East of Dunedin: The NZ locations behind Netflix's new hit series

Florence Pugh isn’t the only big star in Netflix’s East of Eden blockbuster. Just wait until you see Ōamaru. 

Over six-and-a-half million people have streamed East of Eden since it dropped on Netflix last week, which means a lot of viewers around the world have watched Florence Pugh walk down Dunedin’s Princes Street. That’s because the new adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel may be set in America during the late 1800s and early 1900s, but the seven-part television drama was actually filmed here in Aotearoa.

Nearly two years ago, parts of Dunedin, Ōamaru and Auckland were transformed into California and Connecticut, as East of Eden was brought to life half a world away from where it was originally set. Adapted for Netflix by Zoe Kazan, East of Eden is a sweeping family saga that follows the lives of two brothers and the woman who comes between them. The multi-generational story unfolds between the American civil war and first world war, and questions whether we can determine our own fate. Are we destined to be good or evil, and how will our actions impact our children? Hard to know for sure, but I really loved seeing the Queens Gardens cenotaph lion on the telly. 

Florence Pugh is brilliant as the drama’s complex antihero Cathy, while Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist play brothers Adam and Charles Trask. The supporting cast includes Hoon Lee, Martha Plimpton and Ciaran Hinds, and the series is a rich, layered portrayal of one family’s struggle with grief, jealousy and resentment. Fun, but why did Netflix decide to film such an all-American classic all the way over here? 

“The landscape here is so beautiful. We have filmed in locations that I think would have been impossible to find in the United States,” Kazan said in a Netflix trailer. “I just feel really lucky that we got to film here.” (1News reported that the New Zealand Screen Production Rebate for international productions – a 20% rebate on costs incurred in New Zealand – was also a drawcard.) 

So what local buildings and backdrops was East of Eden so lucky to film in? It’s not Dunedin’s first time starring in a Netflix production, but the gothic Victorian streets of the city centre offered an ideal backdrop for East Coast scenes. In episode two, the 1898 Boston street that Cathy walks along is actually Princes Street, while the dress shop window that Cathy peeks through is really Taste Merchants on Lower Stuart Street. Later that same episode, Cathy looks out her apartment window and onto Queens Gardens, while the southern city’s famous railway station also makes a cameo. 

Cheltenham in the Auckland suburb of Devonport supplied many interior and exterior housing shots, its tree-lined streets and historic villas stepping in for the avenues of Salinas during the first world war. (Production even paid for one villa to be painted yellow for filming and then restored to its original colour.) A crew of 150 filmed scenes at several historic Heritage New Zealand properties throughout Auckland, including Alberton and Highwic (including the scene from episode five where Lee finds a bed after leaving the Trasks) and the Thames School of Mines. 

As for the vast, open landscape of California’s Salinas Valley? The Hawkdun Ranges in the Maniototo steps up beautifully, with its rugged, dry hills capturing the isolation and bleakness of the Trask farm. Tussock has never looked so good – and even in scenes when the location isn’t explicit, the landscape still feels recognisably New Zealand, like the huge, gnarled pōhutukawa trees that the Trask children sit under, or the green rolling hills that Adam crosses after he jumps off the train in episode one.

Arguably, it’s the North Otago town of Ōamaru that has the starring role in the series. The town’s Victorian historic precinct contains one of New Zealand’s biggest and best-preserved collections of heritage whitestone buildings, which feature in many scenes throughout the seven episodes. East of Eden spent one week filming in Ōamaru, spreading thousand of cubic metres of lime chip across the tar-sealed roads to give the area a more “authentic” 1900s feel, and you might recognise the restored Criterion Hotel, the Ōamaru Steam and Rail Society railyard or one of the many locals who appeared in the background as extras. 

East of Eden is currently Netflix’s number one show, and comes hot on the heels of the film Heart of the Beast, which stars Brad Pitt and a really good dog and was also filmed in Aotearoa. To add to that, Dunedin and Waitaki were recently recognised by Lonely Planet in its Best in Planet 2027 for “representing the best that New Zealand has to offer”. There’s nothing like seeing Aotearoa on our screens (just wait until Netflix starts telling New Zealand stories!). It’s almost a shame that East of Eden is such a compelling and intriguing watch – Pugh will surely grab all the award nominations for her rich, layered portrayal of Cathy – that sometimes you don’t notice the background at all.

East of Eden streams on Netflix.