Hawks Crag, Buller Gorge. New Zealand.
S 41° 51.890 E 171° 46.840
59G E 564789 N 5364936
Postcard showing the road through the forbidding Buller Gorge. At Hawks Crag the road has been hacked out of solid rock – you’ll drive under a dramatic overhang.
Waymark Code: WM77XX
Location: North Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 09/15/2009
Views: 13
The Buller River known to Maori as Kawatiri (Bitter sounding waters) is 169 Km long starting at Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes district and finishing in Westport. It has a catchments of 6,500 sq kms and in full flood has a flow of 12,375 cubic metres per second. The Road through Hawks Crag was constructed in 1869 and stands as a tribute to the spirit and determination of the West Coaster who overcame many difficulties in its construction. Today, the road is one of the best scenic drives in New Zealand. The Buller River is also well known for Trout fishing and other recreational activities.
Old postcards show Hawks Crag and the narrow road without any railings!! Click here.
Just a straight drop into the river.
Hawks Crag is a prominent landmark in the Lower Buller Gorge, where the road has been cut into a cliff that drops into the Buller River. In 1955, two elderly prospectors, Frederick Cassin and Charles Jacobsen, made the first discovery of uranium on the roadside, about a kilometre downstream. The area is made up of a rock type called Hawks Crag Breccia (pronounced ‘bretcha’) – a mass of angular fragments, probably formed by floods near a mountain range where rock was being eroded rapidly. At the time it seemed a most unlikely place to find uranium, so had been overlooked by prospectors.