In November 1891, the Talune took the British poet and writer Rudyard Kipling from Wellington to Bluff, and then on to Melbourne as part of a world tour.

New Zealand poll tax records show that in May 1896 it brought one Ah Lun, a 34-year-old Cantonese man to Wellington from Sydney.

The Talune was carrying general cargo and 15 passengers, so by this time may have already reverted to civilian service after serving as a military transport.

The Court of Enquiry found the Talune struck an uncharted pinnacle rock, and there is no record of the Master (J. Morrison) being censured.

At that time the Western Samoan islands were administered by New Zealand, which had seized them from Germany at the start of the First World War in 1914.

At the time of the Talune's departure from Auckland, pandemic influenza was spreading rapidly in New Zealand, resulting in many fatalities.

As none of the local passengers was stricken, they were allowed ashore and the cargo unloaded while the ship remained in quarantine alongside the wharf, the Port Health officer having heard reports of the severe epidemic in New Zealand.

As was the custom of the time, about 90 Fijian labourers were taken on board to work the cargo as the ship proceeded on its planned voyage.

Without orders from his government (but based on what he learned from a radio news service) the governor of American Samoa, Navy Commander John M. Poyer, instituted a rigorous quarantine policy.

[15] The Talune went on from Apia to Tonga (calling at Neiafu, Vava'u, Ha'Apai) and to Nuku'Alofa in Tongatapu, where it arrived on 12 November 1918.

Within a few days of the Talune's arrival, the disease had spread with heavy loss of life; estimates vary between 1,800 and 2,000 died, or about 8% to 10% of the Tongan population.

[3] In 1925 the ship was hulked, and in November of that year was filled with rocks and scuttled to form the foundation of a breakwater at Waikokopu, a small port in northern Hawke Bay, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.