Today we docked in Port Chalmers. It is about a 15 minute drive to the main city, Dunedin. The population is around 100,000 people, 120,000 when university is in session.
Obligatory pic of where we eat breakfast outside every morning. The view was particularly beautiful today.
Our driver Kim picked us up, this was the most people we’ve had on a tour with 25 total. During the drive Kim gave us the history of this area.
Dunedin is Gaelic for Edinburgh. The Scottish settlers bought the land from the Maori in the 1840s. About 10 years later that was a gold rush that caused people to come from all corners of the globe to make money.
Kory mentioned that it is crazy what a mirror image New Zealand is of California. The general climate, winemaking, earthquakes, gold rush… so many examples.
Dunedin is one of the best preserved Victorian and Edwardian cities in the Southern Hemisphere. (There’s that Southern Hemisphere reference again…) It is very near the Southern tip of the South Island. It is known as the wildlife capital of New Zealand as rare yellow-eyed penguins, fur seals and the Royal Albatross all call Dunedin home. Kim mentioned that New Zealand aims to be predator free by 2050, so all the birds and native animals can live free outside preserves without the risk of being killed.
We didn’t book a wildlife tour as it seemed unlikely we would see much at this time of year… and the penguins are out searching for fish all day and wouldn’t be in until night after we were gone. We booked a tour that gave an overview of Dunedin city in the morning and Larnach castle in the afternoon.
We started the tour with a scenic drive around port and to the observation area above Dunedin. The drives ALL DAY were harrowing. The whole city and Otago peninsula are around the water in a crater created by volcanos millions of years ago. The only flat land was areas reclaimed from the sea. On the bus all day we were either hanging over the edge of the reclaimed land almost falling into the water or ascending and descending the hills and about rolling off the side. Kim was funny, he said “Oh, it’s okay, there’s always more room than you think”. HA! Definitely not more than I think!!! We survived though so I guess it all worked itself out.
Anyways, getting back to the tour… After the city overlook stop, we headed to the steepest street in the world, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. Only a handful of people wanted to traverse it from our bus, but Kory and I did it! It took about 25 minutes. It wasn’t terrible. It sort of felt like walking against a North Dakota wind when it was getting to its steepest part.
Next we stopped at Otago University. This was the first New Zealand University in 1860. It currently has about 20,000 students. Kim took us down the two “party streets”. It was hilarious. They were absolute shi*hole houses that each had a name outside like “juice box house,” “the doll house,” “the co*k pit.” Kim said if it gets cold there will be a sacrificial piece of furniture put into the street and lit on fire to keep warm. Once we got on campus it was a beautiful place with a little bubbling brook and clock tower.
Our final city stop was the railway station, another beautiful building. It was built in 1906 and at its peak had 100 departures a day. It isn’t really used anymore, there is just a tourist train that goes out a little while and then back.
From the city, we headed out to the Otego peninsula between the bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was about a 30 minute drive to get to Larnach Castle, “the only castle in New Zealand”. Kory would like to know who designates if something is a castle or not. Because it is a S T R E T C H calling this a castle. I told him someone from Europe would probably laugh or roll their eyes if someone brought them here and told them it was a castle.
That being said, it was a beautiful area and building with a fascinating history. William Larnach was born in Australia in 1833 when Australia and New Zealand were newly settled by Europeans. He was born and lived almost his entire life in the “Colonies,” but still would have regarded himself as British. He worked as a banker in Australia and was sent to New Zealand to open banks in the goldfields.
He was married three times. He had six children with his first wife who died unexpectedly at 38 of a blood clot to the brain, then married her sister to keep continuity with the young children. She also died four years later at 38 due to complications from an operation. Then in his 60’s he married a 39 year old woman who ended up falling in love with one of his sons, so he committed suicide after it was published in the newspapers.
A local family with money, the Barkers, bought the castle that was in disrepair about 50 years ago and lived in it and has been committed to restoring it. The husband passed away, but the grandmother is still there working and was wiping tables in the banquet room while the two daughters were working the café. Kory thinks we could do this… if we can just get someone to give us a castle. And some seed money for the $100,000 in maintenance upkeep that must be done. Kory also mentioned that it was great how much access we had to just wander around the place, go in all the rooms, take the tiny spiral staircase to the roof… all things they DEFINITELY wouldn’t let people do in the U.S.
From there, we headed back to port and Kim dropped us and another couple off in the Port Chalmers city center so we could wander around and be on solid ground as long as possible before we are on the boat for three days. They had a local artisans market that was so cute. People wanted to tell us all their crafts… the possum wears they were crafting, “much softer and nicer than North American possum fur”… Little sculptures from the rock abundant in the area… and other fun trinkets.
At 5:30 we headed back on the ship and went to the lounge that has great views from the front of the ship. Captain Robert gives a great talk at sail away over the P.A. every day. He said we should look for the Royal Albatross nests by the lighthouse when we depart. There were 37 nests this year and the babies were just born seven or eight weeks ago. We looked, but they just looked like big birds to my untrained birding eyes. It is apparently the only place in the world one can see these nests and birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment