Daily Photo – Dover Street, Orepuki
The strange thing about all of this, is that not an awful lot is known about old James Kirkton at all. Very little is known about his personal life, history, or what became of him after he spotted that yellow flake of gold among the black sand. It’s almost as if he disappeared in the annals of time completely. What we do know is that his discovery started a boom town that in its day, peaked with a population of some 3000 residents. As the town grew more services were required and so more buildings were added till eventually the residents of Orepuki could proudly boast about their hotels, banks, schools, churches, a courthouse, police station, jail, railway station, community hall, general store and any other establishment you might expect to find in an upstanding, populous rural town that had recently experienced a surge in rapid urbanization.
Over time, more industries sprang up – a sawmill, coal mine, shale works, smelter, flax mill, and of course, farming. It all looked promising for a while, but the problem with non-renewable materials is that eventually they run out, and run-out they did. The gold disappeared, the coal seams thinned, the mills and mines shut their doors, the trains stopped running, and people drifted off to find work elsewhere. I guess if you weren’t a farmer there wasn’t much reason to stay.
As the slow decline in population in Orepuki rolled over, year after year – before leaving – former residents did one very thoughtful thing. They left many of the buildings to simply stand and battle the elements, creating what is known as a semi-ghost town. That’s not to say the place feels abandoned, or that the people who remain are unhappy. Very far from it. I’m sure they like the place very much. Like most small New Zealand towns, Orepuki has a quiet, rural rhythm, with locals going about their daily business at an unhurried pace. There’s a pub, a bowling green, a community hall, and a rural fire service – all the essentials, really.
Today, Orepuki has a population of around 100 residents and as I drove through the town I could help but enjoy myself in a peculiar, I don’t know why sort of way. I stopped and looked at the old buildings that stood – the General Merchant Store and the Drapers and Clothes Store, I visited the Orepuki War Memorial Gates and followed Oldham Street to where it ended abruptly, as if someone had simply run out of tarseal one afternoon and decided to call it a day. I weighed up whether to use the public toilets, debated if I had time to detour to Gemstone Beach, and eventually, on my fourth lap of Dover Street, concluded that I’d probably seen most of what Orepuki had to offer without playing a game of bowls, venturing into the pub, or down to the sand. So, with a sense of modest achievement, I eased the car back onto State Highway 99 and set off, in what I assumed was a southwest direction.
