The Kaikorai Stream is a short river which runs through the city 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 ...

, in New Zealand's South Island.

Course

The stream drains the south eastern and eastern slopes of Flagstaff, Kaikorai Hill and the Balmacewen area, flows through Kaikorai Valley and Green Island and empties into Kaikorai Estuary. The

water catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...

area is and has about 15,000 residents.McMillan, Simon
Important to protect little battler stream
'' Otago Daily Times'' 2004-06-23 (The term 'battler' was chosen by headline writer, not the author.) There are two branches both sometimes known as 'Kaikorai Stream'.

Balmacewen

The branch of the Kaikorai Stream which flows through Balmacewen has its

source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...

in the

Otago Golf Club Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

's Balmacewen Golf Course. From here the stream flows mainly through culverts below Bishopscourt, a group of playing fields used by the Kaikorai Rugby Football Club and an

intermediate school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

. Below Bishopscourt, the culvert opens into a stream through the Shetland St Community Garden and Kaikorai Common. On either side are a

marae A ' (in New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian), ' (in Tongan), ' (in Marquesan) or ' (in Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies. In all these languages, the term a ...

and a

retirement village A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves; however, assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socializ ...

. A pond and areas of swamp and forest and a

community garden A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

have been developed here in a

wetland conservation Wetland conservation is aimed at protecting and preserving areas where water exists at or near the Earth's surface, such as swamps, marshes and bogs. Wetlands cover at least six per cent of the Earth and have become a focal issue for conservation ...

project of the Dunedin Environment Centre Trust. This land was originally intended for a

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...

. The stream is piped through the suburb of Kaikorai, past the Kaikorai Presbyterian Church and beneath

social housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, d ...

built on the former

Kaikorai Cable Car The Dunedin cable tramway system was a group of cable car (railway), cable tramway lines in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. It is significant as Dunedin was the second city in the world to adopt the cable car (the first being San Francisco). ...

depot. It continues partly in open stream but mainly in pipes up to 100 years old maintained by

Dunedin City Council The Dunedin City Council ( mi, Kaunihera ā-Rohe o Ōtepoti) is the local government authority for Dunedin in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority elected to represent the people of Dunedin. Since October 2022, the Mayor of Dunedin is Jul ...

through private residential property. Mt Grand overflow

The Kaikorai Stream culvert is joined by

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainag ...

from

Halfway Bush Halfway Bush is a suburb of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. It is located to the northwest of the city centre, close to the point at which Taieri Road becomes the winding rural Three Mile Hill Road. It was this road which gave the suburb its n ...

, then empties into the much larger Fraser's Creek.

Fraser's Creek

Fraser's Creek provides the bulk of the Kaikorai Stream's flow, and superficially appears to be the "main" river. Excess water (brought here by pipeline from Deep Stream in the

Taieri River The Taieri River is the fourth-longest river in New Zealand and is in Otago in the South Island. Rising in the Lammerlaw Range, it initially flows north, then east around the Rock and Pillar range before turning southeast, reaching the sea sou ...

catchment) is discharged from a city

water reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

. This spilling has taken place since the mid 1970s, providing a source of cool, clear water of high quality that would otherwise not be available in the Kaikorai catchment. In dry weather, about two thirds of the flow of the Kaikorai Stream comes from this outflow. Fraser's Creek flows through Fraser's Gully, a popular recreation reserve clad in native bush.

Lower river

From the confluence the Kaikorai Stream flows southwest down the wide

Kaikorai Valley Kaikorai Valley is a long broad valley which runs through the west of the New Zealand city of Dunedin, to the west of the city centre. It is the valley of a small stream, the Kaikorai Stream, which runs from northeast to southwest down the ...

through the suburbs of Bradford and Kenmure. At Bradford the stream flows through the Roslyn Woollen Mills, a former

textile mill Textile Manufacturing or Textile Engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods ...

where according to legend the colour of blankets being made could be determined by the hue of the river water.Norris, Joanna
The tale of a waterway abused
in '' Otago Daily Times'' 2004-07-03 Pupils of the adjacent Kaikorai Valley College use the stream for outdoor education, studying water quality and flow, learning fly fishing and monitoring waste water. Industry along the stream

Many industries in Kaikorai Valley discharge waste water into the stream. The industrial area here is one of the few stretches of river with

esplanade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide cl ...

reserves (providing public access) along its banks. At Burnside the river turns west through Green Island, mainly in a channel lined with

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

alongside the

Dunedin Southern Motorway The Dunedin Southern Motorway is the main arterial route south from the South Island city of Dunedin, part of New Zealand's State Highway 1. Despite its name, only a portion of the route is officially classified as motorway. The route is the so ...

. Below Green Island, the stream is joined by major tributary Abbots Creek then resumes a southwest course, reaching the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

Waldronville Waldronville is a coastal settlement on the Pacific Ocean coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Established in the 1950s as a commuter settlement, it is located to the southwest of Dunedin city centre, and lies within the city's limits. W ...

, where its outflow is a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

, the Kaikorai Estuary. This lagoon is part of a research project aimed at establishing a national estuarine monitoring protocol. It is inhabited by black swans, and spoonbills are also sometimes observed. Though only a short stream some in length, it has been important to the industrial history of Dunedin. Many local industries have used power from the stream, most notably the Roslyn Mills.

Flora and fauna

Native aquatic animals in the stream include

whitebait Whitebait is a collective term for the immature fry of fish, typically between long. Such young fish often travel together in schools along coasts, and move into estuaries and sometimes up rivers where they can be easily caught using fine- ...

, freshwater crayfish (koura), giant

kokopu Kokopu ( mi, kōkopu) is a common name used for three species of fish of the genus ''Galaxias''. They are found in the rivers, lakes and swamps of New Zealand, to which they are endemic. Kokopu are galaxiids and like others members of that fami ...

, longfinned and shortfinned

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

s and freshwater mussels. In 1987, the

Otago Regional Council Otago Regional Council (ORC) is the regional council for Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. The council's principal office is Regional House on Stafford Street in Dunedin with 250-275 staff, with smaller offices in Queenstown and Alexand ...

launched a streamscape restoration programme which included restoration of

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

vegetation and public access to parts of the stream. In 1996 the Dunedin City Council redeveloped its sanitary landfill at Green Island to reduce leachate in the Kaikorai Stream, while in the same year the Dunedin Environment Centre began restoration work at four sites along the stream.

Pollution

In 1849 settler Samual Woolley described the stream as of the 'purest water."Paul Smith, Bill Dacker, Donald McPherson ''Water like Wine: a history of the Kaikorai Valley and Stream'' The Toitu Publishing Trust, 2002 - Kaikorai (Dunedin, N.Z.) In 1907 ''

The Otago Daily Times The ''Otago Daily Times'' (ODT) is a newspaper published by Allied Press Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand. The ''ODT'' is one of the country's four main daily newspapers, serving the southern South Island with a circulation of around 26,000 and a co ...

'' described the Kaikorai Stream as "a long continuous sewer" and "a sanitary scandal." A century later, the paper described the stream as a " little battler". while an Otago Regional Councillor described this and other Dunedin streams' water quality as "basically crap." The pollution was, to a large extent, the result of the heavy industrialisation of the lower course of the stream, particularly around Burnside, which was the site of a

freezing works A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

and cement factory. Other industries which used the streams waters in the early days of Dunedin's settlement included tanneries, stockyards, a flour mill, Kempthorne Prosser's chemical plant, and the Otago Iron Rolling Mills. The water quality worsens as the stream gets closer to the sea.Simon McMillan, quoted in Joanna Norris 'Sustainable future council's dream for stream' '' Otago Daily Times'' 2004-07-03

Macroinvertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s found in the estuary indicate the water is degraded, while more sensitive species exist near Kaikorai Valley College and the situation improves further upstream. Major pollution events include an accidental spill of

lime Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Botany ...

from the Dunedin City Council water treatment plant at Mount Grand in 2000 which "killed all aquatic life" including 1,000

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

for which the council was fined

NZD The New Zealand dollar ( mi, tāra o Aotearoa; sign: $, NZ$; code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New ...

14,000, and a discharge of cooking oil from a KFC restaurant in 2011 for which Restaurant Brands was fined

15,000.

Geology

Caversham Sandstone, palaeosol, Dunedin Volcanic Group in Kaikorai Valley

The stream cuts through late Cretaceous-Tertiary sedimentary and igneous rocks and Quaternary floodplain conglomerate and colluvium. In the area of Kaikorai Valley College the bedrock is the Altonian (Lower Miocene) (c.17 Ma millions years ago) Caversham Sandstone.

Name

The name 'Kaikorai' is a corruption of 'kai karae',

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

for 'eating

petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. Description The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group (all except the albatross f ...

s', referring to a Māori explorer whose party is said to have eaten these seabirds while camping at the mouth of the stream. The stream does not have an official name but "official" maps name Fraser's Creek as Kaikorai Stream and do not give any label to the watercourse through Balmacewen. A

Land Information New Zealand Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with geographical information and surveying functions as well as handling land titles, and managing Crown land and property. The minist ...

report on misspelt names suggests the name "should be Kaikarae".Whanganui Place Name Report - Duplication, Common Usage & Examples of Other Misspelt Place Names
on Land Information New Zealand website, viewed 2013-08-10

References

{{reflist

External links

Kaikorai Stream
website maintained by Kaikorai Valley College