Photo: This picture was taken by Pierre Lavaurs, Public domain 
Photo: Christoph Strässler, CC BY-SA 2.0
Heaphy Track
A 78.4 km Great Walk across Kahurangi National Park, from the hills of Golden Bay over the Gouland Downs to the nīkau palm coast at Kohaihai.
At a glance
- Starts in
- Brown Hut, Golden Bay
- Ends in
- Kohaihai, West Coast
- Length
- 78 km
- On foot
- 4–6 days
- Countries
New Zealand
About the trail
The Heaphy Track crosses Kahurangi National Park in the north-west of the South Island, between Golden Bay and the West Coast. The river mouth near its western end lies where two Māori trails for pounamu, or greenstone, met, and archaeology shows people living there 500 years ago; later surveyors and the explorer James Mackay pressed for a bridle track along the route.
From Brown Hut it climbs through beech and podocarp forest to the open tussock of the Gouland Downs, with limestone arches and karst, then drops to the Heaphy River and follows a coast of nīkau palms and rata to Kohaihai.
The Department of Conservation keeps the track to Great Walk standard and suggests four to six days, with huts at Brown, Perry Saddle, Gouland Downs, Saxon, James Mackay and Heaphy that, like the campsites, must be booked all year. Mountain bikes are allowed between 1 May and 30 November, in daylight and in groups of no more than six.