Simon's A to Z: Twizel

In 1969 the first sod was turned in a ceremony which signaled the start of a housing project that would eventually accommodate six and a half thousand people, most of them workers on the upper Waitaki power scheme. This Greenfields project used a Scandinavian township design with wide open spaces, looping roads and pedestrian walkways to give more direct walking access to shops, schools, and recreational areas. This, all set in the otherwise desert-like McKenzie Basin.