Dunedin

Monday 20 September

Our first stop today was at The Plains for  a ride on a K88 steam locomotive.  This is another privately run vintage train, and was a fun ride followed by another great morning tea.  Lunch was a quick stop  at Oamaru, I can’t say a lot about it because we were only there for about 45-50 minutes.  Lunch was good, in a tea room which seemed to extend for several shopfronts.

When we arrived in Dunedin, which by the way is Gaelic for Edinburgh, we visited Olveston House, one of the grand houses of the city.  It was built by a man who supposedly imported pianos, but must have had a few more irons in the fire because pianos alone could not have paid for the house.  It’s really a great Victorian house, complete with all its furniture and fittings, and our guide told us quite a lot about the family, some of it her own guesswork, but all very interesting.

Before dinner we had a haggis ceremony at the hotel.   This was quite fun, but I preferred the Scottish way of doing it that we saw in Edinburgh. 

Tuesday 21 September

The morning started with the sight of snow on the hillsides around the city.  We knew it was cold last night but didn’t really expect snow!

We drove up to Larnach’s Castle, a very grand house in the style of a castle, built by an Australian who ended up here working in the banking business.  It was a very different and grand place, and again our guide told us the story  of the family, which was a bit of a sad tale of wives dying and things not going according to plan.  The house was sold when the Larnach family went broke, and has been restored by another family.  The woodwork in the house is just wonderful, and they have furnished it in the style of the period.  They have managed to recover a couple of original pieces, and it is a great place to visit.

While we were there, a bit more light snow fell, and it has been very cold all day.  Les even bought a pair of gloves and I was very glad to have mine with me too.

This afternoon was another train ride, this time a journey up the Taieri Gorge to Pukerangi, a distance of 58 km which takes about 2 hours.  It’s a beautiful ride along the gorge, through some tunnels and across a couple of viaducts.   The line was built to transport produce from the Otago Highlands to Dunedin, and took many years and a lot of work to complete.  The line was closed in 1990 and was purchased by the City Council provided that the community raised money to finance to project to allow the excursion trains to continue.  This duly happened and the Taieri Gorge Railway is now NZ’s longest privately owned railway.