A long time resident of a remote Otago village, Waipori Falls, filmed an encounter with an another villager who claimed that visitors were not allowed.
Waipori Falls is a small, remote village located about 60km from Dunedin, with no cell phone coverage, home to around 28 permanent residents and is governed by a body corporate that manages local infrastructure, including roads, water and sewage.
Accessible via a narrow, winding road through native bush, the settlement was originally established to house workers building a hydroelectric power station.
Last week, a notice sent to village body corporate members by chairperson Pam Murray said they were aware someone from the village has been stopping vehicles on “the narrow gorge section” of the Waipori Falls Rd and instructing them that they are no longer allowed in the village.
“As the current chairperson of the Body Corporate Committee, I can categorically say that this person is not a member of the committee and has no right to be telling the general public or anyone else that they are not,” she wrote.
“Our village gates are never shut and the local police and emergency services deem the roads within the village as public roads because of this. This also means that all public road laws apply to the village roads.”
Waipori Falls is a small, remote village located about 60km from Dunedin with around 28 permanent residents. Photo / Google Maps
She said if the behaviour continued to happen, the police would be contacted.
Long-time village member Daniel Williamson told the Herald he made the initial complaint to the body corporate after being interrogated while returning home – which was recorded on his car’s dashcam.
Williamson said he was driving along the gorge section of the road when he approached a grey Suzuki Swift driving the road at a crawl.
He drove behind the other vehicle for about 10km until the other driver, a woman, pulled up alongside Williamson and asked if he was lost, he said.
He asked the woman if she was lost herself, and she replied that she lived there and asked if he was “okay”.
The woman told Williamson that Waipori Falls was a body corporate, and “there are no visitors allowed unless subjected by that committee. We are all a part of that committee,” she said.
The woman did not give her name, but told Williamson she was a resident and it didn’t matter what her name was.
The woman said that since it was a “private road” she needed to make sure he had “written consent”.
A long-time resident of the isolated village Waipori Falls says that tensions have been mounting in recent years. Image / Google Maps
Williamson told the Herald he moved to Waipori Falls with his wife around nine years ago, and things had become “a lot more tense” in recent years.
He said he now believed the area was used for marijuana cultivation.
“Not long after turning up to the village, I’d actually been a witness to the scale of it. I came up behind someone loading around 40 cannabis seedlings into the back of their vehicle. They didn’t hear me because I was driving an electric vehicle.”
He said things regularly got “pretty tense” around this time of year, as it was heading into growing season.
The situation worsened last year when residents were stationed at village entrances, allegedly monitoring anyone attempting to enter, Williamson said.
Willaimson said he and his wife have also faced more direct confrontations.
“We’ve had laser lights through our front door, and I’ve seen red dots on my forehead while in the bush. One time, my wife hid in the bush after being intimidated by someone driving back and forth past her.”
In another situation, the couple were threatened by another resident wielding nunchaku, a martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected by a chain.
The isolation of the village has contributed to the lack of police presence, he said.
“I’ve talked to the police before, and they say if there was a regular police presence, it might stop a lot of the problems. But we’re in a no-man’s land because the village is on the border of two districts, yet policed from Dunedin.”
Police say they are aware of “allegations relating to drugs, roadblocks and antisocial behaviour” and are making enquiries.
Williamson said he decided to speak out now, as the situation was getting worse every year.
“It’s one of the most beautiful scenic places in New Zealand. We’ve got a view of the waterfall from the house, it’s literally like a little lost valley there with native bush all around you and only a few little houses scan it up in the bush ... It’s beautiful, but also very, very scary at the same time.”
Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.
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