Good fun for kids and young-at-heart travellers, Shantytown is a recreated 1860s gold-mining town, 10km south of Greymouth. Peer inside a church, a tavern, a hospital and a Chinese encampment, all painstakingly crafted to evoke the spirit of the era. Take cheesy souvenir pics in period costume and try gold-panning ($7), but the highlight is a steam train ride into the bush (five to seven daily, last departure 4pm).
Shantytown
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Nearby attractions
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6.13 MILES
When we passed through, this pictorial museum of Greymouth's gold rush days was closed indefinitely, to allow the handsome 1924 building to undergo…
6.19 MILES
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15.95 MILES
At nightfall, bring a torch (or grope your way) into this grotto on the northern edge of town, signposted off SH6. The dell is an easy opportunity to…
5. Blackball Museum of Working Class History (Mahi Tūpuna)
16.68 MILES
Consisting of outdoor displays and a couple of shipping containers, this appropriately humble 'museum' tells the fascinating story of how Blackball came…
16.69 MILES
This handsome Catholic church, completed in 1928, could only be admired from the outside when we passed through, due to earthquake-strengthening…
7. Formerly the Blackball Hilton
16.69 MILES
Blackball's major talking point is this century-old pub, once known as the Dominion. When it was renamed in the 1990s, a certain global hotel chain got…
16.78 MILES
Tiptoe through the darkened kiwi house to watch the birds rummage for tasty insects, or stare a tuatara – a reptile unchanged for 150 million years – in…