Otago Peninsula
The Otago Peninsula (Māori: Muaūpoko) is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand.
The peninsula is home to many species of wildlife, notably seabirds, pinnipeds, and penguins; several ecotourism businesses operate in the area.
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.
Other tourist attractions on the peninsula include Larnach Castle, a restored Armstrong 'disappearing' gun coastal defence post, and a war memorial cairn.
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.
Otakou was the site of the first permanent European settlement on the harbour, and of an early whaling station, commemorated at nearby Weller's Rock.
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.
Many traditions survive from this period concerning figures such as Waitai and Moki II who at different times both lived at Pukekura pā.
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.
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.
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.
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 onwards (as Anderson's Bay was then called).
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.
In December William Cargill, secular leader of the Otago settlement, successfully petitioned the government to re-instate 'Otago' as its original name.
[10] A lighthouse was built at Taiaroa Head in 1864 and work began using prison labour, to build the winding harbourside road, with its distinctive seawalls of the local stone.
Across the cleared land settlers built dry stone walls, following the pattern of 'Galloway Dykes', another conspicuous and distinctive feature of the landscape whose only other examples in New Zealand are across the harbour on the opposite heights.
By 1878 the bay road had reached Portobello which allowed a mail coach and later horse-drawn buses to operate along it while many residents made their way independently by their own private horses and carts.
The Taieri and Peninsula Milk Supply Company opened a creamery at Sandymount in 1893 and by 1897 there were additional ones at Granton, Papanui Inlet and Otakou.
[8] By this time the peninsula was also supplying the majority of Dunedin's potatoes with approximately 70 farmers around Highcliff and Sandymount engaged in their production.
Another sign of changing attitudes to wild life was the self-establishment of the royal albatross colony at Taiaroa Head in the 1920s which was now carefully nurtured for its scientific interest.
The 20th century saw land use change as the draining and development of the Taieri Plain eventually led to that area eclipsing the Peninsula's dairying and mixed farms gave way to extensive grazing.
The rural population, especially on the Pacific coast, dwindled, leaving abandoned steadings and roads decaying slowly behind macrocarpa and hawthorn plantings.
The re-made, Europeanised landscape now took on an air of mellow decay, and started to look 'natural', unusual in a recently colonised country like New Zealand.
In recent decades there has been growing suburban occupation of the townships, some 'lifestyle' developments on the harbour slopes and an increasing tourist traffic.
In a magnificent but compact setting the challenge is to maintain its balance of human and natural in the face of growing residential and tourist development.
Otago Peninsula is considered a remarkable and pioneering habitat, especially for sea lions, as it is the only continual breeding ground on a main inhabited island.
This sea canyon is the only known area in the world with multiple sightings of Shepherd's beaked whales, and its cetacean diversity may be as significant as Kaikōura.
