Twizel: town of many memories
Five decades after moving to a settlement that was never meant to last, 78-year-old Kathy Foster is packing up and moving on.
The mother of three has called the small South Canterbury town of Twizel home since moving there in 1969 – the same year it was built to accommodate the thousands of Kiwis who were flocking there to work on the Upper Waitaki hydro scheme.
But with her husband Barry passing away in November 2017 and her own health deteriorating, it was time to go somewhere with better healthcare facilities such as Dunedin.
‘‘I’d love to stay here, but the facilities aren’t here for me,’’ she said.
She recalled being the first woman to get a job at the hydro scheme, which was established to keep up with the South Island’s increasing demand for electricity. She also volunteered with St John between 1970 and 2005.
‘‘The men didn’t appreciate a woman in the powerhouse. They tried their damnedest to get me out of there, but it didn’t work.
‘‘I was there to do my job,’’ she said.
The police station, situated across the road from the family’s house, was still being built as they established themselves in the small town.
‘‘When we came here there was only one tree as well [in the town].’’
She said their house, which was allotted to her by the Ministry of Works close to 50 years ago, had three bedrooms, one bathroom, two carports, and 689 square metres of land.
‘‘The men didn’t appreciate a woman in the powerhouse. They tried their damnedest to get me out of there, but it didn’t work.’’ Kathy Foster
They bought their house from the Ministry in 1984 for $12,500. It’s now worth $350,000. ‘‘It’s been a good home,’’ Foster said.
Her daughter, Viv FosterNoakes, was five-years-old when the family moved to Twizel.
‘‘I can remember the oven being around the wrong way and the roads were gravel,’’ FosterNoakes, 54, said.
Their early years were ‘‘free range’’ as they played with other children from Twizel’s first families. ‘‘It was safe. Everything was walking distance. It was all here for us as kids growing up,’’ she said. ‘‘We bought cheap cars when we were teenagers and crashed them into each other. That was great fun.’’
Foster-Noakes had developed a deep bond with her playmates, persisting even after she moved to Dunedin in 1988 to start her own family. ‘‘There are kids now that are losing their parents, and I find that very hard.
‘‘It’s awful to see the school kids you grew up with going through that,’’ she said. ‘‘They felt a little like my parents too.’’
The Fosters were one of the Twizel families to dig their heels in when, as the hydro scheme neared its end in the early 1980s, the Ministry decided to dismantle the town.
‘‘I thought it was ridiculous, to uproot all this and take it to Pukaki,’’ Foster said.
‘‘It was a nasty fight, but we won. Many didn’t want to go, so that put a squash on it.’’
Twizel’s population dropped from more than 5000 to about 1300 as jobs disappeared and children, including Foster’s, became old enough to move away and set up their own roots.
‘‘A lot of people have left here, but they’re not strangers.
‘‘They’ve always been there for me, but we’ve never lived in each other’s space,’’ Foster said.
While a shift to tourism had transformed the town, Foster was happy that it was keeping the town thriving. ‘‘There’s been a big change right through this whole town since they sold us our houses,’’ Foster said.
The ‘‘flash houses’’ that started popping up over the last few years as Twizel took on a tourism focus ‘‘made my house look like an ant, but that didn’t bother me’’, she said.
However, while the small town’s population still hovered at around 1300, it more than tripled during the summer months thanks to a boom in tourism.
Twizel and the Mackenzie District’s status as one of five Dark Sky Reserves is its strongest draw – as is its sky diving, fishing, and proximity to other tourist hot spots such as Tekapo and Aoraki/Mt Cook.
One of Foster’s fondest memories was to go fishing with her husband ‘‘just about every day’’.
‘‘We enjoyed our retirement,’’ she said.