The Otago Peninsula () is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand. Volcanic in origin, it forms one wall of the eroded valley that now forms Otago Harbour. The peninsula lies southeast of Otago Harbour and runs parallel to the mainland for 20 km, with a maximum width of 9 km. It is joined to the mainland at the south-west end by a narrow isthmus about 1.5 km wide.
The suburbs of Dunedin encroach onto the western end of the peninsula, and seven townships and communities lie along the harbourside shore. The majority of the land is sparsely populated and occupied by steep open pasture. The peninsula is home to many species of wildlife, notably seabirds, pinnipeds, and penguins; several ecotourism businesses operate in the area.
Geography
The peninsula was formed at the same time as the hills facing it across the harbour, as part of the large, long-extinct Dunedin Volcano. Several of the peninsula's peaks demonstrate these volcanic origins, notably Hereweka which was named 'Harbour Cone' by pākehā settlers. These rocks were built up between 13 and 10 million years ago.
Much of the peninsula is steep hill country, with the highest points being Mount Charles (408m), Highcliff (381m), and Sandymount (320m). Two tidal inlets lie on the Pacific coast of the peninsula: Hoopers Inlet and Papanui Inlet. Between them is the headland of Cape Saunders. Nearby natural features include the 250-metre-high cliffs of Lovers' Leap and The Chasm.
At the entrance to the Otago Harbour, the peninsula rises to Taiaroa Head, home to a breeding colony of northern royal albatross, the only colony of albatross to be found on an inhabited mainland. The viewing centre for the albatross colony is one of the peninsula's main ecotourism attractions, along with other wildlife such as seals and yellow-eyed penguins. Most of the Otago Peninsula is freehold farming land, with increasing numbers of small holdings or lifestyle blocks. Some biodiversity sites such as Taiaroa Head are managed as sanctuaries for wildlife. Many species of seabirds and waders in particular may be found around the tidal inlets, including spoonbills, plovers, and herons.
The Pacific coast of the peninsula includes several beaches that are far away enough from Dunedin to be sparsely populated even in mid-summer. These include Allans Beach, Boulder Beach, Victory Beach, and Sandfly Bay.
Victory Beach, named after the 19th-century shipwreck of the Victory close by, features a rock formation known locally as "The Pyramids" for its resemblance to the ancient Egyptian monuments. Sandfly Bay, named not for the insect but for the sand blown up by the wind, is reached via a path through some of New Zealand's tallest sand dunes, which rise for some 100 metres above the beach.
Other tourist attractions on the peninsula include Larnach Castle, a restored Armstrong disappearing-gun coastal defence post, and a war-memorial cairn. There are views of the city and surrounding country from Highcliff Road, which runs along the spine of the peninsula.
The total population of the peninsula is under 10,000, with about half of these in the suburbs of Dunedin that encroach onto its western end, such as Vauxhall and Shiel Hill. Mostly, only the side adjacent to the Otago Harbour is populated, with several small communities dotting the length of the peninsula. The largest of these are Macandrew Bay (the peninsula's largest settlement, population 1,100), Portobello, and Ōtākou. Ōtākou was the site of the first permanent European settlement on the harbour, and of an early whaling station, commemorated at nearby Weller's Rock. There were several other whaling stations inside the harbour and outer peninsula, including the Middle Fishery Station at Harington Point.
History
Pre-European settlement
New Zealand was first settled by humans around 1300 AD, and in the South Island, people concentrated on the east coast. In the Archaic (moa-hunting) period, the Otago Peninsula was a relatively densely occupied area at the centre of the country's most populous region.
A map of recorded Māori archaeological sites for the Otago Conservancy shows many more on the Otago Peninsula than elsewhere in the region. fig. 1 Another showing only those of the Archaic period shows sites clustered on the peninsula and along the coast across the harbour to the west and north. fig. 2 This was one of three clusters on the South Island's south east coast: one from about Oamaru south to Pleasant River; another from Waikouaiti south, including the Otago Peninsula and tailing off near the Kaikorai estuary; another extending south from the Matau river mouth. The clusters contain a few larger sites. On the Otago Peninsula, the cluster at Little Papanui is of middle size while Harwood Township has one of the largest. These and numerous other smaller sites are clearly visible, though often not recognised by visitors for what they are.
Their occupants were Polynesians ancestral to modern Māori, who lived by hunting large birds, notably the now-extinct flightless moa, but also seals and by fishing.
Whale-ivory chevron pendants found at Little Papanui were made by the site's early occupants and are now in the Otago Museum, Dunedin. The site's lowest levels are estimated to have been occupied some time between 1150 and 1300 AD. Another peninsula site, at Papanui Inlet, is thought to have been occupied in the same period, as was the extensive one at Harwood Township. Little Papanui and Harwood are considered to have been permanent settlements, not temporary camps. A single radiocarbon date for Harwood suggests it was also occupied in 1450. Three pounamu adzes, said by H.D. Skinner to be the finest of their type, were found nearby and are dated to the same time. They represent a form already archaic when they were made, and are currently in the Otago Museum.
Southern Māori oral tradition tells of five successively arriving peoples, and while the earliest, Kahui Tipua, appear to be fairy folk, modern anthropological opinion is that they represent historical people who have become semi-legendary. Te Rapuwai were next and seemed to be succeeded by two Waitaha tribes, but it has been suggested this was really one with Waitaha also being used as a catch-all name for all earlier peoples by some later arrivals. Te Rapuwai may perhaps also have been a combinatory name. Nevertheless, some middens, such as those on the peninsula, have traditionally been identified with Te Rapuwai. Waitaha arrived in the south in the 15th century.
Moa and moa hunters went into decline, but a new Classic Māori culture evolved, characterised by the construction of pā. New peoples arrived on the Otago Peninsula, who practised what has been called a foraging economy. Increasing reliance was placed on harvesting the root of the tī kouka tree, and , cabbage-tree ovens, proliferate over some parts of the Peninsula, showing intensive use of the land.
Kāti Māmoe arrived in the late 16th century. Kāi Tahu came about a hundred years later. Pukekura, a fortress on Taiaroa Head, was built about 1650. Nearby villages on Te Rauone Beach perhaps date from the same time. Pukekura's terraces are still visible, with some of them co-opted into later European defence works.
Many traditions survive from this period concerning figures such as Waitai and Moki II who at different times both lived at Pukekura pā. One of the best known concerns Tarewai, who is difficult to place chronologically, but was of Kāi Tahu descent. He gained possession of Pukekura, was in conflict with Kāti Māmoe at Papanui Inlet, and made a famous escape back into Pukekura by a cliff still known as Tarewai's Leap. There had been an argument about Kāti Māmoe fishing rights on Papanui Inlet. A whale bone fishook of the 18th century was found there and is now in the Otago Museum.
Arrival of the Europeans
James Cook sailed past in February 1770 and named Cape Saunders after the Secretary of the Admiralty. His chart showed a bay at Hooper's Inlet, which may have been explored and named by Charles Hooper (chief officer on Daniel Cooper's English sealer, Unity) in the summer of 1808–1809. Sealers began to use the harbour around then, probably anchoring off Wellers' Rock, modern Ōtākou, where there was extensive Māori settlement. Otago Harbour is where the Sealers' War began, sparked by an incident on the Sydney Cove while her men were sealing at Cape Saunders. This led to James Kelly's 1817 attack on "the City of Otago" (probably the Te Rauone settlement(s)), after William Tucker and others were killed at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach) further north. Peace was re-established by 1823. 1826 saw the visit of the Rosanna and the Lambton, ships of the first New Zealand Company. They also brought the first recorded European women to New Zealand, and produced Thomas Shepherd's pictures of the Peninsula. Shepherd's paintings are the oldest known, and are held in the Sydney's Mitchell Library. In November 1831, the Weller brothers, Joseph, George, and Edward, established their whaling station at Wellers' Rock. Throughout the 1830s, their Otago establishment grew to be the largest in the country, and the harbour became an international whaling port. In 1841 Octavius Harwood and C.W. Schultze took over the Wellers' operation.
Conflict with Māori occurred, who suffered epidemics of measles and influenza in 1835 and 1836. Whaling collapsed in 1839, and in March 1840 Dumont D'Urville, a visiting French navigator, described the Peninsula's European and Māori communities as both trafficking in alcohol and sex. In June 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed on the Peninsula, although the South Island had already been annexed by "right of discovery". The first Christian service was preached on the Peninsula later that year at Otago by Bishop Pompallier.
In 1844 the Otago Association negotiated with local Kai Tahu to purchase the Otago Block for its Scottish Free Church settlement. However, at the initial meeting between iwi and agent (the New Zealand Company), the Kai Tahu leaders on 18 June stated their wish to retain the entire peninsula for themselves. But the company's surveyor Frederick Tuckett was reluctant to allow the Kai Tahu to retain militarily strategic land so close to the proposed site of the new settlement, nor allow them to control land on which there were already European settlers, in case they developed a settlement that would compete with that of the Otago Association's. The Kai Tahu negotiators convinced Turkett that while they would give up some of the peninsula, they would not sell the northern portion, as this was where their villages and urupā were. Some chiefs with strong Mamoe connections wanted to retain all of the Peninsula from Puketai (Anderson's Bay) onwards. When William Wakefield of the New Zealand Company arrived on site on 16 July, he was reluctant to accept this. Eventually, to purchase any of the land, Wakefield had to accept the Kai Tahu position. The deed of sale was signed on 31 July 1844 with Kai Tahu retaining 6,665 acres (2,697 ha) of the northern part of the peninsula.
Charles Kettle, the association's surveyor, laid out suburban and country blocks in 1846 and 1847. The arrival of the first migrant ships in early 1848 saw the focus of settlement move to Dunedin while Port Chalmers on the other side of the harbour succeeded Otago as the international port. In December William Cargill, secular leader of the Otago settlement, successfully petitioned the government to re-instate "Otago" as its original name. The old whaling village and adjacent Māori settlements had now become "Otakou".
Growth of modern settlement