A Windy Day for an Outing                                                                                   

I've been wanting to get to Tunnel Beach, but the way there has been closed for many months due to slips in the track.  After a recent presentation on fairy prions, which have a colony in that general direction, Graeme Loh mentioned a path out of 49 Highgrove Road that I understood might get me to Tunnel Beach.  I took the bus to St. Clair and, following Apple Maps, walked up some very steep hills but that led to the fenced-off ruin of Cargill's Castle.  I looped back around past the St. Clair Golf Club and to the far edge of the suburb and finally reached the address, which proved to be an overgrown track through gorse and harakeke.  Going a bit of the way along the track, I could see through the brush the cliffs where the fairy prion colony is (1, 2) and a view to the south, but it being windy and me being scared of heights, I retreated.  On the way back to St. Clair, I did get some views of south Dunedin and the Harbour from the roads and from the 279-step Jacob's Ladder stairway.  Postscript: The day after this outing I found out from the DCC that the track to Tunnel Beach had just a few days earlier been reopened.
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View across South Dunedin toward St. Kilda and Lawyers Head.  Beyond that are Tomahawk and Smail's Beaches and the Peninsula. 
Views of South Dunedin and a bit of the Harbour.  Flat areas of South Dunedin are subject to flooding, which is projected to worsen due to climate change.  A risk assessment report from March 2025 states, "South Dunedin is subject to a range of natural hazards, including shallow groundwater, pluvial flooding, coastal inundation, coastal erosion, liquefaction and landslide."  The report notes, for example, "23% of buildings are rated as high risk to pluvial flooding at present day, and 84% of buildings are rated as high risk from groundwater by late-century."  Officials are considering a variety of options to address the threat.

See also:
South Dunedin Future.  Dunedin Community Council, last updated 5 June 2025.

Charlie Mitchell.  "Down Under: The community most exposed to sea-level rise is also one of the poorest."  stuff, Nov. 2019.

George Driver.  "Fight or flight: An old suburb and the sea."  North & South, Dec. 2023.
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