Driving Creek Railway

Barry Brickell was a potter who bought land above Coromandel town in 1961 and a larger block in 1975 for the clay on it, and needed a way to get the clay and firewood down the hill. What he built over the next twenty-five years, largely by himself, was a 15-inch narrow-gauge railway climbing about three kilometres up the hillside through regenerating bush with switchbacks, tunnels, viaducts, bridges and a double-deck spiral, ending at a wooden lookout tower he called the Eyefull Tower. It is an eccentric engineering project by any standard and became a functioning tourist railway almost incidentally. Brickell, who died in 2016, also spent decades replanting the land in native forest and left the property to a charitable trust that continues the conservation work. There is a pottery, a zipline course added later, and the train ride takes about an hour return with a stop at the tower.

History

The potter Barry Brickell acquired land here in 1961 and in 1975 began a 15-inch-gauge line to bring clay and pine firewood down to his kiln; over the next 25 years it grew into one of the very few completely new railways in New Zealand, with three tunnels and ten bridges, among them a double-deck viaduct. The Eyefull Tower at the top, modelled on Auckland's Bean Rock Lighthouse, was completed in 2004 (Wikipedia, Driving Creek Railway).

What to look for

• The hand-built railway - three kilometres of 15-inch gauge up the hill.
• The engineering - switchbacks, tunnels, viaducts and a double-deck spiral.
• The Eyefull Tower - the wooden lookout at the top.
• The replanted forest - Brickell's decades of native planting.

When to go

October to April. Trains run to a timetable and fill in summer - book ahead. The ride is exposed in parts; wet weather means a damp trip.

Things to know

Ticketed. The carriages are small and open - it is not a comfortable train, which is the point. Trips run to fixed departures. The zipline is a separate booking.

Nearby

Coromandel town is three kilometres south; the 309 Road crosses the peninsula from there.

Key facts