Pounamu Pathway - Mawhera

This new attraction for Greymouth is part of a series of exhibits on the West Coast. This one highlights Maori history and life in the region and features an animated recreation of Moari village life by the Mawhera (Grey) river. To be honest I was underwhelmed by the displays.

An incredible opportunity to learn about Maori history on the west coast and the strong connection to pounamu here. It was a beautifully curated experience and my family all really enjoyed it! They paid attention to every detail so you can really absorb yourself on the space.

Excellent experience, wonderful audio visuals. Just needs to have translation into other languages given the number of overseas tourists on the west coast.Much better than the expo at Punakai.

This was an enjoyable visit, which lasted around an hour. It was self directed, which meant there was no time pressure to get around the exhibits. The set up was lovely, and the lighting and layout was great. There is a lot of reading (if you are interested in the details of what you are looking at) with text in both English and Te Reo Māori. It could have been made easier if the language texts were in different colours, to immediately focus the reader on the content they preferred. You will love this if you are curious and have an interest in history and the local area you are in.

This was beautiful. From the moment we were greeted and given an explanation to engagement after we were through. The thought that has gone into that space is incredible. We enjoyed all three film displays. Entering through stylised cloaks. The film and history that was given at each woven basket was so clever and very engaging. We all learnt so much. Many thanks and highly recommend.

Beautifully done with great care and love. If I could voice some wishes: - a bit more structure/overview of the timeline of events would have helped me. - especially as a foreign visitor it's quite difficult for me to read english texts spiked with plenty of Maori words. Even if they are explained I can't remember them all which leads to not being able to understand the texts. You just loose the thread if you don't even know anymore if it's relating to a person, a place or an object. I'd love to learn about Maori culture but please let's take one thing at a time. Keeping the English clean would have helped my understanding a lot. - Less noise overlap would have helped me to understand sections better, especially since the texts require a lot of concentration due to above topic. The noise may also be really difficult for some people with adhd or autism. I really appreciated the staff today. They were very nice and helpful.

Special thanks to Tui at reception who took the time to talk to our little family about special discounts and local experience. The Pounamu pathway is beautiful and I learnt so much. Definitely would recommend to both kiwi and overseas travellers alike.

Great cultural experience and museum like story telling. Felt like exactly the activity and cultural experience that was otherwise lacking on the west coast. Excellent activity if it's a bit wet outside. Exceptional story telling of the Pounamu Greenstone histories, especially relevant on the west coast where it originates. Facilities were great, the audio and visual storytelling was very well done. Great bathrooms too and nice gift shop. Can't wait for the other 3 centres to open and hopefully will be back to see them.