Daily Photo – Factory Road, Waipiata

Located approximately 220 kilometers northeast of Winton, in the heart of Central Otago is the town of Waipiata. Just like in Winton, the railways played an important part here too. But while sheep and cattle were the main animals shipped by rail through Winton, in Waipiata it was a different kind of animal that became the primary export: rabbits. Or, to be more precise, hundreds of thousands of tinned and processed rabbits.

The wide open plans of the Maniototo isn’t a native home for rabbits, but when they were introduced to it in the 1860s by European settlers, they found they liked it very much. So much  in fact that the dry tussock country proved an ideal habitat, and with no natural predators their numbers exploded. Within a decade they went from being a useful food source to becoming one of Otago’s worst pests. 

When the residents realised what they had done, measures were taken to control the irritant. Rabbit-proof fencing was built, poisoning was introduced, and the government passed the Rabbit Nuisance Act (1876), forcing landowners to control rabbits on their property. None of which really worked. Then, enter into the developing crises the McAdams Rabbit Factory. They took advantage of the freely available pest and began skinning the things for their pelts, and producing canned and frozen meat for export. So successful was the enterprise that a large factory was established in Waipiata to take advantage of the nearby railway. Within ten years the factory employed around 60 men and handled up to 10,000 rabbits a day. 

So, thanks to the McAdams Rabbit Factory the little town of Waipiata throbbed with the noise, smell and steady industry of rabbits and the whole community got involved. All over the countryside, rabbits were trapped, gutted where they fell, and strung like bunting along wire fences waiting for a lorry from the factory to come clattering by to collect them. Once the trucks rolled up to Waipiata, the carcasses were weighed, sorted and inspected. Diseased or spoiled animals were biffed aside, the rest carried on inside where workers with sleeves rolled and knives sharp, set about the grim business of first skinning the rabbits for pelts (which it seems were worth more than the meat, bound for the hat-makers of Britain who turned New Zealand rabbits into fashionable headwear). After that, the meat would be cut down – either frozen in bulk or stewed, spiced and sealed into tins for export to places like Britain where canned rabbit was a working-class staple, cheap and plentiful. 

Even the scraps weren’t wasted. Fat and offal were boiled into tallow and stock food. Blood and bones ended up as fertilizer. This was real nose to tail cooking. The finished products were then taken to the railway wagons at the nearby station, ready to take bundles of dried pelts, crates of canned stew and frozen carcasses down to Dunedin and out into the world. For a few decades, it really was an economy run on rabbits, and everyone benefitted. Then, as the great depression hit and markets slumped in the 1930s, the factory closed, leaving only its buildings and a faint whiff of memory behind.

Having spent the night in the charming town of Waipiata, I’d gone to bed reading about the efficient operation of the once nearby factory. The next morning, standing in the frosty air, my toes curled against the cold rising from the ground, I tried to imagine the dawn-to-dusk hum of industry, or the smell that must have hung over the town in the heat of late summer, attracting thousands of flies. It was hard to picture – the town seemed so peaceful, still, and sedate.

When I was younger, visiting places like this always puzzled me. My nine-year-old self couldn’t fathom why anyone would live here. There was no Pizza Hut, movie theatre, or swimming pool. No playground, BMX track, or local sports team to follow. No shops selling ice creams or lollies. Not much of anything really. Yet forty years later, standing in a frozen field, hoping my car had defrosted, I found I could have easily stayed a few more days. I’d wander on longer walks, sit and read, photograph the surrounding scenery, and get to know the locals over a beer. I could even check whether rabbit was on the menu – “Oh bother,” I muttered to myself, realizing I’d forgotten to check. Oh well. I’d do that next time. There would be a next time, that much I was certain of.