Day 15 Greymouth to Otira

Be still like a mountain and flow like a river – Lao Tzu

There are two road routes that traverse this part of the South Island: Reefton to Christchurch via SH7 via Lewis Pass (252km) or Greymouth to Christchurch on SH73 (240km) via Arthur’s Pass. There is also a railway crossing called the Trans Alpine route.

We decided to go via SH73, also known as the Great Alpine Highway because it is known as the more spectacular of the two crossings. Located 140 km from Christchurch and 95 km from Greymouth, Arthur’s Pass has an altitude of 739m high and comprises part of a saddle between the valleys of the Otira River (a tributary of the Taramakau River in the west) and of the Bealey River (in the east).

The first part of the journey was through quite flat agricultural land and then the landscape starts to rise. This really is a farming country and there are farms even in the mountains.

Peter Jackson, the New Zealand film producer and director, shot numerous scenes for his epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003) in this area so when we saw Gollum perched in its roof, we couldn’t resist stopping for a light lunch at this rather quirky looking place.

In the 1890s, when Arthur’s Pass was still navigated by coaches run by Cobb and Co, Otira was the main stop between Canterbury and the West Coast. The Otira Railway Station was opened on 13 November 1900 and closed in February 1992. During the construction of the railway tunnel in the 1920s when the line was being extended, Otira housed about 600 workers and their families. By the 1950s the town had a population of only about 350. In the latest census information of 2018, the population was 651.

In 2014, the whole village comprising the hotel, 18 houses, a dance hall and a fire station on 25-hectare property was bought by Lester Rowntree for an undisclosed price (of at least NZ$1million.) The hotel was very rundown and Lester has restored it to its original 1902 condition.

The hotel looks quirky on the outside but it is very quirky indeed on the inside. A self- confessed hoarder, Lester is filling the town with his many collections of curiosities and historical artifacts. Every nook and cranny of the hotel and the 3 rooms of the café are crammed with interesting, unusual and bizarre stuff. We had an interesting conversation with the waitress who is a great enthusiast of the collections and we briefly met Lester as we were leaving.

There is a lot of information posted on the walls about the history of the area and especially about the building of the Main Trunk Highway and the Otira Railway tunnel that makes it clear just how enormous and heroic those tasks were.

Lester describes himself as a dreamer who dreams big. He ascribes to Theodore Roosevelt’s sentiments: Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. – T. Roosevelt Strenuous Life Speech 1899