Crushington, New Zealand

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Crushington is a small town on the Inangahua River in New Zealand’s West Coast region. It sits about 3 kilometers inland from Reefton along State Highway 7 (the Lewis Pass road) between the West Coast and north Canterbury. The town grew around the Globe Mine for quartz mining and was named for the steady, loud sound of quartz being crushed by twenty stamping machines driven by a water turbine. A local tale says the noise was so constant that the children never slept, and when the mine closed and the noise stopped, the silence was surprising.

Crushington is also the birthplace of athlete John Edward "Jack" Lovelock," who won gold in the 1500 meters at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.