Skip to main content

Boulders, A Castle, and a Bunch of Churches and Fancy Buildings

I was probably a little harsh about the B&B last night.  We got up this morning and Norman and Stephanie had prepared a lovely "Kiwi Lite" breakfast for us.  It is their take on the continental breakfast, but Norman said he can't call it that if they're not on a continent.  The table was laden with fresh raspberries, rhubarb, fruit salad, granola, toast, yogurt, cheese, butter, cream, custard, and jams.  Then they passed around hot cross buns.  We shared the tiny dining room with two couple from China.  One couple from Hong Kong spoke English and told us about their trip.  They left their one year old son with the grandparents so they could take a 2 week holiday.

On the way from Oamaru we stopped to view the Moeraki Boulders on Norman's recommendation.  The boulders jut out from the beach.  Scientists explain the boulders as calcite concretions formed about 65 million years ago. Crystallization of calcium and carbonates around charged particles gradually formed the boulders in a pearl-like process that took as long as four million years. The soft mudstone containing the boulders was raised from the seabed around 15 million years ago; waves, wind and rain are excavating them one by one.





Cracked boulder

The inside looks like brown sugar

My artistic photo of Shawn

The beach was covered with this pinkish-red fern-like kelp

Back on the road, we took the scenic route and stopped a few times along the way to admire the view.





This rooster and his buddies were not happy about me stopping to take a picture


We stopped at a cafe in Port Chalmers for lunch.  Kiwis like dips.  They do not serve bread at the table before your meal, but you can always order it as a starter with dips.  Shawn has olives, garlic hummus and pesto dips for his rosemary flatbread.  I had the kumara (pumpkin?) soup.


Walking about Port Chalmers, we found a picturesque church, but all the churches around here are photogenic.


Unloading logs and shipping containers in the port

The houses are built on hills in town

Our first stop in Dunedin was the Larnach Castle. New Zealand’s only Castle, built 1871 by William Larnach, merchant baron and politician, for his beloved first wife Eliza. It took more than 200 workmen three years to build the Castle shell and master European craftsmen spent a further 12 years embellishing the interior. Larnach spared no expense on his dream home, which features the finest materials from around the world.

Entry way

Carved wood adorns the ceilings

The game room

View from the third floor solarium

Wedding dress of one of William's daughters

The tile floor looks like quilt blocks to me!

The gardens are beautiful and have views of the peninsula


I'm in a hedge!


The ballroom wing that William built for his daughter Kate

Walking about downtown Dunedin, we saw lots of ornate architecture

A carved lion and unicorn adorn this building

I really don't think they have building codes

The First Church of Oatago, Presbyterian, founded 1848

Beautiful wood ceilings

One half of the pipe organ

Cathedral Church of Saint Paul

Dunedin Town Hall

Daily ratings:
Moeraki Boulders -  5  Kiwis
Larnach Castle - 4 Kiwis
Port Chalmers Cafe - 3 Kiwis

Steps taken = 12,309 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts on Retiring

Early this morning while lying awake in bed, I did some mental math and realized I will be retiring from my career in IT almost exactly 30 years from the day I started my first job out of college.  It is a bittersweet experience.  While I’m excited about the next chapter in my life and our big adventure moving to Idaho, I’m also sad to bring my IT career to a close and leave my work family.  I have spent 40+ hours per week for the last 30 years solving problems, writing code, implementing systems, learning new technologies, meeting with customers, counseling staff, reading email, and attending way too many meetings. To help me through this change, I started thinking about all the things I won’t miss, like those meetings.  People compliment me on my copious note-taking in meetings.  Here’s the truth, I started taking notes in boring meetings to keep from falling asleep and then it just became a habit.  I started with legal pads and saved the loose l...

Be Our Guest

We spent the majority of our day working on the guest room flooring.  An early morning trip into Coeur d’Alene (CDA from now on because it’s easier to type) for more flooring and assorted supplies at Home Depot.  You can’t go into town without a trip to Home Depot to buy and/or return stuff. Yesterday we pulled up all the carpet, pad and tack strip and filled the holes in the floor of the guest room.  This morning we rolled out contact adhesive around the perimeter of the room and closet.  Then we just started slapping down the vinyl planks.  The center of the room was done in no time, but cutting the planks for the ends, edges and doorways took a few hours.  It looks much better than the original gray indoor/outdoor that was there originally.  We will paint and install new base boards when we return in March. Empty with indoor/outdoor carpet Contact adhesive applied New flooring Today I noticed that I would walk from room to room ...

We Have Arrived in Idaho

On December 30, 2017, we closed on our new house in Idaho.  We sent 2 out of 3 PODs worth of our stuff to Idaho in the first week of January, and now we are spending a week in Idaho.  We had great plans of arriving on Saturday afternoon and having a few hours to unpack our bed and necessities before sundown.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  Our flight from Sacramento to Spokane was delayed an hour and a half.  The sun was going down as we raced from the airport to Home Depot to get a couple lamps, an extension cord and a snow shovel before heading to our new house in Worley, Idaho. There was a tiny bit of light left when we drove up the driveway.  Our new neighbor, Kyle, stopped by and gave us the lowdown on how he had plowed our driveway for the delivery of our PODs.  Kyle was very nice and we truly appreciated his efforts.   Kyle is a busy guy this time of year as he has a trapline that needs to be tended to every 72 hours.  Unfortunately, ...