Waikawa, Southland

Waikawa is a small settlement at the mouth of the Waikawa River in

Southland Southland may refer to: Places Canada * Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia New Zealand * Southland Region, a region of New Zealand * Southland County, a former New Zealand county * Southland District, part of the wider Southland Reg ...

, New Zealand, at the southwestern edge of

The Catlins The Catlins (sometimes referred to as The Catlins Coast) comprises an area in the southeastern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The area lies between Balclutha and Invercargill, straddling the boundary between the Otago and Southlan ...

The township is now a small fishing settlement, but at one time in the late 19th century was a major port, shipping timber from the sawmills of the Catlins north to help build the new town of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. Originally a small Maori community, the first European settlers to the area set up sawmills in the late 1830s. Unfortunately for Waikawa, the port facilities were prone to silting, and the nearby township of

Fortrose Fortrose (; gd, A' Chananaich, sco, Chainry) is a town and former royal burgh in Highland, Scotland, United Kingdom. It is on the Moray Firth, about north-east of Inverness. The burgh is a popular location for trying to spot bottlenose dolp ...

became the more prominent port. It too fell prey to the arrival of the

Tokanui Branch The Tokanui Branch, also known as the Seaward Bush Branch, was a branch line railway located in Southland, New Zealand. It diverged from the Bluff Branch south of the main railway station in Invercargill and ran for 54 kilometres in a southeast ...

railway, and to a lesser extent the

Catlins River Branch The Catlins River Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's Rail transport in New Zealand, national rail network. It ran through the Catlins region in southwestern Otago and was built in sections between 1879 and 1915. ...

, in the late 1890s. Today Waikawa hosts a museum, community centre, a popular fish and chip wagon and numerous accommodations and holiday homes because of its close proximity to

Curio Bay Curio Bay is a coastal embayment in the Southland District of New Zealand, best known as the site of a petrified forest some 180 million years old. It also hosts a yellow-eyed penguin colony, arguably the rarest of penguin species, with approxim ...

and Porpoise Bay. Parts of Catlins Conservation Park are located nearby. Th
Waikawa Museum and Information Centre
was formed from two old school buildings, one from the former Waikawa School, and is run by volunteers also offering information to tourists who visit the area. Most of the township faces the Waikawa estuary. This estuary is home to

flounder Flounders are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish, found at the bottom of oceans around the world; some species will also enter estuaries. Taxonomy The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related species, thou ...

, or flatfish, which can be fished out of the water by trawling nets. Populated places in Southland, New Zealand The Catlins Southland District {{Southland-geo-stub