Tainui, New Zealand

Suburb in Dunedin, New Zealand

Tainui
Suburb
A view over Tainui, looking south east
Coordinates: 45°54′07″S 170°31′23″E / 45.902°S 170.523°E / -45.902; 170.523
Country	New Zealand
City	Dunedin
Local authority	Dunedin City Council
Area [1]
• Land	199 ha (492 acres)
Population  (June 2024)[2]
• Total	2,090

Musselburgh	Andersons Bay
St Kilda	Tainui	Ocean Grove
	(Pacific Ocean)

Tahuna and Tainui are two small, somewhat vaguely defined suburbs of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. They lie to the south of Andersons Bay and Musselburgh, close to Dunedin's southern coastline (Ocean Beach). Both are often considered parts of either Musselburgh or Andersons Bay.

Tainui lies to the north, in the area of residential housing which lies in the southeastern corner of "The Flat" (southern Dunedin's wide coastal plain) between Victoria and Tahuna Roads in the south and Musselburgh Rise in the north. Its eastern boundary is the start of a section of the Musselburgh Rise skirted by Tainui Road. Notable features of Tainui include Culling Park, a sports ground which is the home of Dunedin Technical football club.

To the south of Tainui is Tahuna. This suburb stretches along Victoria and Tahuna Roads, and is largely dominated by several areas of open space which lie to the south between these roads and the ocean. These open spaces include two notable sports venues: Chisholm Park Golf Course and Tahuna Park.

Chisholm Park is a championship-standard links course featuring one of New Zealand's finest holes, Lawyers Head. This hole dog-legs around craggy cliffs with the ocean pounding at their feet, and as such is both visually impressive and technically difficult.^[3] The course was founded in 1937 and extended from nine to 18 holes in 1941.

Tahuna Park houses Dunedin's A&P showgrounds, and was the city's first rugby union and rugby league test venue. The grounds were inaugurated in a 20-acre (8.1 ha) here in 1883, and the park's only union test match was played in 1905, with the All Blacks beating Australia 14–3. The park hosted the 1924 Great Britain side when they defeated the New Zealand rugby league side 31–18 in front of 16,000 fans.^[4]

The third notable open space close to the coast is the Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin's biggest cemetery. This is located at the southeastern end of Tahuna, and is bounded to the west and south by Chisholm Park Golf Links. The cemetery occupies a prominent rise that juts into the sea as Lawyers Head. The cemetery was opened in 1867, but is now largely full. A crematorium, inaugurated in 1962, occupies a prominent spot close to the cliffs.

Beyond the cemetery, Tahuna Road reaches a Y-junction with Tomahawk Road, which descends to the southeast to follow the coast to the suburb of Ocean Grove and rises to the north to meet with Silverton Road, Andersons Bay at that suburb's boundary with Shiel Hill. This area of Tahuna was formerly known as Ocean View, a name which is still occasionally encountered, though this name has fallen out of use due to confusion with the settlement of the same name which lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the southwest near Brighton.