Daily Photo – The town of Ophir

I walked up and down the main street, Swindon Street. At one end was the Pitches Store and Butcher, an old-fashioned stone building that started life as a family-run general store and butchery in the 1880s and now advertises itself as contemporary luxury accommodation and a restaurant for those wanting a quiet retreat in slow-paced surroundings. Further on is the rather small but grand Post and Telegraph Office, which proudly lays claim to being the longest-running Post Office in the country. It’s open for three hours every weekday morning, where you can admire the memorabilia display or buy a postcard and get it marked with the town’s unique pick-and-shovel gold-mining postmark. Next door is the town’s Peace Memorial Hall, which still holds a function or two, judging by the nearby faded posters, and is reputed to have great acoustics and an outstanding dancing floor, although I can safely guarantee that is something I will never be able to confirm in person! 

I’d parked at the opposite end of the town at the pub, otherwise known as Blacks Hotel, and on the way back I passed buildings that had been stables, churches, bakeries and other such places you might find in a small Central Otago gold-mining town.

And that pretty much exhausted the town of Ophir. All that was left to do was drive across the popular local landmark, the suspension bridge, and head into the Ida Valley, a place I’d been looking forward to seeing once again.