District is one of 53 districts of New Zealand, and is within the West Coast Region. It covers Westport, Karamea, Reefton and Inangahua Junction. Buller District's overall land area is . The district is administered by the Buller Dis ...

. 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 Sir Johann Franz Julius von Haast (1 May 1822 – 16 August 1887) was a German-born New Zealand explorer, geologist, and founder of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. Early life Johann Franz Julius Haast was born on 1 May 1822 in Bo ...

. These include the Buckland Peaks (named after

William Buckland William Buckland DD, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist. Buckland wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named ' ...

), 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 inductio ...

; 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 Gregor Johann Mendel, OSA (; cs, Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brünn (''Brno''), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel wa ...

), 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 after ...

), 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 theor ...

), Mount Rutherford (

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...

), Mount Euclid (

Euclid Euclid (; grc-gre, Εὐκλείδης; 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 ...

), Mount Fleming ( Alexander Fleming), Mount Lavoisier (

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS ( William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did importan ...

; 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 the ...

; named by von Haast).

References

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