Tokarahi is a small village located in the

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

region of the

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 ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Its location is a rural setting in the Waiareka Valley, inland from

Oamaru Oamaru (; mi, Te Oha-a-Maru) is the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, it is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is south of Timaru and north of Dunedin on the Pacific coast; State Highway 1 and the railway ...

. Economic activity is focused on agriculture.

History

Tokarahi was first a large sheep station owned by John Borton (1826–1916) and Alexander McMaster (1823–1885). Together with their Maerewhenua run their holdings were: freehold 13,000 acres and leasehold 70,000 acres. They ran 70,000 sheep when they ended their partnership in 1887, McMaster taking Tokarahi. A large portion, 11,000 acres or 4,500 hectares, was acquired by the government for close settlement in 1894. Holdings were given to 79 farmers. Borton's property at Maerewhenua was bought the following year. For a number of decades, Tokarahi served as the terminus of one arm of the

Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches The Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches were two connected railway branch lines in northern Otago, New Zealand, part of the Rail transport in New Zealand, national rail network. The Ngapara Branch opened in 1877 and almost all of it closed in 1959; ...

, two connected

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industri ...

railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

built to open up Oamaru's hinterland and encourage farming development. After the first line was opened to

Ngapara Ngapara is a locality in the north Otago region of New Zealand's South Island. It is located in a rural setting 25 km inland from Oamaru. The name of Ngapara is derived from the Māori word for the "tables" or plateaus of limestone in the area ...

in 1877, a side-branch was built to Tokarahi and opened in 1887. Its construction was partly used to provide work for those unemployed due to the

Long Depression The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing st ...

. For much of the Tokarahi Branch's history, a "mixed" train of both goods and passengers would run return to Oamaru daily. This service met a similar train from Ngapara at Windsor Junction, where it formed a dedicated passenger train and a freight train that followed at a slower pace. The reverse of this procedure took place in the afternoon. Trains to and from Tokarahi were often hauled by T class

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s. Tokarahi became one of the first places on the

national rail network In United States railroading, the term national rail network, sometimes termed "U.S. rail network", refers to the entire network of interconnected standard gauge rail lines in North America. It does not include most subway or light rail lines. F ...

to lose its passenger service, with a bus replacement introduced in 1926. Due to its small population, low economic activity, and proximity to the Ngapara arm of the railway, Tokarahi lost its railway entirely only a few years later. The line was closed on 14 July 1930. Very little today survives of the town's railway depot. The Elephant Rocks area around the village was used as the location for Aslan's encampment in the 2005

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

of ''

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. It is the first published and best known of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956). Among all the ...

'', one of the

Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...

books written by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

author

C.S. Lewis CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to: Job titles * Chief Secretary (Hong Kong) * Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces * Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...

.Filming locations for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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References

External links

– contains a map and brief history of the Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches {{Waitaki District Populated places in Otago Waitaki District