The Catlins are the wild, less-travelled corner of New Zealand's far south: a strip of rugged coastline, native forest, hidden waterfalls and empty beaches between Dunedin and Invercargill, crossed by the scenic Southern Scenic Route. There are no cities and no crowds; instead there are lonely lighthouses, sea lions sleeping on the sand, penguins coming out of the sea at sunset and a 170-million-year-old petrified forest. It's a destination for anyone after raw nature and solitude.
Its highlights are unforgettable: the Nugget Point lighthouse on a clifftop, with the rocky islets ('the Nuggets') rising from the sea; the Cathedral Caves, giant sea caves you can only reach at low tide; the Jurassic petrified forest at Curio Bay, one of the best in the world; and picture-perfect waterfalls such as Purakaunui Falls (with three tiers) and McLean Falls (the tallest in the area). All of it dotted with wildlife: yellow-eyed penguins, Hector's dolphins, sea lions and fur seals.
Exploring the Catlins means driving slowly along rural roads, stopping at every lookout and waterfall, and letting yourself be surprised by a kind of nature that has been lost elsewhere. You can do it in one long day as a leg between Dunedin and Invercargill, but it's worth taking two and staying overnight to enjoy sunsets with penguins and the starry sky. It's the ancestral land of Kāi Tahu, with a history of moa hunters, whalers and sawmills that left its mark on every bay. A must for lovers of wild nature.
The Catlins have been inhabited by Māori since around 1350: Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe and later Kāi Tahu (Ngāi Tahu), semi-nomadic peoples who lived near river mouths for their abundant food and used the forest timber to build canoes (the name of the village of Owaka means 'place of the canoe'). In the 19th century came the whalers and, above all, the sawmills, which logged the forest from 1865. In 1881, off Waipapa Point, the Tararua was wrecked with 131 dead, the country's worst civilian shipwreck. The full story is on the history page.
Read the full history ↓Murihiku, “the last joint of the tail”: the far south of the country, land of Kāi Tahu, of the first sealers and whalers, and of the vast, untouched Fiordland National Park, with sublime Milford Sound. Offshore lies remote Stewart Island (Rakiura), realm of the wild kiwi and the southern lights.
Read the history of Southland and Fiordland →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name of a town can hold a whole history. Owaka, the main settlement in the Catlins, means 'the place of the canoe' in te reo Māori, and that name reveals what this coast was for centuries: a land where forest, river and sea came together to sustain life. Timber from the dense native forests was ideal for building waka (canoes), and the river mouths offered the best access to the resources of the sea.
Archaeological evidence places people in the Catlins around 1350, shortly after Māori arrived in the South Island. The first inhabitants were the Waitaha, followed by Kāti Māmoe and then Kāi Tahu (Ngāi Tahu). Through marriage and conquest, these peoples eventually merged into the iwi we know today as Kāi Tahu. They were semi-nomadic communities that moved with the seasons across a vast territory, from Stewart Island in the south to inland Central Otago. They settled mainly near river mouths, where food was plentiful.
In early times, these inhabitants hunted the moa, the giant flightless bird, now extinct, that was once common in the south. The region has moa-hunter sites. Over time, their diet came to rely on fish, shellfish, seabirds and forest resources. This was a deeply inhabited and well-known land, with trails, seasonal camps and names for every headland and bay, long before any European called it 'the Catlins'.
As in much of southern New Zealand, the first European contact with this coast came through the exploitation of the sea. In the early 19th century, sealers worked these shores, drawn by the fur seal colonies whose skins fed a lucrative trade. Whalers came later and set up shore stations at several points in the south and in the Catlins to process the whales they caught at sea.
The region takes its name from this period. 'The Catlins' comes from Captain Edward Cattlin (or Catlin), a whaler who in 1840 negotiated with Kāi Tahu chiefs to buy land around the river that now bears his name. Across the South Island, land deals between Europeans and Māori were made for tiny sums and with promises that often went unkept. This fed Ngāi Tahu's long-standing grievance, which was only addressed by the 1998 Treaty of Waitangi settlement.
As at Ōtākou and on Rakiura, these first Europeans (sealers, whalers and traders) formed mixed communities with local Māori families and left an early mark on the human landscape of the coast. But the real transformation of the Catlins, the one that would shape its economy and geography for almost a century, came from a different resource: the vast forests that covered the region.
From the 1860s, the story of the Catlins revolved around timber. The forests of rimu, kahikatea, tōtara and other native species that covered the region were a prized resource for a growing colony that needed wood for houses, bridges, ships and railways. The first sawmill opened in 1865, and many more soon followed around the Catlins River estuary and along the coast.
Pioneer settlers cleared small farms, and that was how the first settlement of Owaka began. The timber industry shaped the land: roads were cut, sawmills and camps went up, and eventually the railway arrived. The Catlins River Branch line reached Owaka in 1896, and the town moved about two kilometres inland to be near the station. For decades, the whine of saws and the smoke from the mills set the rhythm of life in the Catlins.
But the logging had its limits. Heavy felling gradually exhausted the forests, and over the 20th century the timber industry declined. The sawmills closed and the railway was eventually abandoned. What remained was a land of scattered farms, small settlements and, above all, patches of the original forest protected in reserves. That same forest, now recovering, is what draws travellers looking for waterfalls and wild nature today.
No history of the Catlins is complete without the Waipapa Point disaster. New Zealand's southern coast is treacherous, with low reefs, fog, rough seas and, in the 19th century, few navigation aids. On 29 April 1881, the steamer SS Tararua, sailing from Port Chalmers (Dunedin) to Melbourne with about 151 people on board, ran aground on the reef off Waipapa Point, at the western end of the Catlins.
What followed was an ordeal. The ship was stuck on the reef, within sight of the shore but out of reach of any effective rescue. For hours, as the sea broke up the hull, one attempt after another to reach land failed. In the end, 131 people died. It was, and still is, the worst civilian shipwreck in New Zealand's history. Many of the victims were buried in a cemetery near the point, which you can still visit.
The tragedy led directly to the Waipapa Point lighthouse, built so that such a disaster would not happen again. It opened in 1884 and is one of the last wooden lighthouses in the country. Today Waipapa Point is a quiet, evocative place, with a lone lighthouse, a cemetery and sea lions on the beach, where visitors suddenly come face to face with one of the south's most painful stories. It is a reminder of the human cost of taming this wild coast.
Today the Catlins are enjoying a revival as a nature destination. Far from the main tourist routes, the region has reinvented itself around what was left after the timber era: recovering forests, a spectacular coastline and extraordinary wildlife. The scenic Southern Scenic Route now links its waterfalls (Purakaunui, McLean), its lighthouses (Nugget Point, Waipapa), its cathedral-like caves and its wild bays. It draws travellers looking for exactly what the region has in abundance: solitude and raw nature.
Its natural treasures are becoming better known. Curio Bay's petrified forest holds 170-million-year-old trunks from the Jurassic period and is one of the best preserved in the world. The very rare yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) come ashore at dusk, tiny Hector's dolphins swim in Porpoise Bay, and colonies of sea lions and fur seals have returned to the beaches after hunting almost wiped them out. Much of this wildlife is protected and recovering thanks to the work of DOC and local communities.
As everywhere in the South Island, Kāi Tahu's presence is still alive and recognised. The 1998 Treaty of Waitangi settlement redressed the iwi's historical grievances and reaffirmed its role as kaitiaki (guardians) of this ancestral land. In a handful of bays and forests, the Catlins bring together several of the south's great stories: the moa hunters and the canoes of Owaka, the sawmills and the railway, the Tararua and the unforgiving sea, and a natural world that, once protected, is flourishing again for anyone willing to drive slowly to the end of the world.
