Ohai has no shops, no school, no post office and no pub. So why do residents continue to live in a town which, if not dying, is on life support? And how has Ohai managed to attract newcomers?
Reporter Allison Rudd visited the Western Southland township, 80km northwest of Invercargill, to meet some locals.
When Russell and Esther Smith told friends last year they had bought a house in Ohai, the general reaction was disbelief.
It was too isolated. There were no services. It was home to druggies and gangs. Even a stranger they met in nearby Winton warned them off.
But the Smiths, from Timaru via Christchurch, were undeterred and say they do not regret buying their home - a modest two-bedroom weatherboard cottage with a sleepout, a large garage and a very large section.
It cost them $60,000.
''You couldn't even build a large garage for that in Christchurch,'' Mr Smith (75) says.
Their relocation story began in April, 2010, when they sold their Timaru home and bought a 10m caravan which they set up at Spencer Park, Eastern Christchurch.
After the first big earthquake, in September that year, they sold the caravan and moved to a rental property in New Brighton.
After the second big earthquake the house lost its roof but the Smiths' rent went up $40 a week. That's when they decided it was time to again buy their own home.
The undeveloped section around the Ohai house was one of the attractions for the keen gardeners.
''It was a blank canvas,'' Mrs Smith (78), says.
''As soon as we looked at the place I could see a vision of how it could be. Russell said 'what do you reckon' and I said 'let's have a go'.''
Since moving in in July last year they have removed mountains of rubbish and several large trees and created a colourful garden.
Mrs Smith has joined several community groups, including Women's Institute and Senior Citizens, and is a regular attendee at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church - the only church left in town - which holds services twice a month.
Mr Smith is impressed with the town's community spirit.
''Full credit to the volunteer fire brigade and the emergency response team. If the alarm goes they all respond ... and are absolutely marvellous.''
The Smiths know selling their property would be difficult as homes in Ohai are not in high demand, but that is not the only reason they plan to stick around.
''We've got great neighbours and a great community,'' Mr Smith says.
''We'll be here until we die,'' Mrs Smith adds.
Marlu Reo has found herself almost full-time work since moving to Ohai just over two years ago.
She came to babysit a grandchild so a daughter who had moved to Ohai a few years earlier could go back to work, but now there is not much time for that.
Mrs Reo was teaching kapa haka and Te Reo Maori at a school in Christchurch and soon found work with Southern Reap (Rural Education Activities Programme) at Takitimu School and St Patrick's Catholic School, both in Nightcaps, about 10km from Ohai.
This year her work has expanded to Central Southland College, Winton, and Otautau School.
She shares the load with a new friend, Nightcaps resident Yvonne Reader, and the women are now tutoring close to 100 pupils.
Mrs Reo, a widow, was living in Pines Beach, Christchurch, when her daughter asked for help.
''Our house was damaged, but not too badly. But the earthquakes and aftershocks kept coming. That's another reason I came here - to get away from all that.''
She brought her then 14-year-old daughter with her, and another daughter has moved to Ohai, too.
She has become immersed in the community, helping with Ohai Second Time Around and working with young people.
Ohai Second Time around is part charity shop, part community outreach. Once a fortnight second-hand items are sold in the town hall, and at lunchtime volunteers cook a meal for anyone in the town who needs it, offering transport if needed.
With Ohai so far away from major centres, a driver's licence is a necessity. Last year, Mrs Reo helped organise learner driver licence lessons in the town, led by two Southern Reap tutors for a class of 12 people aged from 16 to their 60s.
She says she wasn't sure at first whether she would stay in Ohai, but now can't see herself living anywhere else.
''I love it here. It's an awesome place with lovely people and I've built a great relationship with the kids [I teach] ... I've moved around a lot. I've lived in Perth, Dunedin, Hawkes Bay and Christchurch, but this feels like home.''
Polly Paul came to Ohai for a few months and has stayed 22 years.
Originally from Porirua, she ventured south to work for shearing contractors Albert and Margaret de Koning, before meeting a local man and having five children, now aged from 10 to 22.
Ohai may have very few services or facilities, but it does have a playcentre, with which Ms Paul is still involved. Its roll is 13, which might faze others but not her.
''It's been down to five and we thought we might have to close. But 13 is OK.''
The centre is located in the former Ohai School principal's house, which became vacant when the school closed in 2003.
All five of Ms Paul's children were at the school when it closed; the family made up about one-third of the school's entire roll.
Like other Ohai children, they were bussed or driven the 10km to Nightcaps to either Takitimu or St Patrick's.
Once they reach secondary school age, most Ohai teenagers go to either Central Southland College, or Waiau Area School in Tuatapere, both about 40km away.
It means catching a 7.45am bus and getting home after 4pm.
Ms Paul says living in Ohai means constant travelling for parents, as well as pupils.
She estimates she clocks up at least 1000km a week ferrying children to after-school and weekend sports commitments and making trips to Invercargill.
Ms Paul is studying Te Reo Maori two evenings a week at the Southern Institute of Technology in Invercargill and is on the board of trustees for Trinity Schools, the joint board which runs three Catholic primary schools - St Patricks's, St Theresa's, Bluff, and St Joseph's, Invercargill.
When she first moved to Ohai, Ms Paul had no vehicle and hitchhiked everywhere. These days she runs a van so she can transport other people's children as well as her own.
She likes living in Ohai, but concedes with five children life would have been a lot easier - and fuel bills a whole lot less - if she had moved to Winton.
She also worries about work opportunities for her Ohai's young people, although her three oldest children have secure jobs: Tatum (22) as a dairy farm manager, 21-year-old Cheyenne as a dairy farm worker and 18-year-old Chase as an apprentice butcher.
''Life's pretty good in Ohai. It's cheaper living because we have our own garden, and the boys go hunting and love the outdoors. Once you've been here for a while it feels like home.''
Ohai
• The area was a farming district on land carved from Birchwood Station in 1912. The township burgeoned when coal was discovered on the town's northern doorstep in 1917.
• Production boomed in 1925 when the Ohai Railway Board opened a new line linking Wairio, south of the town, to Ohai. Immigrant miners poured in. Most were from Newcastle, England, and joined by Nightcaps miners made redundant when the seams there were worked out.
• The Ohai Post Office opened in 1921, the school in 1926, the School of Mines in 1934 and the Mines Rescue Station in 1943, but there was no hotel until 1953.
• By the 1980s, there were about 500 people working in the mines and Ohai had a population of more than 1000, making it one of the larger rural towns in Southland. Jobs were lost and many mining families left the area due to mine mechanisation in the 1980s.
• A base for shearers, many settled, helping the town post-mining, but that industry also declined in the 2000s due to growth of dairy farms. The last coal mine, operated by Solid Energy, closed in June 2009 and a $32 million rehabilitation programme is under way to stabilise pit walls, extinguish an historic fire in the old underground mine workings and to ensure the former opencast pits hold the lakes which will be created.
• As Solid Energy comes across remnant pockets of coal which can be mined economically, it has done so. In 2011, Solid Energy announced it would mine a 50,000-tonne deposit which it expected would be exhausted within two or three years.
• The 2013 census shows Ohai has lost almost 25% if its population in the past 12 years. Its current population of 303 is 54 fewer than in 2006, and 96 down on 2001.
• Solid Energy has 14 people permanently based at Ohai site - a few miners and the rest supervisors and technical people who are split their time between Ohai and New Vale, near Gore.
