Gore Hotels

Gore is a town, surrounding borough, and district in the Southland region of the South Island of New Zealand. Sculpture of Brown Trout at the northern entrance to GoreThe Gore District has a land area of 1,251.62 km˛ and a resident population of 12,250. The town of Gore is 64 km northeast of Invercargill and 70 km west of Balclutha, Dunedin and Invercargill are the nearest cities. The urban area estimated resident population at the June 2008 estimate was 9,730, the second largest in Southland. Gore is a service town for the surrounding farm communities. It is divided by the Mataura River into Gore and East Gore, the majority of the town being situated on the western banks of the river. The Main South Line railway from Dunedin to Invercargill runs through the town, though passenger services ceased in 2003. Gore was once a busy railway junction; the Waimea Plains Railway ran west to connect with the Kingston Branch in Lumsden, while the Waikaka Branch connected with the Main South Line nearby in McNab. One of New Zealand's most famous preserved trains is the Kingston Flyer, which takes its name from a passenger express that once ran between Kingston and Gore. Before the arrival of Europeans the current site of Gore was a part of or near the routes used by Maori travellers. Tuturau, near modern Mataura, was the nearest Maori settlement. In 1836 southern Maori repelled a raid from the north, which provided sufficient security for Europeans to purchase land and settle in the area. By the mid 1850s large tracts nearby had been converted into sheep runs. As crossing the Mataura River involved a long fording, the locality became known as “the Long Ford”, or Longford. In 1862 a few town sections were surveyed on the west bank of the river and Longford was named Gore as a compliment to Sir Thomas Gore Browne, an early Governor of New Zealand. One of the first buildings was Long Ford House an accommodation house opened by local sawmill owner Daniel Morton.