Come and join us at the Ōtaki Museum on Anniversary Weekend (17-19 January) for the Kāpiti Coast Heritage Clue Hunt. It’s free! We’ll be open every day over the long weekend from 10 am to 3 pm, along with nine other Kāpiti museums. Collect an entry form, then find an answer to a clue at each museum for a chance to win one of four prizes! More information here .

Holiday Hours The museum will be closed Christmas and Boxing days (25 and 26 December) and New years day and the day after (1 and 2 January). We’ll be open as usual on Saturdays 27 December and 3 January 10am – 2pm. Visit us to find out more of Ōtaki’s rich history - a good holiday activity.

By popular demand, we’ve reprinted ‘Life in the Gorge’ the book of our 2011 exhibition of the same name. It tells the stories of the Māori who lived there first and then the later settlers. The book is available at the museum: https://www.otakiheritage.org.nz/order-a-journal-or-book

The latest in the long-running series of Ōtaki Historical Journals was launched on Sunday 16 November at the Ōtaki Museum. Historical research involves creativity, analysis and lots of detection work. The stories in volume 46 have been written, photographed and put together by the people of the Ōtaki community, for our community. Editor Sarah Maclean says, ‘Two articles have been written in both te reo Māori and English – this is a first for the journal. One of them is about

Summer visitors at the Ōtaki Beach skating rink, 1950s Online exhibits are a new feature of our website, with photos from our collection showing aspects of the rich history of Ōtaki. They include life at the beach, sport, market gardening, health facilities and hotels. You can also scroll through these at the museum too, and we plan to add more exhibits over time. https://www.otakiheritage.org.nz/online-exhibits