The Bearded Miners

The Bearded Miners
By Celia Walker

Coming from the holiday town of Hanmer Springs through the Lewis Pass and down into Reefton is not only a massive shift in environment, but also in way of life. Tucked into a hollow in the hills, with the smell of coal smoke in the air and persistent drizzle, Reefton sits apart from the more gentrified West Coast towns strung along the coastline.

A minimal exchange of small change will get you a personalised insight into life in the 1870s at The Bearded Miners on the main street of Reefton. The miners offer gold panning, a working forge, and a hut that in all likelihood is a pretty close replica of an original miners hut, complete with smoky interior and all-male character. This is a low budget, no frills set-up, not a slick and depersonalised tourist show. The three former miners that inhabit the place during the day are genuine West Coast personalities. With jokes as old as the history they claim to represent, it borders on dodgy at times, but is also more resonant for this.

My only other visit to Reefton had an equally out-of-time feel to it, a midwinter night spent in a draughty old cottage, with dinner from the coal range and tucked up for the night in hand-crocheted blankets. Although that was a long time ago (the 1980s), it could just have easily been the 1880s, little seemed to have changed, and perhaps still hasn’t. Reefton folk are still happily picking up their bags of coal from the local shop, and many are still dependent on mining related industry for their income. With this in mind, it is best just to soak up the anachronistic character of the place, and then leave all judgement there when you make your way onwards to the other wild places of the West Coast.

Image Credit: Reefton NZ