Stars still dot the sky as several hundred people gather outside Otepoti Dunedin’s Otago Museum, bundled in scarves and puffer jackets against the winter cold. A karakia, or Maori prayer, rises into the darkness, before a senior leader extends his hand towards the crowd. As he sweeps it over us, we’re invited to call out the names of those who have died over the past year, part of a remembrance known as whakamaumahara. Some speak a name into the darkness, some weep quietly, while others tilt their heads reverently towards the sky.
I’ve come to Dunedin in the depths of winter for Matariki, the Maori New Year, heralded by the rising of its namesake star cluster. A national public holiday since 2022, it’s a time to honour those who’ve passed, give thanks for the present and look with hope towards the year ahead. Here in the half-light, in the coldest part of the year, the idea of beginning again feels especially potent.
Until now, like many Australians, I have known little about Dunedin beyond its famous university and handsome Victorian and Edwardian architecture, much of it a legacy of the 1860s Otago gold rush. As it turns out, though, those good looks are only part of the story.
Dunedin has a delightfully quirky streak, for one, something I discover at the Museum of Natural Mystery. Occupying the front rooms of Bruce Mahalski’s home, it feels like stepping inside someone else’s wonderfully weird brain. An artist, collector and activist, Mahalski leads me past carved figures from the Congo, bird and bat skeletons, Papua New Guinean masks and more than 200 animal skulls, while talking a mile a minute about everything from his collections to the climate crisis.
His own intricate sculptures, constructed entirely from animal bones, jostle for space with relics from Dunedin’s music scene, prosthetic eyes, Megalodon (giant shark) teeth and his darkly funny illustrated climate change comics. “People used to come to my house and say it was just like a museum,” he tells me, “so that was always the dream.”
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Dunedin’s wild side reveals itself later that afternoon, when I climb aboard the MV Monarch with Monarch Wildlife Cruises. As we motor from Otago Harbour out around Taiaroa Head and into the Southern Ocean, I stand on the front deck watching Buller’s and Salvin’s albatrosses glide effortlessly on the updraughts, as New Zealand fur seals sprawl across wave-battered rocks.
The Otago Peninsula sits where nutrient-rich currents collide, creating one of New Zealand’s richest marine ecosystems and the world’s only mainland breeding colony of the Northern Royal albatross. We pass a hillside dotted with fluffy chicks awaiting their parents’ return from feeding trips, while little blue penguins torpedo through the water beneath wheeling terns. The last time I saw all these species in one place was in Antarctica – where, it has to be said, I wasn’t quite this cold. I’m wearing multiple layers of merino and Gore-Tex, and added one of Monarch’s thick blue jackets when I boarded, but the wind has found its way through everything, anyway.
While Dunedin has long been recognised for its Scottish influence, the wider area is also rich with Maori history and stories of Kai Tahu, the principal Maori iwi (tribe) of the South Island, whose connection to this land predates European settlement by centuries. The next morning we drive 30 minutes north of the city, to join guides Irie and Tau Pomare from Karitane Maori Tours for a walk across Huriawa Pa, a Maori settlement on a narrow headland between the Waikouaiti River and the Pacific Ocean.
Pa were fortified villages, strategically positioned on ridges and coastal promontories for defence, where Maori communities lived and grew food. At its height around 300 years ago, Huriawa was home to several thousand people; today, only traces of the settlement remain. Beneath its carved entranceway, Irie gestures to the sweeping arch. “It’s like a rainbow,” she says, “because we have one foot on the land, and one foot on the water.”
As we follow the clifftop track overlooking the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the waves crashing below and the sunlight raking through the tall grasses, the stories continue. Tales of long sieges, giant ancestors, pounamu (greenstone) traders, lovers thrown from the cliffs and tohunga, experts in spiritual knowledge believed to move between the physical and spiritual worlds. Tau points out the spring that once supplied drinking water, the beach where waka (Maori canoes) were hauled ashore, and terraces where crops were grown using seaweed as fertiliser centuries before Europeans arrived. Every spring, cliff and patch of earth seems bound up with history and meaning.
That sense of connection to the living world surfaces again at Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a 307-hectare former dairy farm just north of the city that has been regenerating for two decades behind a predator-proof fence. Today, its temperate cloud forest offers a hopeful glimpse of what damaged landscapes can become when nature is given the chance to recover.
It’s impossible not to be swept along by the passion of lead guide Madison Kelly. Beneath moss-draped trees, russet-orange kaka tear into fruit at a feeder, while deeper in the forest a tieke, or South Island saddleback, hops through the leaf litter. Kelly tells us the story of the great ancestral demigod Maui, who, while attempting to slow the sun, grabbed the tieke with his burning hand after it refused to fetch him water, leaving the rusty saddle it still wears today.
“All of our birds connect through whakapapa, through their ancestry, but also through stories,” she says. “So when the birds come back, so do their stories.” Kelly calls what happens next Orokonui’s “halo effect”: as populations recover, birds spread beyond the sanctuary into surrounding bush and backyards. “We don’t want to keep building the fence bigger and bigger,” she says, “we want the birds and bugs and trees to keep spreading out.” Watching tieke forage beneath the trees again, it does feel a little like deep time slowly knitting itself back together.
That evening, beneath the vaulted roof of Dunedin’s grand Edwardian railway station, said to be New Zealand’s most photographed building, I board the Taieri Gorge Stargazer train with dozens of locals and visitors. We settle into heritage carriages with steaming boxes of curry and slow-cooked lamb, washing them down with glasses of Central Otago pinot noir as the city lights disappear behind us. Ninety minutes later, we step out into the darkness of the gorge.
The stars, unfortunately, have other ideas. Cloud has swallowed most of the sky, but wrapped in blankets and sipping cups of hot chocolate, we gather in a circle as a young Maori guide introduces us to the nine stars of Matariki. Each is associated with a different part of life, including health, freshwater and the ocean, food, rain, and hopes for the year ahead. “It’s really no different to New Year celebrations around the world,” he says, “ours are just connected to the stars.”
Before dawn, he explains, the stars are greeted individually with karakia, “the same way we’d welcome family members coming home from a long journey.” Each winter, something ancient returns, and another year begins.
On my final morning, I hire an e-bike from Electrify NZ and follow the Otago Harbour cycleway towards Port Chalmers past little bays and weatherboard houses reflected in the cold blue water. I pedal into the sharp winter air. Somewhere above, invisible in the daylight, are the stars.
DETAILS
STAY Rooms at EBB-Dunedin from $NZ263 ($215) a night. Dunedin does dark and handsome particularly well, and this 28-room boutique hotel, a block back from George Street, is no exception. Expect moody interiors, contemporary New Zealand art, light-filled atrium lounges and the excellent Ebb-Kitchen downstairs. See ebb-dunedin.co.nz
FLY Jetstar flies non-stop between the Gold Coast and Dunedin three times weekly, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Travellers from elsewhere in Australia can fly Air New Zealand to Dunedin via Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.
MORE dunedinnz.com
FIVE DUNEDIN FOOD STOPS WORTH MAKING
THE SWAN
Dunedin loves black, and this chic former engraving workshop obliges with inky walls and low lighting. Come for clever share plates using house-made and locally foraged ingredients, plus sharp wines and local craft beers. theswan.nz
THE PRESS CLUB
Inside heritage-listed Fable Dunedin, once a newspaper hub, this glamorous restaurant champions modern New Zealand flavours. Order the green-lipped mussels, and a surprisingly addictive wasabi martini. thepressclub.co.nz
OTAGO FARMERS MARKET
Dunedin’s quirk shines at this Saturday institution, filled with local producers, eccentric buskers and coffee served from communal “mug libraries”. Don’t miss a classic southern cheese roll: gooey cheese rolled in white bread and toasted golden. otagofarmersmarket.org.nz
CAREY’S BAY HOTEL
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better setting for fresh seafood than this Victorian pub right on Otago Harbour, beside the working fishing port. Settle beside the fire for creamy chowder, and excellent fish and chips. careysbayhotel.co.nz
MAGGIES
An art-filled cafe with hanging lanterns, vintage touches and bottle-green walls, serving locally roasted Vanguard coffee, alongside standout Reuben sandwiches and French onion soup. facebook.com/maggiesotepoti
The writer travelled as a guest of Enterprise Dunedin
