![]() Gold brought thousands to the region – within the space of one year over 1864-65 at least 16,000 miners came to the rain-soaked wilderness to line their pockets with glittering gold. The first prospectors to venture into the region of the Park followed the rivers close to the inland ranges, but in the spring of 1865 they discovered a new gold rush on the previously unexploited black beach sands. Townships sprung up from the wilderness but the heights of the gold rush didn’t last long though and just 18 months after their incredibly rapid emergence, Ōkārito, Five Mile and Gillespies were virtual ghost towns. Guided tour group in the 1940s, Franz Josef Glacier ![]() ![]() Early Maori settlements clung to the shores of Westland’s lakes and lagoons, where food was plentiful. However, in their travels up and down the coast, in search of Pounamu (greenstone), the Ngāi Tahu people also become familiar with the glaciers, peaks and forests of this area. ![]()
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