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'more than just a town'
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Next Music Festival 05-07 Feb 2010
Little River family music camp Jan 29th 30th and 31st. More details click here This is the weekend before the Music Festival.
Little River History
Little River is a town in New Zealand on Banks Peninsula about 45 minutes' drive from Christchurch. It is on State Highway 75, which goes to Akaroa. Little River is a great place to visit for walks and mountain biking.
There is also a new cycle and walking track that opened in 2006, the Little River Rail Trail, which largely follows the course of the old Little River Branch railway that ran to Little River from its junction with the Southbridge Branch in Lincoln. This branch line was opened to Little River on 11 March 1886, closed to passengers on 14 April 1951, and closed to all traffic on 30 June 1962. Between 1927 and 1934, Little River railway passengers were served by the experimental and popular Edison battery-electric railcar, the only one of its type to be built. Little River is approx, 30 minutes drive from Akaroa on Banks Peninsula, a major South Island tourist destination and 45 minutes drive from the largest S.I. city of Christchurch.
The population early last century, numbered in the thousands, and were mainly employed in timber milling and farming. A fairly localised but major industry was the harvesting and threshing of "cocksfoot".
The road from Christchurch is at sea level but once at Little River the roads rise steeply and twist and turn their way to the top of the summit road . From the summit road all of the bays on the peninsula are accessible on equally steep and twisting roads leading down to them. Not all roads are sealed and some are more suited to four wheel drive vehicles.
Every year in January the Little River Agricultural and Pastoral Show is held in the beautiful Awa-Iti Domain situated in the middle of the town. This attracts many visitors as well as exhibitors and competitors in the equestrian arena and the numerous displays of sheep, cattle, dog trialling, produce, floral and cooking.
Little River nestles in a deep valley and myriads of streams and springs converge to form the Okana and Okuti Rivers which also converge before entering Lake Wairewa, (Lake Forsyth). The lake, rivers and streams abound in trout, perch (redfin) and eel. The world record for the largest brown trout caught was held by one of these rivers in the 1960s.
Today the population of the area is approx, a thousand people, with many people moving into the area seeking a more country/rural lifestyle.
Railway history
The Little River Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network. It diverged from the Southbridge Branch in Lincoln and ran down Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury region of the South Island. It was opened to Little River in 1886 and operated until 1962.
Little River contained one of only two significant stands of timber in the Canterbury region (the other, near Oxford, was serviced by the Oxford Branch), and accordingly, plans were made to build a line to provide convenient transportation and stimulate economic activity. These were finalised in 1879, and construction was under way by the next year. On 16 May 1882, the first 27.44km of the line were opened to Birdling's Flat, and almost four years later, the next nine kilometres were opened to Little River. There were proposals to extend the line as far as Akaroa, but these did not eventuate and Little River remained the terminus.
In the early years of the line, it operated profitably as large quantities of timber were transported by rail to destinations off the branch. This freight was mainly but not solely loaded in Little River. There was also significant agricultural activity in the area; livestock and farming supplies were important commodities at all stations. As time progressed, the timber traffic declined as no effort was made to replant and sustain the industry, and accordingly, the line's traffic became increasingly focused on the agricultural industry that was expanding into the felled areas.
Passenger numbers totalled over 10,000 in the line's first year of operation, though no dedicated passenger trains ran. Instead, until 1927, passengers were carried on mixed trains. In 1927, an experiment was conducted on the Little River Branch when the Edison battery-electric railcar was trialled. It provided a twice daily dedicated passenger service each way between Christchurch and Little River, completing the trip in 69 minutes. Affordable and efficient, the railcar proved popular with travellers, but its life was abruptly cut short in 1934 when it was destroyed in a depot fire and not replaced due to the poor economic conditions of the Great Depression, forcing passengers back to the slower mixed trains.
Around this time, traffic started to seriously decline. Timber traffic was becoming non-existent because resources were almost exhausted, and road transport was increasingly competitive with rail. A Royal Commission in 1930 had recommended that passenger services be cancelled and freight trains operated only thrice weekly, but provisions were made for passengers until 14 April 1951, and in 1952, goods trains were still operating nine times a week. However, the line was making a financial loss and service cuts could not alleviate it. With the line becoming too uneconomic to continue to operate, it was closed on 30 June 1962, along with the Southbridge Branch beyond Lincoln.
The Little River Branch is one of New Zealand's best preserved former railways. The Little River Rail Trail has been established as a walking and cycling track utilising the former track bed of the branch, in much the same style as the Otago Central Rail Trail. On 28 May 2006, the first section, from Motukarara to Catons Bay Reserve, was opened to the public, and plans exist to convert the entire line into a rail trail, though it may deviate from the railway's original route in places to ensure easy accessibility. Furthermore, the Little River station has been well-preserved by the local community, who have converted into a centre that sells local craft and historical items. The platform and goods shed are still in good repair, and some metres of trackage have been installed so that a number of preserved freight wagons can be displayed.
Coordinates: 43°46′S 172°47′E / 43.767°S 172.783°E / -43.767; 172.783
