Daily Photo – Fairlight (2)

I found myself at Fairlight. At first glance, it’s just a station beside the road, the sort of place you could drive past without a second thought, but this patch of ground was once “The Ten Mile,” a staging stop for horses and travellers in the pre-railway days. Then came the 10th of July, 1878, when the first train rattled through on the newly completed Athol-to-Kingston line. Invercargill marked the occasion with a celebration excursion – five engines, twenty carriages, and, no doubt, a few startled sheep watching the spectacle thunder across the paddocks. For the locals, it must have been a very big day indeed. 

The building here today wasn’t even born at Fairlight, it began life as Otautau’s railway station, built in the 1920s, before being uprooted and hauled south in 1996. It now serves as the southern terminus of the Kingston Flyer, that proud survivor of New Zealand’s steam age. In its heyday the Flyer was no ordinary train but a working lifeline, hauling passengers and goods along the lakeshore. When it was resurrected as a tourist service in the 1970s, its vintage engines and green-and-cream carriages drew visitors from around the world, offering them a taste of travel as it once was, unhurried, dramatic, and full of character.

Today, the Flyer runs only occasionally, a reminder of both the grandeur and difficulty of keeping steam alive in modern day Aotearoa.