Southland & Otago Travel Guide

Otago is one of the origin provinces of New Zealand. It's largest city is Dunedin, a city founded by Scots and named after Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Scottish place names abound thoughout the region.

Gold was found in central Otago in the 1860's. This lead to a rapid development of one of the most scenic regions of New Zealand. But when the gold ran out the miners left a countryside steeped in history. For almost a century it lay waiting rediscovery by the tourist industry. Today, centred on Queenstown, tourism is the new gold.

Southland is the southern part of the South Island that has fiords, mountains, lakes, plains, rolling hills, rare birds that were believed extinct, a high rainfall on one side of the mountain range and near drought on the other and rugged valleys that people have never set foot in.