Otago Harbour

Otago Harbour consists of a long, much-indented stretch of generally navigable water separating Otago Peninsula from the main urban areas of Dunedin, New Zealand. They join at its southwest end.

The harbour was formed from the drowned remnants of a giant shield volcano, centred close to what is now the town of Port Chalmers. The remains of this violent origin can be seen in the basalt of the surrounding hills. The last eruptive phase ended some ten million years ago.

The entrance to Otago harbour from Taiaroa Head

Substantial container port facilities exist at Port Chalmers, halfway along the western shore of the harbour. A channel along the western side of the harbour is regular dredged, allowing fairly large ships to sail all the way to the heart of Dunedin, where New Zealand's frozen meat export trade began in the nineteenth century. The eastern side of the harbour is shallow, with large sandbanks exposed at low tide.

Two islands form a line between Port Chalmers and Portobello in the lower harbour - Goat Island and Saint Martin's/Quarantine Island. A smaller island known as Puddingstone Rock lies close to the Peninsula shore and is connected to it by a causeway at low tide.

Near the mouth of the harbour lies the partly-forested sandspit of Aramoana (Maori for "pathway to the sea"), infamous for a massacre of 13 people by a deranged gunman, David Gray, last century. Adjacent to Aramoana stands the site that was proposed for New Zealand's second aluminium smelter.

The harbour is tidal, but seldom rough, and as such is popular for such water sports as yachting and windsurfing.

Settlements by the harbour include (in order from the mouth of the harbour):

• On the western shore:
  • Careys Bay
  • Port Chalmers
  • Sawyers Bay (with a tannery)
  • Roseneath
  • St Leonards
  • Ravensbourne (with a fertiliser works)
• On the eastern shore:
  • Otakou
  • Harwood
  • Portobello (with its marine research station)
  • Broad Bay
  • Macandrew Bay
  • Anderson's Bay