Cosy Nook is a handful of boat sheds, cribs and fishing boats squeezed into a sheltered rocky cove on the wild Southland coast, about 30km south of Tuatapere on State Highway 99. It's one of the most photographed spots in the region — weathered fishing huts perched on the rocks, boats swinging on their moorings, and the open coast beyond.
The cove has a long history. In the 1820s it was the site of Pahi's village, one of the largest Māori settlements on the Murihiku coast — around 40 to 50 whare, and a busy trading post where sealers and flax merchants swapped iron goods, muskets and gunpowder for potatoes and flax. Offshore, Matariki Island held a fortified pā back in the 1700s, used as a refuge during conflict between Ngāti Mamoe and Ngāi Tahu. Both the island and a nearby islet were returned to Ngāi Tahu in the late 1990s as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement.
The cove's English name comes from Captain George Thomson, harbourmaster at Bluff and the first European settler here, who named his property Cozy Neuk after his home village in Scotland — anglicised over time to Cosy Nook.
These days it's a peaceful place to watch the surf roll in, with crayfish, blue cod, pāua, kina and mussels all still plentiful in the waters around the rocks. Keep an eye out on the drive in, too — a paddock along the road is home to a line of hand-painted penguin cutouts, a local roadside curiosity worth a photo stop of its own.
