Residents of a remote town on the South Island's West Coast are ready to celebrate the reopening of a popular tramping route.
The Heaphy Track's one of the country's Great Walks and connects Tasman to the West Coast, but it's been shut since a storm in February 2022.
Development West Coast's Heath Milne said it's been a blow to the local economy: "It certainly had a big impact on numbers coming into the area. It went from several thousand to the hundreds really."
The closest town is Karamea which is about 1.5 hours from Westport with a population of 700.
Maggie Seeman owns The Last Resort accommodation and said the impact of the closure was immediate. "It was huge. We lost probably 60 or 70% of our bookings."
Seeman said while many businesses found other income, they were counting down for the track reopen. "Oh well we'll probably have a party!"
Karamea Motors/Express helps get people to and from the Heaphy Track and owner Philip Higgs said business has been slow. "Well when the track went out in February, what eighteen months ago, it just died completely".
The storm in February last year damaged parts of the Heaphy's coastal track and a large bridge across the Heaphy River.
Department of Conservation's Mark Davies said they chose to make the track more resilient.
"We could have built another bridge in the same location relatively quickly but that was not a good investment and would have been more than likely lost in the next severe storm.
"So we've gone down the valley, and gone up the hill and built one bridge. And built a new section of track up and built another bridge."
When the track is reopened on Labour Weekend locals want to show off all that Karamea has to offer.
Helicopter Charter Karamea's Vanessa Kingan said rather than just passing through, people should stay for a night or two. "There's heaps of great swimming holes around here, lots of great family friendly wee walks. The bird life is amazing".
And if that isn't enough, Philip Higgs said the West Coast hospitality is a big draw card.
"Not many places you can go down the local pub and just people will talk to ya, because that's what we do".
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