A Long Way Down

Today we left Greymouth, and travelled to Karamea, stopping along the way to take photos, and explore.
This is the remains of the Denniston Brakehead (with Mario doing the modelling!), which was part of a coal mine that operated back in the old days. I believe the incline is 516 meters, with some sections having gradients steeper than 1 in 1.3.

This from Wikipedia: The Denniston Incline began operation in April 1880.[10] It was a self-acting ropeway that used gravity to lower 12.5 ton gross laden weight New Zealand Railways' coal wagons one at a time from Brakehead, at Denniston, at the top to Conns Creek below. Each descending wagon hauled an empty one up the incline by means of wire ropes, each wagon attached to its own rope and brake drum. The two drums were mounted beside each other on a common shaft, and the wire rope wound in opposite directions on each drum. So while one drum was letting the rope out and lowering a full wagon down the incline, the other drum was winding its rope in and pulling an empty wagon up the incline. Hydraulic pistons slowed the rotation of the winding drums to control the speed of the wagons.