Meet the Team

Gregor Campbell:

Some people think of cemeteries as spooky places, or places of death. I think of them as full of demonstrations of great love. But with great love comes great loss and great sorrow. For me, with what I have found, they are libraries of lives lived.

I was brought up in Dunedin, in a camping and tramping family. My second home was in Central Otago, and I was always fascinated by the relics there from the early days of farming and gold mining.

In 2017 I found a grave in Dunedin's Southern Cemetery with the words "who were brutally murdered" written on it. This was the beginning of my cemetery journey. I discovered the reason for those words and the massive amount of online source material available. 

A good friend with a blog told me they were easy to produce and I gave it a try. One thousand stories (and counting) later I am ready to share some of the stories I have found in Dunedin's cemeteries. Stories of "Darkest Dunedin" is truly what they are - of murder, shipwreck, foreign wars, and city fires and also of New Zealand's National Anthem, of tinned pineapple, and ladies' tailoring.

Lolene Pepers:

I take care of all the admin things, leaving Gregor to do what he does best, adventuring and chatting to people about history. I take bookings, answer general questions and I'm usually the voice raving about how great the tours are (they're pretty great). I'm always here for your ideas and questions about the tours so if there's anything you need to know or want to say, call or email!