Mokotua is a locality in the

Southland Southland may refer to: Places Canada * Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia New Zealand * Southland Region, a region of New Zealand * Southland County, a former New Zealand county * Southland District, part of the wider Southland Re ...

region of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. It is situated in a rural area east of

Invercargill Invercargill ( , mi, Waihōpai is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. The city lies in the heart of the wide expanse of t ...

, between Timpanys and Kapuka on the

Southern Scenic Route The Southern Scenic Route is a tourist highway in New Zealand linking Queenstown, Fiordland, Te Anau and the iconic Milford Road to Dunedin via, Riverton, Invercargill and The Catlins. An Australian travel magazine labelled it "one of the ...

. To the south are

Toetoes Bay Toetoes Bay is the easternmost of three large bays lying on the Foveaux Strait coast of Southland, New Zealand, the others being Te Waewae Bay and Oreti Beach. The 240 km Mataura River drains to sea at Toetoes Bay, first passing through the ...

and

Waituna Lagoon __NOTOC__ The Waituna Lagoon is on the southern coastline of the South Island of New Zealand. It forms part of the Awarua Wetland, a Ramsar site that was established in 1976. It gives it name to waituna, a type of ephemeral coastal lake. The la ...

; Rimu is to the north.

Railway

Mokotua was once a railway terminus. On 16 January 1888, the Seaward Bush Branch was extended from Waimatua to Mokotua, with the station located 19.77 km from Invercargill by rail. On 1 March 1895, the next section of the line opened, with the new terminus in

Gorge Road Gorge Road is a locality in the Southland region of New Zealand's South Island. It is on the Southern Scenic Route and is situated on the western bank of the Mataura River. Nearby settlements include Ashers to the west, and across the Mataura, ...

. Passengers from Mokotua were always carried on

mixed train A mixed train or mixed consist is a train that contains both passenger and freight cars or wagons. Although common in the early days of railways, by the 20th century they were largely confined to branch lines with little traffic. Typically, servic ...

s, and when the line's profitability declined, these services were cut to run just once weekly in 1951, with goods-only trains on the other days. Passenger provisions were cancelled outright on 1 June 1960, and Mokotua's station catered solely for local freight from this date. Freight was predominantly for

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

interests, such as

agricultural lime Agricultural lime, also called aglime, agricultural limestone, garden lime or liming, is a soil additive made from pulverized limestone or chalk. The primary active component is calcium carbonate. Additional chemicals vary depending on the mineral ...

. The elimination of passenger services did not rescue the line from unprofitability, and it closed on 31 March 1966. Some remnants of the railway's

formation Formation may refer to: Linguistics * Back-formation, the process of creating a new lexeme by removing or affixes * Word formation, the creation of a new word by adding affixes Mathematics and science * Cave formation or speleothem, a secondar ...

can still be seen in the vicinity of Mokotua.David Leitch and Brian Scott, ''Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways'', revised edition (Wellington: Grantham House, 1998

995 Year 995 (Roman numerals, CMXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * 17 May - Fujiwara no Michitaka (imperial regent) dies. * 3 June: Fujiwara no ...

, 125–126.

References

{{Southland District, New Zealand Populated places in Southland, New Zealand