A popular watering hole of yesteryear

The Opihi Pub

More than one hundred years ago, a dusty track wound its way west of Pleasant Point, following the Opihi river flats towards Hanging Rock and beyond. 

Eventually, it crossed the river at what was known as ‘Collets Ford’, about three kilometres west of this old pub. 

Today, however, a tar seal road takes a much different direction.  Turning left at what for a time, became known as ‘Beedle's Corner’.  It follows a more picturesque route, through rolling farmland high above the river flats, to cross the Opihi at almost the same spot as our forefathers before us. 

The Opihi Hotel was erected during the late 1870s for an old bullock driver by the name of John Jones, otherwise known as ‘Bullocky Jones'. 

During those pioneering days of the 1850s and 60s, Bullocky Jones became one of those free-ranging legends, who with his bullock train, navigated a trackless and unbridged land, as far away as Lake Pukaki. 

The pub was known, during those years of the late 1800s, as a popular watering hole, yet modern society has failed to bestow any historic significance on this once well-known landmark. 

During the course of construction by local stonemasons Walker and McDougal, it is rumoured an original single-story building, with a cellar to cool the beer, somehow turned into a double story affair. 

Its thick limestone walls made for a temperate climate, both winter and summer. 

Bullock wagons, making their way into the back blocks of the Kakahu and as far away as the Mackenzie Country, delivering stores and returning laden with wool, interrupted their journey at the Opihi. 

The location obviously influenced Bullocky’s decision to build on this spot; however, it was a decision he was to later regret. 

At that time, the law forbade any hotelier, within five miles of a neighbouring hotel, to serve liquor. 

By all accounts, Bullocky’s pub was thriving; it had become popular, not only with his bullock driving mates, but the locals were frequent visitors as well. 

Unfortunately, it is rumoured, a bumptious local landowner was resentful of his workers patronising the Opihi and returning to their quarters in a happy frame of mind. 

The landowner is said to have discovered that the distance between the Opihi pub and its closest neighbour, was short of the regulation distance by just a couple of chain. 

The upshot of this entire hullabaloo was that around 1890, due to the encouragement of some bureaucratic wallah, Bullocky lost his licence. 

Just to digress for a moment while we are talking about liquor, I read this note somewhere recently about a Scottish whiskey distillery worker,

it was headed         ‘Still Death’.

You see, this poor chap fell into the whiskey still and they say it took the poor beggar four hours to drown.

Management reported to the authorities that he would have drowned much sooner if he had not got out several times to go for a pee.  

While the Opihi may have lost the right to officially serve liquor, it never lost its atmosphere, it still continued to be a meeting place, a social centre and accommodation house for those travelling through, and you can bet your bottom dollar there were many a bottle appeared from under the table on those occasions. 

Towards the conclusion of its hospitality career, the Opihi became a well-known haven for many a fisherman, seeking their luck in the pools of the nearby Opihi River.

No one seems to know exactly, but around 1906, the Blackmore family took up residence, using this once notorious old pub as a farmhouse and eventually naming it ‘Walnut Grove’. 

Sheldon Blackmore was the last of the family to reside at Walnut Grove.  Towards the end, he lived in a home that was literally falling down around his ears.  While the original stone walls were as sound as the day they were erected, the timber floors and internal wall construction was gradually succumbing to age and the occasional flood. 

As far as I can recollect, Sheldon was eventually forced to move out during the early 1980s, from then the internal timbers continued to decay. 

I can recall, as probably do many locals of my vintage, the sight of Billy Beedel living here in the old hotel with Sheldon, during the 1960s.  Anyway, Billy, a man of small stature, wearing untidy baggy clothes, regularly drove into Pleasant Point, a distance of six or seven kilometres, or wandered the countryside in his horse and cart. 

Thinking back, Billy does remind me of ‘Compo’ that delightful character in the British television comedy, ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. 

Billy and Sheldon were cousins, Billy’s mother being Gertrude Blackmore.  Billy’s father, born in Tiverton, Devonshire, England, came to New Zealand aboard the sailing ship ‘Elmstone’, in 1868. 

However, it was not until 1892, that he settled into farming in the Opihi district.  For reasons best known to them, Billy and Sheldon never got on; rarely did they speak to one and other.  They lived separate lives in either end of the building, sharing only the meagre cooking facilities in Walnut Grove. 

The old place had become, during Sheldon’s final years, a bit of an attraction to a few passing visitors, perhaps seeking a bit of nostalgia.  To Sheldon however, this was an intrusion. 

If one were careful though, they could just see him peering from his hidey-hole, in the macrocarpa hedge.

During the late 1990s, a young couple with a sense of adventure took up the challenge of restoring Walnut Grove.

Who knows, maybe someday we will once more see activity, on Beedle's Corner, but we will never see the likes of those characters again, which to me is a real shame