CHANGED OTIRA

Hokitika Guardian, 10 August 1927, Page 4

CHANGED OTIRA

NO AY A RAILWAY TOWN

(Christchurch Press)

With the departure a while ago of the last of the Public Works employees, the township of Otira began to settle—just four years after the event which made it an historic place —into the life vastly different from the hustling one it knew both when the world’s seventh largest tunnel was nearing completion, and in the course of the immediate after-care of that huge undertaking. Once the tunnel had been pierced, men of every occupation and sonic of none in particular were concentrated in the township. The embankment was to be built, rails to lie laid, powerhouse to be erected, and reticulation to be arranged. These requirements early in the present decade caused Otira to change—overnight it seemed—from a settlement of a few crude huts to a centre as cosmopolitan and noisy as many a large city. On the 4th. anniversary of the opening of the tunnel last Thursday, Otira had entered upon another change—it is now purely a railway settlement.

Even in tlio days of the coaches there was more bustle in the township than it knows to-day. The people in the trains *ee only the tail-end of the beautiful gorge, anil that only a Hooting glimpse, for Otira’s only claim as a stopping-place is that it is a refreshment staticn. Tourists and occasional excursionists are, of course, an exception. The great crowd that made the train excursion last Sunday indicates that Otira’s next change will be to tlio status of a popular weekend resort.

Those familiar with Otira through its varied career of the last seven years may notice many signs of those changes. The proprietor of the little inn on the coach read says it is “just a home” to-day. The storckeeiK-rs sigh when you talk of ’2l. ’22 and ’23. The railway cottages. ,so brilliant in their white paint when the tunnel opened, are already darkening under the grime of the shunting yards. The hospital is not so busy now, and the resident doctor was among the Gentiles win had to leave the allrailway township. 11 is the constable, win has watched Olira's succession of changes for a decade, who fills his place. This is one of the numerous honorary roles with which lie supplements his official duties. He is very modest about it, explaining that, a.s he has not to travel si often to the Court at Greymouth, he has more time to doctor the sick and help the halo- for tin' two-up schools, lights and misdemeanours of camp and Imt life are—like the camps and lints—things of the dead riast.