Pete Strong, Chris Taylor and Kes Fairchild, all of Dunedin, are re-creating walks described by Peter "Pakeha [sic]" Thomson (1823-79) in his Otago Daily Times columns.
Mr Taylor said he had been given a publication of the columns compiled by Mr Thomson’s great-granddaughter, Mary Skipworth, of Auckland.
They were a fascinating record of the city, although some detective work was required to replicate the walks, Mr Taylor said.
"[I] started doing some research and found out that the barracks are not army barracks, they were immigration barracks and I think were located approximately where Otago Boys’ High School is now."
Ms Fairchild had completed Mr Thomson’s Water of Leith Walk and Mr Strong had hiked up Signal Hill.
Mr Thomson detailed his walk from the Octagon to Signal Hill in an 1864 column Wanderings about Dunedin, observing how "wonderful" it was the inhabitants of North Dunedin managed to live in such "a hot-bed of fever".
He skirted the edge of now-reclaimed Pelichet Bay and continued up the hill, telling his readers to pause and take in the view near the present-day lookout."All Dunedin lies at our feet, set like a picture in a frame, by the water and the hills around it."
Mr Taylor said it was a "special" feeling retracing Mr Thomson’s walks and the group planned to complete more.
"[The publication is] just such a fantastic resource for people all over Dunedin to understand what was happening back in the mid-1800s ... we'd love to share that if we can."
