The top pic shows a distant canvas covered wagon stopped on the Greymouth to Kumara 4ft gauge wooden tramway running through the bush. Two passengers are visible leaning against the back of the bush tram, circa 1880s. The tram operation was horse-drawn, but the horse is not visible. The second pic probably from a few years later shows two men sitting on the track but no wagon.
Following the gold rush of 1876, this wooden tramway was built between Greymouth and Kumara. Unsurprisingly from the nature of the track - clearer in the postcard - the trip took three hours for 30 km. Trams carried passengers and freight. Passengers had to cross the Taramakau River in a cage or flying fox suspended from a cable!
The coast railway, today the Hokitika Branch, was opened to Hokitika in 1893 and to Ross in 1906. The extension to Ross closed in 1980.
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