Directions

From the Westport Karamea Highway, before you go over the Karamea River Bridge, turn on to the Arapito Road. Drive about 2.5 kilometres up this road.

South Terrace Zig Zag Track

The heart of Old Karamea – the first settlement.

This track was originally used by the early settlers who arrived around 1874 tempted by land grants (free parcels of land) given out by the then, Nelson Provincial Council.  They would have been wise not to trust politicians even way back then.   The track starts approx 2.5 kilometres up the Arapito side of the Karamea River. It takes you up onto the South Terrace. Two lookouts give great views north of Karamea, and of the river flats and farm land.

If you continue along the old roadline, you will find the old cemetery that was used by the first European settlers on the South Terrace. Carry on walking past the old cemetery, and you will come to the end of the road which runs along the South Terrace.

Karamea is a perfect illustration of why you should never trust a politician.  It was set up by Nelson politicians as ‘A Special Settlement’  The land grants given out by the Nelson Provincial Council to persuade people to settle here, proved worthless with the land buried in dense bush, or unfertile and waterlogged.  Some of these early settlers walked out, but those without the means to travel back to Westport or Nelson were forced to stay. 

So for nearly three years on these South Terraces, bush was logged and houses built as Karamea’s early folk tried to carve out lives here.  It took all that time to realize that the land was useless or (pakihi – barren land in Maori).  However, not easily defeated, they discovered that the land around Arapito was first class.  So they began there all over again, to be virtually wiped out in a big flood in 1877.

And if that wasn’t enough, the devastating 1929 Murchison Earthquake then cut off the settlement’s road and sea links completely for almost two years.  The port never recovered.

Today, farming technology has turned the once barren pakihi soils into rich dairying country, and tourism is growing.  They make ‘em tough in Karamea.