An outdoors experience that's great for everyone
Continue along the riverside walk, just past the waterfall turn off, to get to a swing bridge which crosses Pine Valley Stream. The swing bridge takes you to the Mill Flat picnic/camping area (named for the timber mill that used to occupy the site) and the start of a wonderful 15 minute loop walk through native kahikatea forest.
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From the car park at the end of Pine Valley Road, take the walking track that follows along the riverside for about 20 minutes. To the left a side track involving a fairly steep 15-minute uphill climb leads to a small but beautiful waterfall. At night the trail is lit by glow worms.
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From Mill Flat picnic area you can follow the Mt Fishtail Track, an easy 20 minute walk, to the six-bunk Pine Valley Hut. For a longer, more strenuous tramp that takes you through the largest trees in the area, take the track up the ridge to Fishtail Hut (4-5hr), then continue for one more hour to get to the summit of Mt Fishtail (1643m).
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Lake Chalice, created by a slip triggered by an earthquake 2000 years ago, is not only beautiful and an interesting day trip, but is unusual in that its only fish are a native land-locked koaro.
A 1 hour tramping track leads from Chalice Car Park, on Staircase Road, down to Lake Chalice Hut. Allow more time for the return journey. From the hut, a tramping track encircles the lake (2 hours 30 minutes).
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A Lockheed Electra passenger plane, the Kereru, crashed in Mt. Richmond in 1942. The plane departed Wellington on 7 May 1942, headed for Nelson, but never arrived. Two crew and three passengers were killed. Johnson Peak commemorates the pilot Commander Keith Johnston, and Mt. Fell remembers passenger Pamela Fell who was a keen Nelson tramper. A plaque was erected at the crash site in 1992, 50 years after the crash.
