Dunedin's Northern Cemetery, which sits on the hill between Logan Park and the suburb of Opoho, is a spot where nature, history and morbid curiosity combine.
Death was a massive deal back in Victorian times and Dunedin’s rich got into it in a big way.
Walking between gravestones you can see the death obsession in the intricate burial plots for the city’s elite.
No-one took this to greater extremes than William Larnach who commissioned famed architect Robert Lawson to build a miniature replica (although not that miniature) of Dunedin’s First Church as the tomb for his first wife Eliza Guise who died in 1880.
Mr Larnach himself would later be buried in the tomb after he shot himself at Parliament.
Other names from Dunedin’s early history he shares the cemetery with include Mr Lawson, Sir Thomas MacKenzie, who was prime minister for a little over 100 days, entrepreneur and brewer Charles Speight and the man behind God Defend New Zealand Thomas Bracken.
Beyond the grandiosity, even the smallest burial plots offer a window into the city’s past.
Looking through the names and ages on gravestones — more than 17,000 people were buried here — you can imagine life in more difficult times, when lives could be cut short by childbirth, war or the flu.
The cemetery’s location on a steep hill makes it unique. The unsteady ground means in between perfectly preserved headstones others are cracked or overgrown with tree roots.
Instead of neat rows of gravestones, it can feel like a rabbit warren you can get lost in
Visit during the day and you are surrounded by the green of once ornamental trees which have outgrown their burial plots.
Find a nice spot on the grass between burial plots and you can picnic next to the dead.
While enjoying your lunch you can appreciate the wide array of rare roses lovingly cared for by Heritage Roses Otago.
Visit at night and the sound of branches creaking and possums screeching can leave you convinced of a ghostly presence.
Look for long enough at the stone woman standing atop a tall column and you can become sure her eyes are following you.
— Vaughan Elder
