Gas blows an unappreciated world wonder
Murchison’s ‘gas blows’ have the distinction of being New Zealand’s only permanently alight natural gas vents, and one of only a handful worldwide.
It absolutely amazes me that few people out of the immediate area have even heard of them.
They flame out of a tinder-dry and crumbling fern fringed grotto in gently sloping beech country at the head of Blackwater Valley, 15km south-east of Murchison as the crow flies.
In daylight it’s a relatively easy hour-long walk up the sphagnum moss-swathed floor of beech forest that runs alongside Blackwater River.
The daytime trip I have done many times, but I have always wanted to see the flames at night, when some of the different gases being emitted can be seen.
A couple of years back I finally got my chance.
In the dark, the exposed tree roots can trip you and the slippery watercourses that cross the track have to be accurately judged. Oil oozes from this petroleum rich backcountry and not even native ‘trout’, eels or koura lurk in its kerosene-tinged waters.
On every trip I’ve been in here we’ve had to carry the fresh water for billy tea up on our backs.
Finally we divert up an unusual geological formation, a minirazorback ridge with babbling watercourses on both sides, we hear the soft hiss of gas, and smell it too, before suddenly coming upon the gas blows alight in its grotto, all surrounded by luxuriant ferns.
Suddenly the walk here by night is worth it, the blackness not only highlighting the bright yellow flames of methane, but the dramatic blue butane ones as well which are near invisible by day.
Five different natural gases get emitted by the gas blows here; methane, ethane, propane, butane, and pentane. But only the flames of two are visible by day.
This place challenges your senses – it’s just not natural to come across a bright, crackling fire in the bush with no one else around and there’s no hint of smoke you would expect from a camp fire.
One bonus: no sandflies, ever! Obviously the tinge of gas in the air doesn’t agree with them.
At the site, a bevy of pokers, skillets and iron trivets hanging from a beech tree attest to the locals’ long association with these natural flames – families, tourists and even local sawmill staffers on a Christmas ‘work do’ have traipsed in over the decades for a flash-fry and billy boil up.
A tractor and trailer would be used to bring family groups or the less mobile up, and when they couldn’t get any further up the rough track, the able bodied would help all those not to able to reach the blows.
I pull down a hotplate and cook a sizzling batch of burgers for a late dinner that we’re soon devouring thanks to the spectacular heat of the fire.
We wash them down with tea before standing to just gaze into the flames, taken by their warmth and sheer uniqueness. Eventually we pack up and head back, but leaving the fire burning away at full intensity feels strange.
There’s no need to put it out; we just walk away, knowing it will burn on without us. To think this burns all the time is amazing!
The history of the gas blows goes back to 1920 when Mangles farmer Lewis Hingham and his deer shooting mate Allan Gardiner first smelt and heard gas among the ferns.
They returned to the spot a few days later with a pipe they banged into the ground and then lit. That pipe is still there, discarded on the ground. Bursts of torrential rain can put the flames out, but the relighting ceremony is all part of the visiting fun.
It is no surprise the flames are here, in geological terms anyway.
The Blackwater and nearby Mangles Valley have been explored for oil and gas for decades, with capped oil wells in both valleys testament to this.
The first person in here after the 1929 Murchison Earthquake reckoned he daren’t strike a match, otherwise he would have blown himself up, so much gas he could smell coming out of the ground. The atmosphere has calmed down a bit around here since then.
The old gabled homestead where Henry Rouse was born in the late 1920s can still be seen up here, just past the Blackwater turnoff.
The Murchison coroner and farmer became the top of the South Island’s earliest citizen to catch petroleum gas fever, routinely running his Farmall B tractor on oil condensate seeping from an old oil well.
Later settlers up here even drove their cars on the stuff, but it was rough.
The now-capped Blackwater Well on the roadside was drilled in 1968 by the Australian Oil Company of Texas. Results were initially promising, with the Nelson Evening Mail declaring that Murchison was teetering on the verge of an oil boom.
But only moderate amounts of the ‘black gold’ was ever found and the well was abandoned.
The company celebrated its pullout with a massive thank you barbeque for 1300 locals and invited dignitaries, the biggest event to date in Murchison’s history. Likewise, the Bounty Oil Company abandoned their exploration in 1970, after spending nearly a million dollars.
The gas blows are situated on Department of Conservation land, but the only practical way to get to the 380m-altitude site without bush-bashing over the rugged Matakitaki Range is up through a farm with restricted access.
Concession tours today visit the gas blows which are marketed as the Natural Flames, started by Merve and Shirley Bigden, but taken over by Steve and Elizabeth Riley in 2015. Their guide, Shelley Neame, worked for the Bigdens too.
Anyone driving the highway through Murchison will see their billboards advertising the Natural Flames Experience.
Tour groups are usually between 2 and 12 people, leaving 9.15am and 2pm each day, and take 4 to 4.5 hours, two hours spent walking.
Says Elizabeth Riley: ‘‘We would consider doing a night trip as a special request for people who are very fit, as the risk of slipping is greater at night.’’
Their business also does shuttles for hikers and bikers around Murchison and to the Old Ghost Road, under the name ‘‘Explore Murchison.’’
When the Bigdens first applied for their DOC concession, one of the standard conditions that they were asked to sign was ‘No fires’. Merve had to ask; ‘‘What say the fire is already there and won’t go out?’’ No one in DOC had come across that before.
So are these flames special? Absolutely! And underappreciated too.
There’s hardly any permanently alight flares in the world – you can count them on one hand even. Best known is the ‘eternal flame’ which flares out on the barren slopes of Mt Olympus and attracts hordes of tourists on a daily basis.
Yet to my mind Murchison’s gas blows are way better, set in the ferny grotto, Kahurangi style. www.naturalflames.co.nz