A small tale of the Taieri
17th April 2010

In 1980 a short history was published of the small community of Taieri Mouth, which lies on the Otago coast about 30 kilometres south of Dunedin. The history was a community project, the usual account of early settlement, a roll call of personalities and events, with a liberal selection of grainy, black and white photographs.

The authors acknowledged the presence of early Maori in the area before moving swiftly to European settlement, a succession of whalers, traders, gold diggers, sawmillers and farmers. In the early period when roads were uncertain the Taieri was one of those rare New Zealand rivers that was navigable for a fair part of its length, and the little settlement owed its existence to the shipping that came and went through the lower gorge and across the sand bar.

The occasion for the book was the completion of a new bridge over the Taieri River, a streamlined ferro-concrete structure replacing the original wooden bridge that was literally at the point of collapse. To the authors the new bridge was both a leap of technology and a symbol of progress. The book closes with fine expressions of civic pride connecting the labours of the past into an unbroken chain of prosperity stretching far into the future.

This week we have been holidaying at Taieri Mouth, thanks to the friend of a friend who owns a small bach – sorry, crib – at the point where the river makes its final turn towards the sea. I can report that thirty years after its opening the bridge is as fresh and functional as the day it was completed.

The town, sadly, has fared less well. In hindsight 1980 marked the high point of Taieri Mouth’s growth, as it did for most of small town New Zealand. The long unravelling of the 80s and 90s, from the removal of farm subsidies to the collapse of the inshore fishing industry, has reduced Taieri Mouth to a shell.

The school remains, and the hall. A dozen caravans are parked up for the winter at a cheerless camping ground. But there is no store, no café, no hotel, no obvious employment apart from three or four small fishing boats that still work gallantly from the riverside wharf. It is impossible to spend money at Taieri Mouth.

The population appears to have been sucked out on the falling tide. In four days we saw perhaps a dozen people, mostly tourists in campervans.

The community appears to have vanished but in its place has arisen a modern hybrid – the community of holiday homes. I should not call them homes - they are houses, baches, cribs - the weekend retreats of professionals and retired farmers. Ironically, as the town has crumbled I imagine property prices have soared, in keeping with our enthusiasm for every small vista of sea, lake and river. There are probably more buildings at Taieri Mouth today – and certainly fewer residents – than at any time in its history, and most of the newer ones are large, opulent and empty.

When we lived in England a few years ago there was a village near us that had become a popular destination for holiday makers. Wealthy people from London and elsewhere were buying houses at a rate that caused property to boom. In a short time the village was a tourist town, homes became too expensive for the locals to afford so the resident population began to fall and local infrastructure began to collapse.

In New Zealand large parts of our habitable coastline and lake shores have turned into similar strange modern ghettoes. To somebody unused to our peculiar lifestyle the sight of communities of often monstrously wealthy houses, of new streets and parks and footpaths, all silent for the greater part of the year, would seem bizarre.

To the historians of Taieri Mouth the new bridge must now appear a mixed blessing. It became the means of exit for the locals and entry for the bach owners, changing their town from a community to a silo.