Qualla: Croesus Track

Croesus Track: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jase Blair, CC BY-SA 4.0. They named the mining company after Croesus, the ancient king whose wealth became a byword for impossible riches. It was 1896, and prospectors had found gold-bearing quartz reefs high in the Paparoa Range above Blackball. The Croesus Gold Mining Company was formed, investors were recruited, and heavy ore-crushing machinery was hauled up a pack track through some of the densest bush on New Zealand's West Coast. Within a decade, the gold had proven insufficient, the company had dissolved, and the track fell silent. More than a century later, the trail they built is the attraction the gold never was.

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Image: Jase Blair | CC BY-SA 4.0

Croesus Track: The Miners' Highway

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jase Blair, CC BY-SA 4.0. The track's origins reach back to the 1860s gold rush that brought prospectors flooding into the Paparoa foothills and established the town of Blackball. Miners first cut a rough route up Blackball Creek to reach their claims, and between 1881 and 1899 this was gradually improved...

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Image: Jase Blair | CC BY-SA 4.0

Croesus Track: From Ruin to Revival

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jase Blair, CC BY-SA 4.0. After mining ceased, the West Coast bush reclaimed the track with characteristic efficiency. Decades of rain, root growth, and windfall erased much of what the miners had built. The Croesus Track might have disappeared entirely if not for Ces Clark, a Blackball resident and Fores...

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Image: Jase Blair | CC BY-SA 4.0

Croesus Track: Crossing the Range

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Dickison, CC BY 4.0. The Croesus Track runs 22.1 kilometers from Blackball in the Grey Valley to Barrytown on the Tasman Sea coast, crossing the Paparoa Range along the way. The ascent from Blackball climbs through dense podocarp forest - rimu, rata, and kamahi - before emerging above the bush line i...

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Image: Mike Dickison | CC BY 4.0

Croesus Track: Ghost Machinery in the Mist

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jase Blair, CC BY-SA 4.0. Traces of the mining era survive along the track. Rusted remnants of the stamper battery, abandoned where the gold ran out, sit among the tree roots and moss. The concrete foundations of mine buildings are slowly being absorbed by the bush floor. On the Paparoa tops, where cloud ...

Read more: Croesus Track on Qualla

Image: Jase Blair | CC BY-SA 4.0