Today we travel to one of the smallest towns in Westland - and probably the smallest town in New Zealand to have it's very own contemporary art gallery! Otira traces its history back to the gold rush era when it was a stopping point for stagecoaches traveling between Christchurch and the goldfields of the West Coast. At its peak the town was home to about 700 people in the 1920s - most of them workers building the Otira gorge tunnel and railway which still bridges the Southern Alps today. At the time it was made the 8.5 kilometer tunnel was the longest in the world.
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