Peaks and Places | Travel and Adventure Blog

While we were in Dunedin, the majority of our time was spent exploring the many many beaches. We also spent a great deal of time looking for penguins (which I will get into in a different blog post), so there was a lot of exploration and time spent hanging out on the beach. The first place we spent time and really explored the beaches was on the Aramoana Peninsula.

Located on the coast right outside the city of Dunedin, near Port Chalmers, is a 1.2 kilometer seawall known as The Mole. It was built in the 1870’s to help protect the city and prevent flooding. It was mostly concrete and rocks, and had a walkway. It was incredibly windy when we were walking along it, but we were greeted by several large fur seals lounging and sunning along the Mole, one of which got a little upset when I distractedly almost tripped right over him!

Right beside The Mole was Aramoana Beach. This beach was full of spiral shells, I have nicknamed unicorn horns due to their shape, all over. It was fun picking through the shells and trying to find ones that were especially unique, or unlike anything we have collected up to this point. There were some really gorgeous rockscapes along this beach as well, and we spent some time walking among them and checking them out. There was said to be a penguin colony that lived on this beach, but we’ll get more into that in another blog post…

There are several peninsulas that jut off the eastern coast of Dunedin, and we spent a lot of time checking them all out. This is where we stumbled upon both Sandfly Bay and Allan’s Beach. Allan’s beach was a small little beach that we didn’t spend too much time at. It is said to be a great place for sea lions, but we didn’t have too much luck while we were there.

This brings us to Sandfly Bay, which was a beautiful beach just a little further down the coast from Allan’s Beach, closer to Dunedin. This beach had sea lions galore! They were all over the beach, snoozing very hard on the sand, enjoying the sun. We were lucky enough to see one playing around in the water, and coming up to some of the larger male sea lions. I think she was trying to (unsuccessfully) flirt with them. She would go up to them and roll around, and they, in return, would snap and grunt loudly at her. It was very entertaining and she eventually huffed away and laid down in the sand. I think she was sulking.

One of the last hikes that we did while we were in Dunedin, was the Okia Reserve Walk. This was a loop around 3 miles long, that took us through some native bush and then along the beach. One of the main attractions of this walk is the two Pyramids. There is a large pyramid and a small pyramid. They are both old volcanic cones, and you are able to hike up to the top of the small pyramid. This was an opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up, and were rewarded with stunning views of the surrounding beach and cliffs.

As we were finishing up our time in Dunedin, we stopped to check out some areas that were north of the city, along the Otago Peninsula. The first place we stopped was at Long Beach, which had a large sea cave. There were a couple of people there who were going to rock climb the nearby cliffs, but unfortunately we didn’t stay long enough to see them begin their ascent. The cave was much larger than either of us were expecting, which was very cool. Neither of us had brought our headlamps (or, torches, as they call them here), so we weren’t able to explore as much as I would have liked, but that’s okay.

A little further up along the coast line brought us to Taoka’s Arches. We ended up at a very pretty beach, and were lucky enough to time it during low tide. In order to be able to see and explore the arches (without getting very wet), the tide needs to be low. These arches were created over time by the erosion of the waves and wind. They are made of sandstone, so they are very susceptible to erosion. It was a lot of fun checking them out and walking under the archways.

There was so much to check out all around Dunedin, that it is very easily one of my favorite places. We were always busy, and there was always something for us to do and see. We were able to see a lot of wildlife (don’t worry, we’ll get into the penguins later), and enjoy lots of gorgeous beaches at the same time. This is definitely a place I would love to visit again in warmer weather.