Andersons Bay - Tahuna and Tainui

Tahuna and Tainui

Tahuna and Tainui are two small, somewhat vaguely defined suburbs which 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.

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, Lawyer's 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. 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 1921 Great Britain Lions when they defeated the New Zealand rugby league side in front of 16,000 fans.

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 Lawyer's Head. The cemetery was opened in 1978, 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.

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