The uneven footfall of a man with a peg leg in the hallway, strange unexplained happenings in a bedroom and an eerie light in a photograph.

These are the ghosts of Ophir’s Cottage Hospital, all intertwined with family memories for a Central Otago artist.

Painter Katie Robinson’s parents Norman (a radiation equipment engineer) and Mavis (one of the first female computer programmers in New Zealand) bought the cottage; formerly Ophir’s hospital, in the 1970s when Katie was a child.

The family used it as a crib initially and then the couple retired there, living in the cottage full time for another 15 years.

Katie said she does not believe in ghosts - except when it comes to this place.

“I’ve always had feelings about it being haunted. 

“Mum was a spiritual person… she used to say to us; ‘Oh, the guy is walking up and down the hallway with the peg leg again’.”

The cottage hospital was also a doctors residence and according to Katie “a lot of people died there”.

When her parents were living there, people used to drop in and tell them stories of those who recovered there during and after the Central Otago goldrush.

Painter Katie Robinson with her dogs Scout and Nacho. PHOTO: Supplied 

There is one particular room, and one corner within it, where people have always sensed odd scary things over the years.

“One night Joel and Sam [Katie’s sons] were sleeping in that room.

“I had a nightmare that night myself … but my [husband] heard Sam yell out and went in there, he had been completely tipped out of bed and the whole mattress had been moved off the bed too.”

Kate said even adults had remarked on the creepiness in that part of the cottage without anything being mentioned beforehand.

“We had a friend staying in that bedroom and he said he didn’t like the [feeling] in there around the light switch. This was a fully grown 45- year-old adult.”

Her brother Pete, a builder, was working on a window above the bed last year and it slammed down on his hands while he was sitting on the bed.

“That was the front right window if you look at the cottage.”

Katie said she won’t sleep in the place on her own and if she’s there she always leaves the hall lights on.

“I need to summon the courage to go down the hallway.”

Katie painted a picture of the hallway, based on a photo she took that had an eerie light in it.

She shared this painting with her son Joel who is in his third year studying photography at Auckland University of Technology. 

This spurred the pair to collaborate on curating the shared memories of the cottage hospital and Central Otago into art.

Joel said the ghost for him was the “hazy light” but the hallway’s “slightly asymmetric walls” had always filled him with unease.

The result is nine photographs, interpreted into nine paintings, with the light or ghost as a central motif. 

Katie said she feels her mum and dad are lingering in the Central Otago’s sky, mountains and the cottage.

“They would love to see us living here now and the passion we have for the area.”

‘The Ghosts Between Us’ exhibition is on at Central Stories from February 2 -28. 

A digital image of the works from mom and son created by Joel. PHOTO: Supplied 

These days the cottage has been renovated and the interior altered and painted several times. Katie’s brother and his wife live there, and are not spooked, she said. 

Joel has spent the summer here in Central, going out everyday taking photos and said the finding a box of Grandad Norman’s slide film had been a treasure.

“I’ve gone through all of them and scanned them.”

Joel was 11 when his Grandad passed away and did not get to share his passion for photography with him.  

He was recently shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards Student Competition 2025. 

One of the images from Joel’s competition entry, taken in Auckland during the early stages of the Future Rail Tāmaki Makaurau project. PHOTO: Supplied 

No New Zealand student has made the shortlist of 10 in the past 12 years, and if he wins he will win flights and accommodation for himself and a tutor to London and receive 30,000 Pounds worth of photography equipment for his university.  

Check out Joel’s shortlisted entry here

Find Katie and Joel on Instagram

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