Talk:Dunedin

Great stuff there! As a resident of Dunedin for 25 of my most formative years, I was delighted to read the page.

There must be lots more famous Dunedinites... - wasn't Janet Frame born there?

[above text copied from Talk:Dunedin, New Zealand]

It would be great to have a sound file for the NZ pronouncation of "Dunedin" in this article!

Hey i hope noone has any problem that i added this climate table? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.238.158.50 (talk) 14:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Suburbs

A thought about the suburbs... With the three main centres, it makes sense to have separate articles for separate suburbs, With Dunedin, there are quite a number of suburbs that are writing something about, but I doubt that many of them warrant a full article. What I propose to do (unless there's any strong objections) is write an article called Suburbs of Dunedin, New Zealand, and give each of them its own subheading and paragraph or two. If necessary they can be moved to their own articles later, and it avoids having nine or ten new stubs. Good idea, or is it better to write separate articles now? Grutness|^hello? 06:17, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC) (copying this article to Talk:Wikiproject NZ places, too)

well, it's now one week later (almost to the minute), and there's been no-one saying "Don't do it!", so the article's on its way. Grutness|^hello? 06:35, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some of the late additions are out of order or even in the wrong group. One example - Halfway Bush is more outer than Bradford, surely? (OK, tell me I should fix them; but hey I didn't even attend the Labour Weekend 48th anniversary gathering of my classmates chaired by the Mayor! I'll fix them if nobody closer does soon.) Robin Patterson 04:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Basically anything beyond the inner range of hills is probably dbest described as an outer suburb. I've been wondering whether it's time to start breaking out some of the main suburbs for their own pages, too - probably not all of them deserve separate pages, but a decent article could be written on somewhere like St. Kilda. The main Suburbs of Dunedin page is still a good guide though. Grutness...wha? 07:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

most remote...=

I've just removed the following recently-added line:

Dunedin is the most remote city in the world from Western Europe. The distance from London is 19100 km.

Dunedin is remote, but this is just too vague. Dunedin and Invercargill are almost exactly equidistant from London, Auckland's most remote from Gibraltar, and Wellington is almost exactly antipodean to Madrid. "Western Europe" is just too vague for this to fly. Grutness...wha? 22:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I would scrap the whole paragraph about Dunedin being remote. I live in Dunedin and it doesn't seem remote to me. In terms of being remote from London or Western Europe, what meaning does this purely geographic remoteness have in the age of jet airlines and modern infrastructure? It would be more sensible to call a place remote that was physically hard or time consuming to reach, e.g. the middle of the Taklamakan desert. [MMS]

Separate History of Dunedin page?

There's been some good expansion to the history section lately - so much so that it might be worth breaking it out into a separate page and leaving only a summary here - any thoughts? Grutness...wha? 00:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. The history is getting a bit bulky for the main Dunedin page --Griggonator 16:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC) Griggonator

Done. Grutness...wha? 06:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Population

Leave the correct information of dunedin Population, as the older version was inaccurate and needed to be corrected, do not change it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.180.118.160 (talk • contribs)

It would help considerably if you could give the source of your information. The previous 2006 figure is correct according to the spreadsheet downloadable from stats.govt.nz. I'm not sure where the 2005 figures comes from.-gadfium 00:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

For the territorial authority (Dunedin City) I've posted the offical 2006 census count and referenced it. Timothy 16:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Dunedin music scene in the 1980s

I've just removed the following new addition to the page, which was immediately after the paragraph about the growth of the "Dunedin Sound" in the 1980s:

Also at this time, there was what could be described as an "anti-Dunedin sound" core developing, in reaction to the perceived elitism of the Flying Nun clique, comprised of such groups as Let's get Naked, Cactus Club and number of other unsigned, but popular bands.

This is misleading, to say the least. Let's Get Naked, Cactus Club, Gamaunche, Craig Watt, Working With Walt, Wreck Small Speakers, and many of the other Dunedin bands of the era worked alongside Flying Nun bands, and although their sound was far more diverse than that usually associated with Dunedin Sound, they tended to be grouped under the same umbrella, especially by the music scene outside Dunedin. Certainly the development of most of these bands was not "in reaction" to anything related to Flying Nun, but was instead simply in the interests of a wider music scene. Small record labels like Rational and Xpressway produced a reasonable number of these bands (so they could hardly be called "unsigned"), and in many cases compilation albums by these labels featured tracks by artists who were also connected with Flying Nun. A case in point is Xpressway's "Killing Capitalism with kindness" album, which has tracks by everyone from A Handful of Dust to David Kilgour. Other artists worked directly with both Flying Nun and smaller Dunedin labels (David Mitchell, the Jefferies Brothers and Alastair Galbraith, to name but four of them). Grutness...wha? 12:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC) (former lead guitarist and vocalist in two or three mid 80s Dunedin bands)

Fourth largest city in the world by land area?

This article (in its Geography section) claims that Dunedin is the fourth largest city in the world by land area. I've also heard "fifth-largest" quoted elsewhere. However, comparing the land area (3314.8km²) to the areas listed at List of cities by surface area, Dunedin would be around position #26. Does anybody have a reference for this claim? --Ghewgill 18:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Odd. I've always heard it as fourth largest - and also heard Mt Isa (Australia) being the biggest. perhaps there has recently been some sort of regional reorganisation in China, since most of the ones on that list 9to which I've now added Dunedin) seem to be in the PRC... Grutness...wha? 22:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That list seems slightly problematic. For example, nowhere in Wood Buffalo, Alberta is it described as a city, but as a very large non-dividable municipality. Similary prefecture-level city suggests that such administrative units are not really cities. On the other hand, there's quite a nice list here [1] of populations, land areas, and population densities that avoids the silliness of legal boundaries, and measures conurbations and developed urban areas. Of course, by that definition, the largest city in the world is the tri-state area. It also has Sydney well ahead of Mt Isa, and gives Dunedin an estimated 85km2. However, depending on what you consider a city, by some measures, Dunedin probably is around number 4. --Limegreen 23:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Tourism Dunedin is Dunedins Official Tourism Website

The claim that dunedintourism.co.nz is the official tourism website of dunedin is incorrect.

'Dunedin Tourism' a trust operated by The Dunedin City Council a division of government is the official website of Tourism in Dunedin.

This needs to be changed immeadiately!

Regards

Adrian McCaffrey

Online Marketing Manager Dunedin Tourism

Tourismdunedin 01:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Noted inhabitants

this entry is getting long, perhaps best to create new entry of noted inhabitants of Dunedin? Michellecrisp 06:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wide Images

Is there any particular reason why we need to use the wide image template and a width of 1200 pixels for the panoramas on this page? I would have thought that the 800 pixel wide thumbnails we had were perfectly adequate, especially given the large number of panoramas on this page. Wellington still uses the smaller size, so why differ. Anyway, if anyone is more interested in a particular panorama, then they can simply view the full-sized version. In fact, perhaps we don't really need to include both of my mount Cargill panoramas? (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 08:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Map

Do we need to use that map? It's pretty horrible, and I notice the same thing has been done to Auckland and Christchurch. Would it be better to have an atlas map of NZ in the background and an inset of the South Island with Dunedin coloured in?

And with the current map... we are not a dot at the bottom of the peninsula, there should be way more red! Remember Dunedin is big ;) Timothy 16:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Most atlases are copyright, and therefore not suitable. And one of the few freely useable (the CIA factbook) isn't very much to scale. However, if you think you can draw a better one, or that it needs more red, then you are able to edit it.--Limegreen 22:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

We could always replace it with one of the PD maps I've made for other NZ towns and cities (e.g., the one for Milton). Grutness...wha? 09:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How is Dunedin pronounced?

Don/Done - eeh/a - din/dun/dean?

An audio file would be nice!

NZers in general pronounce it done-EEH-din or done-EEH-dun, but locals use two schwas: d'n-EEH-d'n. Grutness...wha? 00:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Split out Notable inhabitants?

A few months back there was a suggestion to split the notable inhabitants section out into a separate article. The section is now getting very big and quite messy, so perhaps the idea should be revisited... Grutness...wha? 00:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It's got my vote, looking at the London and New York City (FA) articles for comparison I don't see such a section at all. XLerate 04:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I quite like the list, as long as it's maintained and kept current, but I agree that it is probably big and ugly enough to warrant its own page now. kabl00ey 15:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Just nit-pickin' here...

Surely the albatross colony is on an island? --Pete 12:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't day that it isn't! What it says is that it's on the mainland, which it is - at the end of Otago Peninsula. It's the only place in the world where there's a Royal Albatross colony on an inhabited landmass - a landmass which is simultaneously an island (the South Island) and the mainland of NZ rather than a smaller offshore island. Grutness...wha? 23:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Obscure sentence, is this right

"Modern archaeology favours a date round 1100 AD for the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand with population concentrated along the south east coast."

This seems very strange ? Maori population concentrated along the south east coast ? Of New Zealand ? Of the South Island ? Surely most of the Maori lived in the North Island originally as they do today. Is the intention to mean, most of the South Island Maoris lived on the south east coast. I have no idea. The meaning is obscure. Someone more knowledgeable than me should consider revising this sentence.Eregli bob (talk) 10:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I've given it a minor tweak which hopefully will clarify things a bit. Grutness...wha? 00:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the sentence in the original form. It may sound strange but it's true. It's a widespread but mistaken belief that the Archaic population distribution was the same as that encountered by Cook. It wasn't. It was concentrated along the east coast of the South Island with just a very few people living in the very far north. Hardly any of the North Island was settled before 1350 and it was relatively thinly populated until about 1500. You can see something of this in the maps in Hamel, J (2001) The Archaeology of Otago, Wellington NZ: Department of Conservation ISBN 0-478-22016-2; also in those in Anderson, A (and others) (1996) Shag River Mouth Canberra, Aus; The Australian National University OCLC 34751263 ISBN 0-7315-0342-1 and Roger Duff's classic study of the Moa Hunters is also useful. No access to bibliographic details.) I traversed the matter briefly in Entwisle, Peter The Otago Peninsula John McIndoe Ltd., Dunedin NZ 1976 and again in Entwisle, Peter Behold the Moon the European Occupation of the Dunedin District 1770-1848 Port Daniel Press, Dunedin NZ 1998 at p.18. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Entwisle (talk • contribs) 12:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The original sentence means exactly what it says and I put it like that after careful consideration. The population was 'concentrated along the south east coast' which in the context means 'of New Zealand' and yes, that's the east coast of the South Island - from Wairau Bar in Marlborough to the Catlins in South Otago. That's where all the big sites are. I wouldn't claim a preponderance for the southern part of the South Island's east coast but there was definitely a concentration in what is now the Dunedin coastal area. There was another to the north from about Palmerston to Oamaru and another south of what is now the Dunedin coast.This is between about 1100 and 1450. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Entwisle (talk • contribs) 12:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Climate

Hi, just to get some discussion going on the climate. The Foehn/ Northwest wind in winter is not cold, it's dry and warm. This is the same for all locations along the east of New Zealand....Napier, Hastings, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin primarily. Check out a forecast in the winter. In strong NW you will find maxima in the region of 20C. It's worth noting (perhaps this may go in the main article) that in August of 2007, Dunedin recorded New Zealand's highest temperature (incredible, I know) of 22.2C. This occurred in classic Northwest conditions. Certainly not a cold wind. Whilst it is true that Central Otago is cold, this does not make it a cool wind. The source of the warmth is that it is sinking, dry air which heats up very quickly due to thermodynamic processes. This doesn't change even in winter. The Foehn wind also happens elsewhere, and a good example is in Canada. In the Calgary area, these Chinook winds are very common. In winter they are warm and melt snow, bring plants out of dormancy and other assorted problems. And the Canadian landmass is much, much colder than Central Otago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.145.45 (talk) 09:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Addition to this: corrected statement....Rangiora got the warmest winter temperature (22.4C), not Dunedin, but Dunedin's August 22.2C was the highest that month. http://www.niwascience.co.nz/ncc/cs/monthly/mclimsum_07_08

Also, not sure I agree with the claim that Middlemarch frequently reaches into mid 30s. Mainly because it can't be verified. Is there a weather station in that town? Sure, you can have people in their back gardens claiming 40C+ all summer long in Central and Canterbury....the problem is that they are recorded in conditions that are not standard the whole world over, so they can't be used to back-up claims. Central Otago is actually cooler than many locals would like to think (though I would still personally describe their summers as hot). The warmest summer towns in NZ are Kawerau (BOP) and probably Hastings, not Central. Unfortunately, it's hard to find climatic data for this sort of thing. It would probably be reasonable to claim that Central exceeds 30C with frequency in summer. But the fact that the warmest temperature (officially) so far this summer is 34.8C (Timaru), I find it highly unlikely that anywhere reaches into the "mid-30s" (let alone the high 30s that was originally claimed) with genuine frequency. An interesting point is that Alexandra so far this year has been on average 5C warmer than normal, an extremely, extremely hot year in climatological terms (http://www.niwascience.co.nz/ncc/cs/monthly/mclimsum_08_01).

As most people who've lived in Dunedin for any length of time will know, the Foehn winds which come from the northwest in winter are significantly cooled by the ground conditions in Central Otago, making them icy cold - if the wind blows from the northwest in winter in Dunedin, you get thick frosts, which wouldn't occur if the wind was still warm by the time it reached us. Yes, there is usually a few hours of hot weather before hand - known to some locals as "Dragon's breath", since it is a forewarning of bitter weather for the following couple of days - but the wind then rapidly cools. As for the Middlemarch temperatures, no, there is no official reading from Middlemarch, but there used to be an official reading taken in Ranfurly, which has largely similar weather conditions. That station regularly peaked above 33.3 C (33.3 - 36.7 being logical to describe as the mid 30s). It is not unnatural to consider similar conditions likely in Middlemarch. Grutness...wha? 21:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The reason you get this few hours of warm weather is because of the Foehn wind, warm and from the Northwest. The rapid cooling you talk of is nothing to do with Central Otago. What happens is you get a strengthening Northwesterly, bringing you this "Dragon's breath" you speak of, warm and gusty winds- this then switches to being icy cold because the wind changes to a southerly, *not* because the NW has somehow managed to get cooled by Central.

This is a standard meteorological effect that hits of all the east of New Zealand. The hottest weather often occurs at the end of the Northwesterly, this is a sign that within a few hours the southerly will kick in and temperatures will plunge. In winter, of course this brings you your icy conditions under the often cool and clear skies that follow a southerly (southerly air is often quite dry).

As fronts approach from the west (generally), the northwester kicks in and the west coast gets buckets of rain whilst the east will get high temperatures. When the front passes, you get the southerly change and the drop in temperatures. The east is more exposed to a southerly, so the change is more pronounced all down the pacific coastline.

Next time this happens, look at a synoptic chart, you will see the isobars marking the NW wind for Dunedin etc, and behind the approaching front they will be oriented in a southerly (or south-westerly) direction. This front can pass quickly, hence you may only get the NW for a few hours of a day, followed by the cold southerly.

Central Otago is not capable of significantly cooling a Foehn wind. It's not big enough, it's not cold enough and it cannot over-ride the driving force of the warmth, which is adiabatic heating from the air sinking on the leeward side of the mountains. From your observations it is clear that what you're describing is a common NW -> S change. Wikipedia has good articles on chinook winds and foehn winds. The Foehn is often responsible for record winter temperatures all over the world, even in the UK which has very small mountains (on the east of Scotland they once recorded 18C or 19C thanks to a Foehn wind from the southwest). Any cooling that follows is due to change of wind direction.

This may be the standard meoteorological effect in much of New Zealand, but it is not what you seem to get in Dunedin winters. You get weather in the following pattern:

1) Warm, dry "Dragon's breath" from the nor'west for a few hours

2) Icy, very dry winds from the nor'west for two or three days

3) Cool, stormy, wet winds from the south for several days

It is this three-note pattern that is common in winter. The second phase of it is distincly the coldest, and also is distincly from the northwest. The southerly change which occurs as you point out due to the typical southern oscillation pattern doesn't occur ntil some considerably time after the change in temperature. Grutness...wha? 23:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing particularly special about Dunedin that should make it vulnerable to a "cooling" NW. Canty Plains should be subject to it also, being downstream of MacKenzie Country. And why do we not get this cooling of a Foehn wind in other countries where the land is larger and colder?

There are issues with what you are claiming:

1) The source of the air is over the Tasman Sea. Even in winter, at the latitude of Dunedin the SST there would be perhaps about 12C, getting up to 15C around Northland. This is pretty warm for winter water compared to other parts of the world (eg Northern Europe).

2) Without the Foehn effect, this would produce a fairly mild wind, leading to daytime highs in the region of 10C-15C, depending on location and various other factors.

3) Given the Foehn effect which does occur in NW conditions, this wind is stripped of moisture and heats up significantly on the leeward side- this is the basic driving force of the NW wind. Heating over land does occur in summer, but this only adds the odd degree or two. The reason for this is:

4) Air is a very poor conductor of heat. Passing a wind over warm land will only heat it up slightly in New Zealand because the country is so small. All air coming to NZ has a very long track over sea, this gradually allows either warming or cooling of the air depending on season and air source- it's not efficient and it's only because of the long track that this occurs. However, if we want the land in NZ to significantly heat up our air, we are out of luck. As I mentioned in (3), you will get the odd degree or two but nothing massive.

5) This all applies in winter also. We have a mild air source out at sea, which due to the Foehn effect ends up even warmer on the leeward side. It is possible that the air is cooled by passing over Central Otago- but the idea of it turning from a warm wind to one that is "icy cold" (in such a short distance) is notably un-physical. It cannot happen.

There are two basic means of heating up out atmosphere: Conduction and Convection. Conduction is hopelessly inefficient- relying on direct contact from land-to-air and then air-to-air. Given the insulating properties of air, alarm bells start ringing when someone claims that air can turn from warm to icy cold in such a small distance using this process.

A famous scientist once said that if the theory doesn't match the evidence then the theory needs revising. However, in this case the theory is very well understood, from several angles, even a non-meteorologist (say, a physicist with a bit of skill in thermodynamics) would recognise the processes that are occurring. The evidence suggests that your observations are wrong, how do you claim this cold wind is "distinctly from the northwest"? Can you get readings from a standardised meteorological station to prove this? Because at the moment we have considerable scientific weight versus unverified personal observations. In an encyclopaedia one of these is very much out of place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.145.45 (talk) 05:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can't point to documentary evidence. I agree that it seems odd that the temperature of the wind drops significantly before the change of wind direction, and have puzzled about it for many years, since it was pointed out to me by my then girlfriend, who was a met. office worker at Dunedin Airport (which dates it - they haven't had a manned met. station there for some decades AFAIK, though I doubt the weather patterns have changed much since then). However, that is distincly the way the weather patterns seem to go, unlikely though it may seem. FWIW, her best theory was that, because of Dunedin's location (both sheltered by the mountains when the wind is directly from the west and close to the country's southernmost point), it was sometimes subject to a "blended" weather pattern: a cold, moist southerly air blowing across Southland (which would be hit by any front before Dunedin) would combine with a stronger warm nor'wester, leading to a cool dry wind that seems colder as it leads to frosts. Because of the relative strengths of these winds, it would still approach Dunedin from the west or nor'west. Whether this is the explanation for this quixotic pattern, i don't know, but it does make some sense. Grutness...wha? 09:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Notable inhabitants

If no one opposes, I'm going to move this into its own new article. Michellecrisp (talk) 02:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The idea of this was already mentioned further up this page, and there were no objections. Go for it. Grutness...wha? 23:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

someone has put a merge tag on the Notable people from Dunedin article. I disagree, the Dunedin article is already becoming very long. Michellecrisp (talk) 00:58, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

population gone from 114k to 132k in 4 years? I think not

statistics NZ and the 06 census should be the main source for population statistics, not individual council websites, like on the pages of all the other cities in the country. Also, it's IMPOSSIBLE that the 3000sq km area could hold less people than the urban area at it's heart, it's totally contradictory. Simple maths. Unless we count that apparently imaginary extra 18,000 people who have moved there in the past 2 years. I've only noticed one major subdivision in Dunedin in that time near (Green Island), and I'm pretty sure it's not the fastest growing city in NZ, which it would easily be was this jump in population correct.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/census-outputs/quickstats/snapshotplace2.htm?id=2000071&type=ta&ParentID=1000014&expand=1000014&scrollLeft=&scrollTop=&ss=y

See that^, it's increased by 4000 since the previous stat of 114,000. Current population 118,683