Photo: W. Bulach (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Otago Harbour in two parts. In Port Chalmers it starts at the Maritime Museum in the old post office, on Kōpūtai Bay, where Ngāi Tahu sold the Otago block to the New Zealand Company in 1844 and the promised reserves were never set aside. It goes on to the Town Hall of 1889, Holy Trinity and Iona churches in local breccia, the Flagstaff with its timeball, and the Scott Memorial on Height Rock, looking over the wharf from which Scott departed. In central Dunedin, about 14 km up the harbour, it starts at Charles Kettle's Octagon and the Regent Theatre, a picture palace of 1928, goes up George Street to Robert Lawson's Knox Church of 1876, and takes in the Municipal Chambers, St Paul's and St Joseph's cathedrals, First Church of Otago on the lowered stump of Bell Hill, and Queens Gardens. The last part follows the reclaimed waterfront: the Exchange, built on gold-rush wealth, Toitū Tauraka Waka, the Kāi Tahu landing place now buried beneath the plaza, the Settlers Museum, the former prison, the Law Courts and the Railway Station. Cruise ships berth at Port Chalmers.
20 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 464 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 55 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Port Chalmers Maritime Museum, Port Chalmers Town Hall and Memorial Library, Holy Trinity - Port Chalmers, Port Chalmers Flagstaff, Iona Church, Scott Memorial.
The Octagon, Regent Theatre, Knox Church, Dunedin Municipal Chambers, St Paul's Cathedral, St Joseph's Cathedral, First Church of Otago, Queens Gardens.
The Exchange, Toitū Tauraka Waka, Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, Former Dunedin Police Station & Prison, Dunedin Law Courts, Dunedin Railway Station.
The 1877 post office on Kōpūtai Bay, where Ngāi Tahu sold the Otago block in 1844 on terms whose promised reserves were never kept.
The 1864 signal station on Observation Point, whose black timeball still rises and drops each day at one o'clock.
A stone cairn crowned by an anchor on Height Rock, naming the five men who died returning from the South Pole.
R. A. Lawson's Gothic church of Oamaru stone, raised on Bell Hill after the hill was lowered by 40 feet.
The Kāti Māmoe–Kāi Tahu landing place where Toitū Creek met the harbour, buried by reclamation beneath today's plaza.
George Troup's stone station on about 600 piles, with Royal Doulton cherubs and a mosaic floor of more than half a million tiles.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 20 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 20 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Port Chalmers and Dunedin — Otago's Harbour and Its Victorian City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
20 narration points, including Port Chalmers Maritime Museum, Port Chalmers Town Hall and Memorial Library, Holy Trinity - Port Chalmers, Port Chalmers Flagstaff and Iona Church. That is about 35 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 20 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.