Otira is a small township fifteen kilometres north of Arthur's Pass in the central South Island of New Zealand.

The Otira Railway Station was opened on 13 November 1900 (ex-Goat Creek on 15 October 1900), and closed in February 1992.

The New Zealand Railways Corporation sold the village houses to Glenstone Holdings around the end of 1990, with a peppercorn lease on the land.

[5] In 1998 the remaining 18 ex-railway houses (one has since burnt down) were sold to Chris and Bill Hennah, along with the large two-storeyed hotel, community hall and fire station.

When advertised again in 2013 the sale price had dropped to NZ$1 million,[8] and it sold the following year to Lester Rowntree for an undisclosed sum, although as at 2020 the Hennahs still own the ex-school building and swimming pool.

[9][10] Not far from the hotel (originally opened in 1902 but rebuilt following a fire in 1911)[5] is the former post office which was built in 1952 to replace an earlier one.

Rata Lodge Backpackers is situated near Goat Creek and provides alternative accommodation to the Otira Stagecoach Hotel.

When the tunnel opened in 1923, traction power for the Otira to Arthur's Pass electrified section was provided by a steam-driven generating station known as the 'Power House' — a large imposing building which included a big shed and repair workshop for the electric locomotives.

[5] The steam generating plant closed in July 1941, with the source of power then coming from the newly-constructed transmission line from Lake Coleridge to the West Coast.

Completed in 1999 by McConnell Smith Pty Ltd, the 440 metres (1,440 ft) four-span viaduct carries State Highway 73 over a stretch of unstable land, replacing a narrow, winding, dangerous section of road that was prone to avalanches, slips and closures.