ABOUT TOWN — DUNEDIN

If you want it to be, Dunedin is the perfect place for a spot of “dark tourism”. The Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, where almost 40 patients lost their lives in an inferno in 1942, is billed as an “off the beaten track” tourist attraction. Apparently a local company runs a “hair-raiser tour” as well, walking tourists through the local haunts, as it were. For the record I’ve never done the tour and I don’t plan to, but I do wonder whether it takes in the Bain murder site? Or David Gray’s Aramoana? I suspect that’s too on the nose, though if Dunedinites are good for anything it’s a laugh — albeit in the face of terrible tragedy.

What else can you do?

I’m a recent transplant to Dunedin, and live along