other horse-drawn tram systems were built on the west coast of the south island, where a gold rush started in 1864. the main towns, greymouth, westport, hokitika and ross, and smaller settlements like brighton, charleston, kamiere and kumara had wooden tramways. publican john behan of charleston, now a ghost town, petitioned the canterbury provincial council in 1870 for compensation after the rerouting of a wooden tramway along a branch road removed most of his stalwart drinkers. the 'bush tram' from greymouth to kumara took three hours, and during the trip passengers had to cross the taramakau river in a cage or 'flying fox' suspended from a cable see photo c1880. these tramways were for freight and passengers. there were few roads on the coast, and tramway owners were entitled to charge a toll to pedestrians walking along the tracks. the gauges varied from to , with wooden rails (see stewart and may). some of these were "bush tramways", similar to other systems used to carry timber out of the bush.