Otago University (Dunedin, Otago) Multi-Cache
Hidden : 11/28/2010
Difficulty:
3 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Haere mai ki te Whare Wananga o Otago!


Join us for a twenty-minute stroll around the central Otago University campus. You may like to print out a Campus Map to take with you.

You can choose to just run around the six waypoints listed below, or to take the full tour and read the information about the University. Also check out the self-guided 1 hour Otago University Campus Tour

The final cache is hidden at: S 45 51.ABC E 170 30.DEF

Waypoint A: Sculpture "Bud": A poem is part of this red "Bud" sculpture.
Number of letters in the poem title and first line = A.

Waypoint B: Plaque: This oak was planted in memory of a person.
Number of letters in the surname of that person = B.

Waypoint C: Plaque: A Catholic school was located at this site from 19C2 to 1969.

Waypoint D: Count the steps as you go up (the landing is just counted as one step, and the top is the final step) : Number of steps = XY.
X + Y + 3 = D.

Waypoint E: The figure on the top right of the archway is doing arithmetic. First digit of the three-digit answer = E.

Waypoint F: Physics Department Foundation stone was laid on May F 1921.

Checksum: A + B + C + D + E + F = 35 (so even if you can’t see E in the dark, you can still work out the co-ordinates...).

The cache is a 1.6 litre clear screwtop container, placed with permission. It is completely hidden but easily reachable from the path.

During the University year, STEALTH will DEFINITELY be required. If the area is busy (particularly between lectures and at lunchtime), please go and have a coffee and come back in 15 minutes!

(If you are a visitor to Dunedin and can't come back later, then please don't risk being muggled by the scarfies. Email us a description of the final coordinates and the hint object, and we will allow an aegrotat smiley.)


The University of Otago is New Zealand’s oldest university, founded in 1869 with the Rev. Thomas Burns (co-leader of the New Edinburgh settlement) as the first Chancellor. It was initially housed in the Exchange (the building later became the Stock Exchange); the first classes were held in 1871 with three professors and a roll of 81 students. The University moved to its present site when the Clocktower building was completed in 1879. It now has about 20,000 students, 1500 academic and research staff and 2000 general staff, and is one of the mainstays of Dunedin’s economy.


Stand at the intersection of Leith St Central and St David St and look up at the hill to the east. This spur (Tanna Hill) was formed by basalt lava flows from the Dunedin volcano (active 10-13 million years ago) and forces the Water of Leith to flow in a curve around its tip before it can turn east towards the harbour.

The building complex and well-maintained houses you see on the hillside are part of Arana Hall. This is one of 15 undergraduate and one postgraduate student halls of residence associated with the University, either owned directly by the University or by church organisations. Further south along Leith St Central is St Margaret's College (1915). This was founded in 1911 as the University's third college and was the first to be designated specifically as a women's college anywhere in Oceania. Otago University was the first university in the British Empire to allow women to attend all lectures and by 1909 over a quarter of the university's students were women.


Turn west down St David St past the four semi-detached Professorial Houses (1879) built for the four professors (Classics, English Language and Literature; Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; Mental and Moral Philosophy; Natural Science). They are built in multicoloured brick with distinctive cross-braced gables, with the pebbledash plaster added later.

The avenue of English beech trees you see here continues around to the Union St bridge. It commemorates the staff and students who died in the First World War.


Pause on the St David St footbridge (1902-1903). Ten years ago the then-Vice-Chancellor attempted to have this much-loved bridge replaced by a vehicle bridge, against wide-spread public opposition. After a change of Vice-Chancellors in 2004 the plan has thankfully never been mentioned again.

Any trout below the bridge today? The Owheo is also named the Water of Leith, after the stream in Edinburgh. It has a history of floods. The flood of 1923 removed stonework from the Union St Bridge and undermined the University Staff Club building. The 1929 flood (about 200 cumecs) damaged 500 houses and five major bridges, with floodwaters travelling as far as the Railway Station. The concrete channelling you see was installed in the 1930s. (Water of Leith Stone Walls Heritage Impact Assessment). Inexperienced kayakers going down the stream when it's in flood regularly get into trouble in the stopper waves which form downstream of those concrete weirs. Further work is being undertaken as part of the ORC Leith Lindsay Flood Protection Scheme which is designed for a 1 in 100 year flood of 171 cumecs at this footbridge.

Across the bridge is the glass frontage of the 2003 Centre for Innovation building which contains University and private research suites for the commercialisation of products and processes. It has been politely remarked that “not everybody thinks it complements the University campus”.

To the north up Castle St you can see the red brick Selwyn College, the first University hall of residence, founded in 1893 by Bishop Nevill, the first Anglican bishop of Dunedin. It’s said to be the oldest hall of residence in New Zealand still operating from its original building. The Selwyn Ballet is apparently the second-oldest amateur ballet troupe in the world... see them here view link

The St David St Lecture Theatre complex (2000) also has underground carparks, toilets and a cafe with an excellent view of Waypoint A. In this area you'll also find waypoints for Take a Seat and Faecal Effect.

Waypoint A: Sculpture "Bud": A poem is part of this red "Bud" sculpture.

Number of letters in the poem title and first line = A.

This steel sculpture "Bud" is by Dunedin artist Philippa Wilson. Appropriately for a University work, it hints at being an opening book by including a poem by former University of Otago Burns Fellow Hone Tuwhare.

If you are a visitor to Dunedin, you’ll want to photograph this iconic view over the Leith to the Clocktower building (1879). Maxwell Bury’s winning design was for a brick and cement building in the classical style. However, the University Council decided to alter it and construct what we have today, a stone Gothic-style building and clocktower. Two parallel buildings were planned, along with six Professorial houses and student accommodation. Initially just the northern sections of the Clocktower and geology buildings and four Professorial houses were built, costing almost twice the original estimate of £17,000. However, only four Professors could be lured to Otago anyway! In those early days the University ran evening classes because students had to work during the day to support themselves, and it was known as "The Night School on the Leith". Since there was no accommodation, apparently some students lived in tents set up on the lawn in front of the Clocktower.

The Clocktower building was extended in 1913 and 1922 with the addition of the Oliver Classrooms and the Physics Department. A clock was not installed in the clocktower until 1931 when one was presented by Sir Thomas Sidey, Chancellor from 1925-33. The building now houses the University Registry.

Walking downstream on the path by the Leith, on your right are the Departments of Physics, Maths and Stats, and the Science Library (1977). The eight storey tall brownish-clad building is Microbiology (1974), with Biochemistry just south of it. The concrete tower block (c.1970) next on your right houses Chemistry and Human Nutrition research labs. You’ll notice that these buildings have loading areas at ground level and a “shelf” at first floor level. This dates from the 1964 Blake-Kelly campus plan, which intended to connect the University buildings with overhead walkways to avoid street traffic. In 1975 the DCC agreed to close the streets through campus and walkways were no longer needed; however, many reception areas in these buildings are still at first floor level.

The Staff Club you’re approaching was built in 1907 as the Dental School, and was later the Registry and then the Faculty of Law. It is a popular venue for weddings.

Waypoint B: Plaque: This oak was planted in memory of a person.
Number of letters in the surname of that person = B.

Go up the steps to the Union St bridge. This is dedicated to the members of the University who served in the Great War.

On your right down Union Walk, a brick building and wooden houses (administration, and the Higher Education Development Centre that offers professional development courses to staff) are a reminder that all this side of the Leith was residential housing up to the 1960s.

The 10-storey “brutalist” concrete Richardson Building (1980) on your left houses Law and Te Tumu (Maori Studies). It was the final stage of the campus expansion which started in the 1960s. Thirty years later, it’s astonishing to remember that it was only at the time this was being built that verbal harassment of women passers-by from workers on building sites in the University was stopped by the University.

On to the walnut tree in front of the Student Union (1957), a modernist brick building. Further buildings were planned in this style as part of the 1948 Miller and White post-war campus plan, but never eventuated. As well as a hall, meeting rooms and cafeteria this building houses the offices of the Otago University Students’ Union and Critic (the student newspaper).

Waypoint C: Plaque: A Catholic school was located at this site from 19C2 to 1969.

Now take the opportunity to walk through the Student Union into the Link space (2002) where you will find cafes, toilets and seating and students busy studying and/or socialising. A series of posters here outline the history of the Campus and future development plans. This Link connects with the Central Library, sorry, Information Services building (2001) which has 400,000 books, a heap of computers and 2200 study places. The audio-visual suites are so thoroughly soundproofed that even an action film turned up at full volume will only be felt outside, not heard! Wander up to the first floor and smile at the “celebrity squares” wall of study cubicles, then visit the De Beer gallery in the north-west corner. It’s open weekdays 9-5 and has some interesting exhibitions.

Out the east door of the Link, you pass the Castle Lecture Theatres on your left. On your right is the Burns Building (Arts), the first of the major concrete slab buildings which was completed 1969.

It seems that back in 1964, someone had the bright idea of making the most of the limited campus space by building the Information Technology Services Building over the Water of Leith...

Waypoint D: Count the steps as you go up (the landing is just counted as one step, and the top is the final step) : Number of steps = XY.
X + Y + 3 = D.

(If you are pushing a stroller, continue a bit further downstream to cross on the footbridge and go up Leith Walk.)

Up to the early 1980s most of the ground floor of this Computer Science building was occupied by the University’s Burroughs computer. Computer Science students would trot in carrying bundles of punch cards and hand them in over the counter. There was only one run a day. One mistake, and your programme would stop; you’d have to find out where the mistake was, repunch some cards and bring them back again tomorrow for another try.

There is a way to scramble down to the bed of the Leith from the attractive little path below you- this is the only easy entry/exit point to the water downstream of the Gardens. Collect Owheo on the way past.

Follow the tarseal path over the grass. Glance to your right to glimpse the wooden louvre window-shades of the University’s latest building, the ecofriendly Psychology building (2010).

Go up the steps and on your left is a building labelled “The Tin Shed”. This is a WWII prefab named after the original "Tin Shed" (which stood where Allen Hall is now), which was constructed from parts of the 1889 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition. The Tin Shed was used by the School of Mines until 1911, when the newly- established School of Home Science held its first classes there.

The story is that when John Studholme, the South Canterbury runholder, wanted to fund a University Chair, his daughter asked him to do something for women. And so began Home Science, which for many years was the socially-acceptable way for women to study science at University. (It changed its name to Consumer and Applied Science, and now Applied Science.) The stone Home Science building completed in 1920, which you pass next, was intended to be one wing of a second quadrangle south of the Archway.

Now squeeze past the concrete Archway lecture theatres (1974), which were apparently built this close to the Home Science building because the Home Science building was going to be demolished. In the latest Campus Plan, the Home Science and the 1961 Gregory buildings stay and the Archway theatres go!

Now you cross Union Walk again, with a view of the twin concrete towers of University College (1969) uphill on your right.

Studholme Hall, an old house which was the hostel for HSc students, used to be on this site. In loco parentis was taken very seriously, and HSc women had to live at the hall unless they had written permission to live elsewhere. Until Xmas 1951, when the roof of one of the bedrooms fell in! All the senior students were urgently asked to find other accommodation- and in those days there was no flatting. Mrs Daywalk Senior and two friends roomed in a house owned by a maiden lady. Each boarder’s rent paid for a room, laundering of one sheet, pillowslip and towel each week, and use of the bathroom one evening a week (yes, one bath a week- spongebaths on the other days). They cooked on a 2-ring gas burner on the stair landing, using water from the bathroom.

When Unicol opened, the northern tower was for girls and the southern was for boys. The boys’ tower used to have skyrocket wars with the student flats on Harbour Terrace, using vacuum cleaner pipes as cannons. This pastime finally got stopped after some very close calls involving rockets ricocheting around Unicol bedrooms.

The building on the left of the Archway was built in 1908-09 to house the School of Mines. On the right is Allen Hall, opened in 1914 as the Students’ Union and now occupied by Music and Theatre Studies.

At the Archway, look upward to see gargoyles representing the University Departments. The two figures seated above the archway represent Humanities and Sciences. “Sciences” is having some problems...

Waypoint E: The figure on the top right of the archway is doing arithmetic. First digit of the answer = E.

The noticeboards under the Archway were formerly used to display exam results. Results were published in the ODT on the same day they were mailed out to students- back in the days before email, you would ask your friends staying in Dunedin over Christmas to phone you...

The main stone used in these buildings is Leith “andesite” (actually a trachybasalt according to the experts). The older buildings have a base of Port Chalmers breccia; but if you look at the newer School of Mines, the base is concrete marked to look like masonry. The facings are Oamaru stone and the roofs are Welsh slate. There can be no more buildings like this built, because the stone came from particular lava flows which were solid and an even thickness. It only needed to be cut into blocks! That stone has now been quarried out, leaving only the small 'organ pipe' columns which are extremely difficult to work.

Next on your right is Marama Hall (1919), now used by the Music Department. This drill hall for the Otago University Medical Company was built as a memorial to the work of the hospital ships Maheno and Marama, using the balance of the publicly-raised Hospital Ship Fund. The carvings on the front are the University’s arms (above the door), the crests of Lord Liverpool and Lord Jellicoe (Governors-General from 1917-20 and 1920-24 respectively) and the badge of the NZ Army Medical Corps.

If you come past on Wednesday lunchtimes, you can sit in the attractive garden outside Marama Hall and enjoy musical performances for free! Otherwise, go into the Quad. The Geology block on the eastern side of the quadrangle was completed in 1883. This building initially housed Anatomy (rumour has it that the Geology lab still has hooks in the ceiling dating from when it was the dissection room), Chemistry and Mining. The southernmost set of steps leads to the Geology Museum, open to the public on weekdays 9am-5pm. It’s free and well worth a visit. This building now houses Geology and lecture theatres.

Waypoint F: Physics Department Foundation stone was laid on May F 1921.

The magnolia in the centre of the quad (Magnolia campbelli ‘Charles Raffill’) was planted in 1965 by Professor of Botany Geoff Baylis. It is spectacular when it flowers in early spring. You are also passing The Outdoor Museum.

To your left you can see stained glass windows in the Clocktower Building. These are above the landing of the main staircase, and feature the coats of arms of the members of the 1879 University Council. Apparently many of these are made up; unlike the Old Country, prominent men in New Zealand were not necessarily gentry! As you leave the quad, look at the north-east section of the Clocktower Building- it was originally the janitor’s house. And then look to your right, up at the north end wall of the Geology block. Yes, when they ran short of money they economised!

If you are doing this cache during working hours, you will be able to peep into the Clocktower foyer. Turn to your left and go around to the main doors at the front of the Clocktower. Remember to wipe the mud or snow off your boots using the bootscraper built into the right side of the steps! The foyer has the original 1879 tiled floor and the building's architectural drawings are on display. The small clock beside the main staircase is linked to the clocktower clock, and is used to correct the clocktower time. Postgraduate students go left, or turn right to pay your fees. Please DO NOT go up the main stairs (unless you have an appointment with the Vice-Chancellor, that is).

We hope you enjoyed this short tour– there’s more information in the links below and some pictures.
It would be great to have your own favourite Otago University story included in your log.

Geological Society of NZ Field Trip: Dunedin Building Stones and Architectural Heritage
Wikipedia University of Otago
Wikipedia Clocktower complex
Wikipedia Registry Building
New Zealand Historic Places Trust Register

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Guerr zrgerf qbja sebz gur pbeare; fgnl ba gur cngu; ybbx sbe gur cynag gnt uvag; ernpu va!

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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