The entrance to Port Oxley (Otago Harbour), 1826

The entrance to Port Oxley (Otago Harbour), 1826

By the 1820s many mariners were making detailed charts of different parts of the New Zealand coast. More than 20 years before the city of Dunedin was founded at the head of Otago Harbour, Captain James Herd mapped the harbour’s entrance. Herd had come from Britain to examine a possible site for settlement. He led one of the first organised parties of settlers, but took them north to the Hokianga. Not long after his visit, a whaling station was established close to the harbour entrance.