Daily Photo: Dunedin City

It’s a chap named Frederick Tuckett who we can thank for Dunedin being where it is today. He was given the task of finding a suitable location for the New Edinburgh in New Zealand’s South Island that the Scottish settlers wanted to emigrate to. At 37 years of age, and employed as the principal surveyor for the project, he scoured the land, hacking his way through bush, navigating rocky bluffs, rugged coastlines and bobbing along on sometimes unfriendly seas in search of a suitable location.

Sailing from the port of Lyttelton (called Port Cooper at the time) on his little tub, The Deborah, he landed at Moeraki and travelled for months overland to places such as Waikouaiti, Ōtākou, Kaka Point and Kaitangata, where he found the Deborah waiting for him. From here, sometimes aboard the ship and sometimes in rowing boats, he explored inlets, rivers and bays along the coast, eventually ending his search in a spot now called Riverton. Having completed his search, and no doubt feeling slightly chuffed at a job well done, Tuckett reported that Otago Harbour was the most desirable place for a settlement.

Now came the job of securing the land, a task which would prove to be of nightmarish proportions, and at one stage, when negotiations would break down, he would find himself standing all alone on an empty beach.