Hotels in Dunedin (a city of 130,000 on New Zealand's South Island) are already fully booked two years before a total solar eclipse on 22 July 2028 — the first to be visible from the region since 1163, predating any human settlement in New Zealand. The moon's shadow will sweep a roughly 100-kilometre-wide band across southern New Zealand, plunging areas from Queenstown to Dunedin into darkness for nearly three minutes. Around 35,000 visitors are expected to converge on Dunedin for the event, which city officials are billing as a major tourism milestone and plan to pair with a night-sky festival linked to Matariki, the Māori new year celebration.