Waikawa, Southland

Waikawa is a small settlement at the mouth of the Waikawa River in Southland, New Zealand, at the southwestern edge of

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

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 ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

. Originally a small

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 Co ...

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 is a town and former royal burgh on the Black Isle in the Highland (council area), Highland council area of Scotland, about northeast of Inverness. The town is known for its ruined 13th-century Fortrose Cathedral, cathedral, and as ...

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 southea ...

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 national rail network. It ran through the Catlins region in southwestern Otago and was built in sections between 1879 and 1915. It closed in 1971 except for ...

, 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 wood, petrified forest some 180 million years old. It also hosts a yellow-eyed penguin colony, arguably the rarest of penguin speci ...

and Porpoise Bay. Parts of Catlins Conservation Park are located nearby. The 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 estuary, estuaries. Taxonomy The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related speci ...

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