The Sydney Morning Herald
· collected 2026-10-12 · by Nina Karnikowski
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.
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people → dot → cold
A karakia, or Maori prayer, rises into the darkness, before a senior leader extends his hand towards the crowd.
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leader → rise → 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.
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who → sweep → whakamaumahara
Some speak a name into the darkness, some weep quietly, while others tilt their heads reverently towards the sky.
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others → speak → 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.
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I → come → 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.
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who → ’ → year
Here in the half-light, in the coldest part of the year, the idea of beginning again feels especially potent.
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idea → begin → year
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.
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much → know → rush
As it turns out, though, those good looks are only part of the story.
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looks → turn → story
Dunedin has a delightfully quirky streak, for one, something I discover at the Museum of Natural Mystery.
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I → have → Mystery
Occupying the front rooms of Bruce Mahalski’s home, it feels like stepping inside someone else’s wonderfully weird brain.
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it → occupy → 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.
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Mahalski → lead → 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.
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sculptures → construct → scene
“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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that → use → inbox
Dunedin’s wild side reveals itself later that afternoon, when I climb aboard the MV Monarch with Monarch Wildlife Cruises.
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I → reveal → 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.
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seals → motor → 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.
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currents → sit → 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.
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penguins → pass → 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.
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I → see → Antarctica
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.
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wind → wear → everything
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.
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connection → recognise → 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.
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we → drive → River
Pa were fortified villages, strategically positioned on ridges and coastal promontories for defence, where Maori communities lived and grew food.
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communities → fortify → food
At its height around 300 years ago, Huriawa was home to several thousand people; today, only traces of the settlement remain.
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traces → remain → settlement
Beneath its carved entranceway, Irie gestures to the sweeping arch.
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Irie → sweep → arch
“It’s like a rainbow,” she says, “because we have one foot on the land, and one foot on the water.
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we → ’ → 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.
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stories → follow → grasses
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.
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Europeans → point → fertiliser
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.
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that → live → fence
Today, its temperate cloud forest offers a hopeful glimpse of what damaged landscapes can become when nature is given the chance to recover.
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nature → offer → chance
It’s impossible not to be swept along by the passion of lead guide Madison Kelly.
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It → ’ → 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.
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tieke → drape → 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.
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it → tell → saddle
“All of our birds connect through whakapapa, through their ancestry, but also through stories,” she says.
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she → connect → stories
“So when the birds come back, so do their stories.”
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stories → come → ?
Kelly calls what happens next Orokonui’s “halo effect”: as populations recover, birds spread beyond the sanctuary into surrounding bush and backyards.
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birds → call → bush
“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.”
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birds → want → fence
Watching tieke forage beneath the trees again, it does feel a little like deep time slowly knitting itself back together.
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it → watch → itself
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.
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I → say → locals
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.
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lights → settle → us
…and 17 more, not listed.
The Aporia
