Tūrangi woman hoping to collate history of Tongariro River cottages

Tūrangi's Gill Osborne is collecting information on the early cottages built along the Tongariro River before the 1960s. Photo / David Beck

Each of the small cottages built along the Tongariro riverside before the 1960s, some of which still stand there, has its own unique story.

Now, Tūrangi woman Gill Osborne is collecting information on the cottages that she hopes to put together in a book, allowing those who are interested to find all the various tales in one place.

She says rather than write a long and detailed history book, she hopes to fill it with photos and anecdotal stories from those who lived in the houses or were in the area at the time.

"There's not much history about Tūrangi documented anywhere," Gill says.

"There are books about the Tongariro River, but not about the early settlements here. This will be all about the little houses and their stories, because so many of them are disappearing. Some have been moved into the village, others have been pulled down and destroyed.

"They were mostly built as little fishing cottages. Nobody took any notice of where the sun was or anything like that, they mainly just wanted to be close to the river."

She hopes to work with the owners of the cottages on supplying information.

"I would like to get the present-day owners to write the history themselves because there are a lot of different recollections and I'm not prepared to say what is wrong and what is right.

"It's really a collection of people's memories of the properties. The doors I've knocked on, they're all very excited and willing to participate. Some have done nothing other than sending a list of who has owned the property over the years, others have embellished with some wonderful stories."

One such story, shared with Gill by local man Ian Hamilton, involves a homeowner who was eager to keep his favourite condiment to himself.

"Bill McNeil bought a piece of land here and once he was living there permanently, he had a lot of friends visit.

"He always had a crate of Old Parr whisky and he lived on cold mutton sandwiches with his own home-made tomato chutney. He didn't mind people coming to stay, but he did object to them eating all of his home-made chutney. He found a loose board at the back of one of the cupboards and whenever he knew someone was coming, he hid his tomato chutney behind there.

"I wrote to Mrs Elliott, who bought the house after Bill lived there, and asked if she found any tomato chutney in the walls. She hasn't answered that yet."

Gill says back when the original cottages were built, just getting to Tūrangi was a mission in itself, without the roads that exist today.

"The way people got here was amazing. There was no road around the lake so if they were coming from the north they had to go by boat and get off at Tokaanu, which was the main settlement then. From there, you had to go by horse and cart to the riverside."

• Gill is eager to learn as much about the riverside cottages as possible. Anyone with information can get in touch with her at gillo@xtra.co.nz