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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Waimahaka

Waimahaka has become known as a settlement since the opening of the extension of the Seaward Bush railway to that place in 1900. The township has a store and an accommodation house, two blacksmiths shops a wheelwright's shop, and a public school, which is attended by twenty-eight scholars. Services are held every Sunday in the schoolhouse, morning or evening, by Anglican and Presbyterian ministers alternately. The station, which is the terminus of the line, is a combined railway station, telephone bureau and post office, and is twenty-six miles from Invercargill. The township is on the Waimahaka stream, which empties itself, west of the township of Fortrose, into Toetoes harbour. The settlement is in the Toetoes riding of the county of Southland, and in the electorate of Mataura, and at the census of 1901 had a population of seventy-seven. A dairy factory in the immediate neighbourhood is known as the Toi Toi factory. A coach service connects Fortrose with all trains at Waimahaka, the distance between the places being six miles by a good road. The Waimahaka estate, a splendid property extending as far as Titiroa, three miles distant, has been occupied since the early seventies Waimahaka township is completely surrounded by hills, and is entirely hid from any sea views. The population is scattered, but closer settlement will doubtless considerably increase the number of residents in the near future. Since the opening of the railway line, goods, which formally were shipped from Fortrose by sea, are now put on board the trucks at the station, to which the produce of the settlers and numerous flaxmills, for a distance of forty-five miles around, is periodically brought, and so sent into the market.