Long Road over Haast Pass - Roadside Stories

A Manatū Taonga audio guide to the Haast Pass. Check out the Ministry for Culture and Heritage's audio guide in the image carousel above.

Once a walking track used by Māori heading for West Coast reserves of pounamu (greenstone), Haast Pass was first crossed by Europeans during the 1860s gold rushes. Construction of a proper road began in the 1920s and 1930s depression, with unemployed workers wielding picks and shovels – but the road wasn’t completed until the early 1960s.

West Coast places: the far south,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/west-coast-places/15

Haast Pass,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/geological-exploration/2/5

The lure of gold,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/european-exploration/8

Johann Franz Julius von Haast,
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h1

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Roadside Stories is a series of audio guides that follow major road trips in New Zealand. The stories cover the places you’ll pass along the way – their people, their history, their cultural and natural significance. For more information about Roadside Stories visit http://www.mch.govt.nz/roadside/