The Coaltown Museum in Westport is one of New Zealand's better regional museums, covering the history of the coalfields that defined life on the West Coast for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection includes mining equipment, photographs, and detailed exhibits on the working conditions in the mines — a story of hard labour, dangerous conditions, and strong trade union culture that shaped the region's character.
The museum also covers the broader history of Westport and the Buller region, from Māori occupation through the gold rushes and the coal era to the present. It is worth an hour or two, particularly if you want context for the landscape you are driving through.