 Seventeen kilometres to the east of the town is the Tangiwai Bridge, site of New Zealand's worst railway accident, the Tangiwai Disaster, on 24 December 1953.A mock-romantic song from the mid-1960s called "September in Ohakune" was recorded by Peter Harcourt on an LP called "Land of the Long White Shroud"

The world's first commercial bungy jumping site was established just outside Ohakune at the old railway viaduct.This was operated during the 1980s until the bridge became too unsafe to continue operations.