Dunedin Tunnels Trail
Mosgiel · Otago
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Dunedin City Council’s own wording: “Dogs on lead. Neither the trust nor the council posts a dog rule for this trail, so Dunedin City Council's default applies: "unless specified elsewhere, dogs must be on leash on roads, footpaths, tracks, cemeteries and beaches". We read the Dog Control Policy 2024 schedules and the council's dog control map layers over the whole corridor, and nothing names this trail, the Chain Hills tunnel or Gladstone Road North, so the on lead default stands. (Dunedin City Council, Dog Control Bylaw and Policy.)”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Dunedin Tunnels Trail
Dunedin Tunnels Trail covers 1.2 km, near Mosgiel in Otago.
Stage one of the Dunedin Tunnels Trail opened in December 2025 and it is a proper little outing. From the carpark at the top of Gladstone Road North, past Wingatui Raceway, a short climb puts you on a disused rail alignment that runs through regenerating native bush to the Chain Hills tunnel. The tunnel is 462 metres long, four metres wide and five metres high, brick lined throughout, opened in 1875 and lit end to end, so you walk through it rather than fumble through it. A few hundred metres of cutting carry on past the eastern portal and then the formed trail stops where the corridor meets KiwiRail land. Turn around there. It is about 1.2 km each way, so roughly an hour return at dog pace, unsealed the whole way with seats, handrails and fencing along it. Dogs on lead. The council's dog policy default covers tracks that are not named in its schedules, and this one is not named, so a lead it is. That suits the place anyway. The tunnel is shared with cyclists, it echoes, and the bush either side is coming back after years of clearing and planting by the trust. The council has also asked people using the trail to stay off private property and the rail corridor, which is the whole reason the walkable section stops where it does. The rest of the route, on through to Green Island, Burnside and the Caversham tunnel, is funded but not built. The Caversham tunnel is still shut. Do not follow the alignment past the end of the cutting.
Expect easy going, with around 41 m of climb, and takes about 18 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Shona & Missy suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.
