​​The West Coast is a stretch of untamed natural environment situated on a narrow 600km area of land – consisting of wild coastline, mountain peaks, glaciers, rain forests, lakes and a sparse population.

 

This West Coast is a vast and often remote landscape. Considered New Zealand’s most protected region and including a world heritage site, The West Coast is home to five of New Zealand’s 14 national parks and five marine reserves. The Department of Conservation (DOC) have domain here adminstering sustainability to over 90% of regions land mass.

 

Here you'll find native wildlife and vegetation flourishing along the coastline, in rain forests and up onto the icy slopes of the Southern Alps.  You'll also find the renowned Fox and Franz Josef glaciers which are considered some of the region’s biggest attractions.

 

The West Coasts diverse landscape caters to the adventurist at heart delivering adrenalin thrills such as heli-hiking on glaciers, mountain biking, skydiving and rafting. The Great Coast Road was voted by Lonely Planet as one of the world’s ‘Top 10 Coastal Drives’.

 

"The West Coast region is the only New Zealand source of pounamu / nephrite jade or greenstone – valued by Māori for its strength, durability and beauty, and used to make tools and adornments. The prized stone is considered tapu (sacred) and credited with mana (status)." 

 

"For a time the local Ngāti Wairangi people and their pounamu were protected from other tribes by the mountains dividing the west from the rest of New Zealand, however they were eventually defeated by the Ngai Tahu who found their way across the mountains to fight for the precious stone."  New Zealand Tourism.

 

 

West Coast consists of 18 main townships, all within three sub-regions.

 

Please click on the region below to go to the area applicable, within the box you'll find the towns relative to the region in question. Travel distances to sights within each region average between 30mins to 1hr.