Dunedin Train Ride and Castle

Day 5  Sunday, March 17, 2019  Dunedin

The famous train station in Dunedin, following our trip through the Taieri River Gorge. It's considered one of the most beautiful and photographed buildings in all of New Zealand. This city, at latitude 45° (halfway between equator and south pole), is a Scottish settlement from 1848. It became wealthy during the Otago Gold Rush beginning in the 1860s, and from then until 1881, it was New Zealand's largest urban area.

Our train excursion was early, while it was still overcast at the dock in Port Chalmers. We were surprised to see all the logs piled up, and when every port in NZ had similar piles of wood, we learned that it's a huge export business to China. Our train was waiting for us on the other side of all those logs.

This excursion was a very popular one, so we filled a long line of cars. It was seven miles into Dunedin, where we stopped briefly to pick up a few more passengers before heading up the river gorge. It was the Otago Central Railway, dating from 1877, which connected Dunedin to Cromwell (a little east of Queenstown). It was built to haul goods and ag products from Central Otago to Dundedin for export. Otago is the large region in the south of the island.

Every train car had three volunteer hostesses (Kia Ora!), who brought us coffee or tea, and cookies. Later, they gave us beers and wine, along with lunch. During the entire trip up and back, I had three James Speight beers and two glasses of pinot noir (a local specialty). We enjoyed visiting with our seatmates, a young woman and her aunt, from Saratoga and Dublin, CA.

A view of the Taieri River and its gorge as we crossed a bridge. In the top right, you can see another short bridge we had crossed. It was nice they had a tour guide talk over a loud speaker to point out all kinds of interesting information. Luckily, we were sitting a distance from some shipmates who talked loudly the whole time, so we were glad we could still hear what the guide was saying.

After about 25 miles, we stopped at Pukerangi Station for a break and turn-around. This tiny station was finished in 1891.

Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, there were lots of tourist vendors! I thought these cloth maps were pretty cool.

For the return trip, we switched sides with the people across the aisle, which meant Janet and I now were facing forward. This, in turn, meant I could get better photos than when I was traveling backward!

We enjoyed this scenic ride, and seeing us going over the bridges was especially fun.

The volunteers were quite generous with their wine and beer offerings. Otago is famous for its Pinot Noir, but the sauvignon blanc was from the north part of the South Island. I love the Pick & Shovel name!

We're about to cross the Old Trestle Bridge, 255 feet in height.

As the train neared Dunedin, it came to a stop and the narrator asked everyone to recognize a moment of silence in honor of the Christchurch victims. He mentioned that the killer had lived for a time in Dunedin.

We departed at the Dunedin Station, with a 30-min wait before our bus trip to the Larnach Castle.

 

Once the platform cleared, I got this shot with one of three railway names they use - Taieri Gorge, Dunedin, and Otago Central. The platform is the country's longest, over 500 yards. In its heyday, this station handled 100 trains per day.

 

 This is inside the train station, with its early 1900s architecture.

The station is famous for its mosaic floor, using over 750,000 tiles.

 Loved this old ticket window.

This photo includes the clock tower. The building is made with dark basalt from the Taieri Gorge, contrasted by light Oamaru stone, which is a limestone mined near Oamaru where we would visit on our Gate 1 land tour later.

A plaque on the exterior of the station, dedicated to a battle in Passchendaele, Belgium during the Great War. The Anzac troops lost many soldiers in that disastrous battle in Nov. 1917.

In front of the station is Anzac Park, with all these blooming flower gardens. Across the street behind Janet is the Court Building built in the same style as the train station.

On the other side of Anzac Park is the abandoned Cadbury Chocolate Factory. It caused huge economic damage to Dunedin when Cadbury suddenly closed this factory two years earlier. Now the locals "hate" Cadbury products!

Eventually, our tour bus arrived (late) to take us up to Larnach Castle, located across the bay on a peninsula. It was built as a private residence in the 1870s, made to look like a traditional castle.

Wm Larnach had 200 workmen using imported materials from around the world. Much of the stone came from a basalt quarry nearby, but other materials included yellow brick, Glasgow brick, Oamaru stone, Cornwall blackstone, Italian marble, Marseilles cobbles, Catlins timber, North Island Kauri and local Caversham sandstone for the ballroom. 20 tons of glass was imported from Venice.

One of the lavish ceilings in the place. There are 43 rooms and the Larnach family used 46 servants. The family lived there from 1874 to 1898, when Wm committed suicide (inside the NZ Parliament Building!). The surviving family had legal squabbles and they sold it in 1906.

Cool staircase! Our guide told us the tragic family stories, such as Wm's 1st wife died in the castle early on, his 2nd wife died in the castle, and then his 3rd wife had an affair with one of his sons from his first marriage, and that's when he committed suicide.

The 300 acres of grounds were beautiful. The current owner, Margaret Baker, bought the place with her husband in 1967. To this day, she's out tending the garden, and Janet got to see her while I was off on a little hike.

 Margaret Baker keeps a nice garden. She's in her 90s now.

On my hike I saw this arbor leading to an overlook to the harbor.

Nice views from the property! That's Port Chalmers across the bay.

Not far from the castle on our drive back to Dunedin was this Fallen Soldiers Monument, to those locals who died in WWI.

Our bus then cruised around Dunedin for a mini tour. I don't have any pictures taken from the moving bus. The city's most important activity is the Univ of Otago, New Zealand's oldest university (1869). Robert Burns ("Robbie") moved here from Scotland, and his claim to fame is that he wrote Auld Lang Syne back in 1788. The name Dunedin comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh. We drove past James Speight's brewery, and learned that brewery workers used to get all the free beer they wanted during a work day!

The bus guide and the ship's activity director both encouraged us to watch for albatross as we departed the bay. The Otago Peninsula has the world's only mainland royal albatross colony, and several penguin and seal colonies also lie within the city boundaries.

The night's theater show was a comedy variety show by a magician and juggler.