Winton: Trivia, Trucks, and the Shadow of Minnie Dean
The Railway Hotel – Winton
Prologue
Tell people you’re spending the night in Queenstown and you generally get a look of indifference, usually followed by a prolonged state of apathy. There’s no follow-up question or lengthy discussion; you become just another person visiting the resort town that calls itself (with more than a touch of self-indulgence) ‘pure inspiration’. On the other hand, tell people you’re spending the night in Winton and people get curious. They ask all sorts of questions, usually starting with: “Why?”
Recently, on a drive along the Otago Peninsula, it struck me as I wound my way along twisting roads, bouncing out of potholes and splashing through puddles, that I was in need of a change of scenery. I had grown tired of the same familiar surroundings that make up life in a small city. I wanted to see something different, something fresh, something new. Well, maybe not new, but at least something I hadn’t seen on a weekly basis over the last six months. It occurred to me that I was soon having a few days off – an ideal time to hit the road and once more see my own backyard, as it were.
Over the next few weeks, I began plotting itineraries that would take me around the South Island while remaining manageable within three to four days. What quickly became evident was that I wanted to avoid the major tourist locations. Stopping in places like Queenstown and Wanaka held little appeal. Where once they were the goose that laid the golden egg of New Zealand holiday destinations, let’s be frank: that egg was well and truly cooked years ago. I didn’t want to stand in long queues for overpriced food or sit in endless traffic jams thinking, “Gee, don’t those mountains look lovely?” I wanted to drive along back-country roads and through small, forgotten towns. I wanted to visit places that had more sheep than residents, where traffic is blocked by farmers moving their flocks, and see livestock grazing in a frosty winter paddock of rolling Southland farmland, bathed in the soft light of early morning.
I wanted to go back to places I’d visited years ago and had long since forgotten, to Tautuku, Nightcaps, and Dipton – and see if I could remember them. I wanted to hear the long silence that fills the Ida Valley on a chilly winter morning, with the road vanishing into the Hawkdun Ranges in the distance. I wanted to see quiet country towns with quirky bits of history, and listen to stories involving the strange, shady, and controversial characters of New Zealand’s past.
Feeling inspired one evening, I acquired a map of the South Island and spread it out across the living room floor. I drew a circular itinerary, writing various notes and scribbles beside selected places for later reference. And so, one July evening, as the fire blazed away beside me in my warm, cosy lounge, I made careful preparations to depart through the quiet Dunedin streets early the next morning.
* * *
Winton: Trivia, Trucks, and the Shadow of Minnie Dean
By the time I arrived in Winton, it was already early evening. The light was fading into that blue haze of half-light that comes at sunset. As I navigated the streets, I was surprised to find that Winton was larger than I’d expected. While still on the small side, it was considerably larger than anything I’d seen for some time, so I happily drove around for a bit, taking in the sights.
The town of Winton sprang to life as miners seeking the riches of the Central Otago goldfields plodded across the plains from Invercargill. The steady stream of travellers became so great that a railway was constructed, and Winton quickly became a main transit point for farmers and prospectors alike. While the town has grown, I couldn’t help but feel it kept some of its transient origins. I liked this.
I took a room at the Railway Hotel, a handsome two-storeyed Edwardian building that would’ve been a grand place at the time of its reopening in 1910. I was given a smallish room and spent several minutes testing the water pressure and trying to turn on the TV before presenting myself at the downstairs bar, ready for a pint. I stood there for several minutes before a gravelly voice from behind me said, “You’ve got to ring the bell if you want something.”
I looked around to see a man with a long grey beard in a John Deere cap looking at me with a crooked smile. His name was Jim, and he must not have been a day younger than one hundred and fifty. “The bell,” he continued. “You’ve got to ring it. They’ll be in the other room setting up for the quiz night.”
A quiz night? Now, this was a stroke of good fortune. I could just see myself joining a team who might be down a member. I had recently been part of a winning quiz team back home and, feeling confident, I inquired if anyone could join in. I imagined I’d go down in local folklore as the stranger who whistled in on the breeze, won the jackpot, and disappeared. But Winton isn’t a place that easily opens its ranks to outsiders. “Teams are full,” I was told with polite but firm Southland finality. “Expecting quite a turnout tonight.”
I slunk to a table and set about ordering dinner. “Besides, the questions are probably all about farming,” I muttered to myself as I surveyed a menu that was five pages long and featured dishes from every major continent. For a moment I considered ordering a Greek kebab with a side of pork bao buns and a margherita pizza, just to give the night an international flavour. However, I decided to go with a steak and another beer – it seemed the safest option!
Eventually, Jim would come over for a short conversation before he too became lost to the dazzling lights and sounds of the pokie machines. By the time I retired to my room, I listened to the soothing sounds of laughter echoing from the quiz night below. ‘I bet the questions suck’, I thought. I drifted off to sleep wondering if local history ever made it onto their question sheets. Because the history Winton is built on isn’t something locals usually talk about, and it isn’t the kind of thing you’d find in a round of pub trivia.
In the morning, I was awake early. It’s not every day you visit the grave site of the only woman to be hanged in New Zealand. I slipped out into the chilly air. Immediately across the road stood the old post office. The previous evening, under the orange glare of a streetlamp, the building’s arched doorways had seemed exaggerated and important. But now, in the morning light, it looked softer, almost apologetic, as though the bravado of the night had drained away and left behind a tired old building simply trying to mind its own business while it nursed a hangover.
I made my way to my car and was soon on the road heading for ‘The Larches’ and the grave of Minnie Dean. The property gained notoriety in the 1880s as the home of the infamous “baby farmer.” After a hotel business collapse and a house fire left her near bankruptcy, Minnie began taking in infants for payment from mothers unable to care for them. Soon, whispers began to spread. Several children in her care had died, and the town began to watch her.
Locals noticed a pattern: Minnie often travelled by train with a child in tow, only to return alone later. On one journey, a reporter saw her board a train with a baby and a small hatbox. When she came back, the baby was gone, the hatbox was unusually heavy, and it was all she carried.
In 1895, a search of The Larches revealed a grim discovery: the bodies of two infants and a three-year-old girl buried in the garden. Her trial was swift. Found guilty of murder, she was sentenced to death. On 12 August 1895, at Invercargill Prison, Minnie Dean became the first, and only woman to be hanged in New Zealand.
I found her grave on the edge of the old Winton Cemetery, slightly apart from the others, as though she were still kept at arm’s length from society. Today, Winton likes to be known as a prosperous farming community rather than for Minnie Dean, but the story still lingers in the background. I climbed back into my car and drove through the nearby streets. I drove past ‘The Larches’ where once a ramshackle old weatherboard cottage with a dirt floor once stood, a faint emptiness settling over me. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, some dramatic flash of history, perhaps, but in the quiet morning hour it all felt strangely anticlimactic in a sad sort of way. Eventually, I rejoined the main state highway, all the while thinking about the life of Minnie Dean – she’s part of Winton folklore, that can’t be changed. Her the story still lingers in the chilly morning air, as persistent as the trucks rattling down the main highway.
Minnie sat in my mind for a while after that. There was nothing else to be said.
