State Highway 6, Kawatiri-Murchison, Tasman
Like Kenny Rogers ‘Train bound for nowhere’, remnants lie here of the ‘dreamers railway’, a line bound for nowhere, converted to a road junction.
Kawatiri was the little station which, in the 1920s, served the workers (up to 300) of the Pikomanu Workers Camp, building the tunnel and rail from here in the Hope River Gorge, north to Glenhope.
Trains did chuff this way, all the way to Glenhope until the depression put paid the entire project, the rail retreating and leaving the tunnel, the original platform, and the lovely little Kawatiri Circular Walk (30 minutes return) through beech forest complete with information about the railway history.
For the traveller by road, this is where one can choose between State Highway 6 and 63, and though it is without refreshment rooms it is a natural stopping place owing to the long stretches in all three directions.
The Department of Conservation maintains the Kawatiri Campsite here.
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