Our first stop on our cruise was in a cute little town called Dunedin (pronounced DunEden). I can not tell you how happy we both were to get off the ship onto solid ground. Although, I must admit that when I got off the bus at our first stop to the Olveston House the ground WOULD NOT STOP MOVING!! Holy Smokes!! I got seasick on the boat now I was getting seasick off the boat??
That was a cruel twist of fate.
Luckily, after about a half an hour my head wasn't swimming so much and I could enjoy the tour.
The Olveston House is a beautiful 'great house' built at the turn of the twentieth century for the Theomin Family. The family traveled to England, America, and the Far East to collect a great number of furnishings for the home. It was FULL of beautiful pieces from statues, to paintings, to furnishings.
Olveston House was built with every modern convenience. It was way ahead of it's time, fitted with central heating, a gas generator for electricity, a shower in each bathroom and heated towel racks. It also had an internal telephone system as well as a bell ringer system to ring for the servants.
Rick and I love visiting old homes! Well, honestly I probably like it more than he does but he is happy to go along with me:) The era of this home reminded me much of the "Downton Abbey" era. With the explanation of the servants responsibilities and how the servants interacted with the family I could just picture how things really were. The servant's bells sounded exactly like Downton's service bells. Anyway, I think it is a fascinating era and it makes me think on the different social classes of the time and their interactions with each other.
The Theomin's had two children. Their son, Edward died young with no children and their daughter, Dorothy never married and had no children. The daughter lived until 1966 and after she died the city of Dunedin found that she had left the home and ALL of it's furnishings to them in her will. They have done a great job of taking care of it and opening it up for the people to see and experience.
We couldn't take pictures of anything inside but I'll tell you it was really beautiful with wonderful original furnishings and artwork throughout.
We did walk around the beautiful grounds. The flora in New Zealand is SPECTACULAR!
As soon as we got on the bus after getting off the boat I could see many beautiful flowers in personal and public gardens as we traveled through the town. What was the most impressive to me were the incredible hydrangea bushes. Loved, loved them!! I will post pictures of the flowers on a different day:)
Some pictures in the Ovelston Gardens.....
Our next stop was a quick one at the Dunedin Train Station. It was a grand building with beautiful gardens in front. While this was just a short 15 minute "potty stop" I'm so glad we got to experience this beautiful piece of history and architecture.
An old ticket booth. There was mosaic tile everywhere. On the floor, walls, and even up the stairs. Really cool!
On the second floor mezzanine were two stained glass windows adjacent to each other. I loved this "steam train" window.
A little look at the gardens.
After the train station we took a short 20 minute drive up to Lanarch Castle. It is known as the "only castle in New Zealand" It really isn't a castle but is the closest thing that they have to one.
So said the tour guide:)
Located on the Otego Peninsula over looking the bay is this grand home. William Lanarch made his money in merchant trading and wanted to build his dream home for his wife Eliza and their children. The building started in 1871 and took over twelve years to it's completion. Unfortunately, the Lanarch Family had quite a sad past so I won't go into that but after the home sat for many years unused it was purchased by the Barker Family in 1967. The house lay in ruins with a leaking roof and much water damage.
The Barkers since that time have slowly been restoring it to it's original condition. Without any furniture and with many of the beautiful architectural features missing, the Barkers thoroughly researched the original decor, furniture and artwork in order to restore the castle to its original glory. Margaret, who is now 76 years old, has searched and bought back original pieces of furniture to the home. I can only imagine the amount of money that has gone into this restoration. It is still a work in progress. Again, no pictures of the inside......
When we first arrived we were ushered into the original ballroom, which when purchase by the Barkers was used for penning sheep, we were invited in for afternoon tea. This is our first experience ever with afternoon tea and we quite enjoyed it:) Of course, since we don't drink tea or coffee we enjoyed water with some very tasty scones and cookies.
The ballroom was such a gorgeous rustic room with high ceiling wood beams, wood floors and beautiful chandeliers. I especially loved the fireplace and mantelpiece sided by two elk heads. Rustic right along with the elegance!
Our tea and cookies came in handy for a light snack cause we were getting hungry:)
On the third floor of the home was a small spiral staircase that took us up to a walled lookout. From their we had glorious views of the harbor and castle grounds. Lanarch Castle and Olveston House was a wonderful excursion for us!
We had some time after our excursion so the bus driver dropped us off in the middle of town. There was a craft market going on in the commons area and I had fun perusing the handicrafts. I kinda feel sorry that I didn't purchase a handmade scarf. That would have made a nice souvenir:)
I heard another couple on the bus say that they were going to visit the Cadbury Store. I had not heard that there was a Cadbury store but I know that I love chocolate so we meandered around a couple of blocks until we found it. Of course, we bought some chocolate to take with us!
This bunny is a replica of the worlds largest chocolate bunny made by Cadbury a few years ago:)
We enjoyed walking around the streets of Dunedin and were back on the ship by 5:00.
The next morning, our stop was the quaint little town of Akaroa. I knew right away that this place was special. It was small, had a beautiful waterfront, and cute shops and cafe's on the main drag.
After our tender ride to shore, our first order of business was to take the short hike to the lighthouse. We were told that it would be open to climb to the top but when we got to it the door was locked:( Dang! Even though it wasn't very tall, I would have loved to look out from the top of that thing.
Doesn't it look pretty sitting over there.
It actually was moved from it's original sight a few years back when all of the lighthouses systems were updated. It's cute, isn't it?
I loved Akaroa Harbor...for the already mentioned reasons. I mean all of the sailboats anchored out there. How could you not?
.....and a traveling piano man right on the sand.....that was a first.
Oh my gosh! So we went into a little coffee shop for a lunch snack. After our scone the day before I was totally in for getting another one. Unfortunately, they were all sold out but you see that pumpkin, white chocolate muffin? Super Delish!! I can't even tell you!!
Our sheep farm excursion was that afternoon. We boarded a bus that took us through some beautiful country (about an half hour drive) up to a sheep farm in the mountains.
Here's Rick getting friendly with the sheep dogs. This one is bread with a hound dog. It's deep bark is used for rounding the sheep.
This one was your original sheepdog breed (border collie). There were about six dogs tied up ready for us to come greet:)
After introducing ourselves to the dogs, the farm's owner, Murray Jones, invited us into the shearing shed. I'm not gonna lie....it smelled so bad. I could hardly breath. I have had a chest cough for a couple of weeks now and in that room I could hardly breath. I am not crazy sensitive to bad smells.....I mean I lived in Uganda for six months and there was some really bad smells there. So I wasn't sure what the problem was but it was so embarrassing because during Murray's presentation I kept coughing! But what can you do? Maybe I should have got up and walked out into the fresh air but I didn't want to be rude.
Anyway......
After telling us about his family farm and how it came to be he invited his daughter-in-law, Hannah in to show us how the sheep shearing was done. I was so impressed with her ability and quickness. Before she was sheared we got to go up front and give Baaabara a pet before she lost her coat.
Hannah sheared the sheep in about two minutes. Murray picked up the wool and it had been cut in one piece. So impressive.
The last part of our tour was the sheep dog demonstration. Seriously, THIS is what I came for! It was so cool to watch the dog take off with just a little word from Hannah. He ran straight up a steep hill at break neck speed to where all of the sheep were. He was listening to Hannah's whistle commands. She used the whistle to guide the dog to the left and right and to stop. I loved it. The hound dog standing by us was crazy wanting to get out there and chase some sheep around! Finally Hannah gave him the word and he took off running and barking at the sheep rounding them up with his deep bass woof! I could have watched this for an hour but in just a short 15 minutes it was over leaving me wanting for more.
I think Rick and I will try to get to the sheepdog show in Midway over Labor Day. We have talked of doing that for years and combining it with Swiss days. I think after watching this demonstration this is the year we might make it a reality:)
After the sheep dog experience we were invited to the house for tea and scones. We enjoyed the scones as we meandered through the wonderful gardens. Pictures of all the flowers to come later on a separate post.
On our drive back to the harbor we could see our ship anchored in the Bay.
Holland/America on the right and Princess on the left.
A cute catholic church that was built in the 1870's.
We met these two cuties on the Akaroa Harbor. Their names are Ben and Molly. They carve cute shapes of wood and sell them on the bayfront. It was funny when we asked them their names. Molly said, "I'm Mollay" and Ben said, "I'm Bean". I said, "Bean?" and he said, "yeh". Rick asked, "How do you spell that?" He said B-E-N. "Oh'"we said, BEN! We have laughed about that just about everyday of our trip. A boy named Bean! I love the Australian and New Zealand accents. They are so pretty. Another thing that is cute is that in answering in the affirmative, they'll say yeh,yeh. Not a resounding yes! but a yeh, yeh. Another word I like is "mate".....meaning friend. He's my mate!
Anyway, fun stuff!
A wonderful day in Akaroa!!
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