Day 170 - Dunedin, New Zealand

Day 170 – 25th November 2005 +13:00 GMT Total Miles 29691

Ibon left around 7am and was sad to have to travel on his own again. We decided we would drive around the Otago Peninsula and visit Lanarch Castle, which is the only castle in New Zealand.


Lanarch Castle

So when we were all up and ready we drove out to the Peninsula it took about 30 minutes to get to the castle and on the way we had spectacular views of the coastline and of Dunedin.


Lanarch Castle

The Castle was restored by the Barker family who bought it in 1967 and have spent the last 38 years restoring it and buying items at Auction for the Castle. Although they call it a castle it looks more like a Manor House to me.


Lanarch Castle

We paid to visit the grounds and the castle so we parked and started in the castle, It was quite spectacular inside and had large rooms and stained glass windows, The wood inside was from 9 different countries, the marble work was all Italian, and the wood work was all British. The Castle was originally built by a Scottish family who loved the view and it was supposed to be a copy of a castle in Sussex, England, but the architect made some major changes.



View from Castle Roof


View from Castle Roof

After we had viewed the castle we took a walk around the grounds which were also lovely.


Gardens of Lanarch Castle


Lanarch Castle



Gardens of Lanarch Castle


Gardens of Lanarch Castle

Then we carried on along the peninsula to a town called Portobello. We stopped at a small café in Portobello and had some lunch, then drove up to penguin place, we thought we could just view penguins here but we would have to do a guided tour and it was quite expensive for our budget, so we carried on up to the end of the peninsula and viewed the lighthouse.


Otago Penisula Lighthouse

The Peninsula is a large breeding ground for, Penguins, Albatross, Black spotted Shags and Red Beaked Gulls, this is due to large amount of squid just of the coast which the animals feed on. By the lighthouse you could see thousands of Gulls nesting on the cliffs and a lot of black spotted shags.



Black Spotted Shags


Black Spotted Shags


Jill Scared due to Dangerous Cliffs

We made our way back to the hostel and stopped at a War memorial on the way back, Reece and I climbed to the top of a steep hill to find out what the memorial was.


War Memorial


View From War Memorial


View From War Memorial

We stopped at the supermarket on the way back and bought some more food then when we got back Jill and I cooked a Vegetable hotpot. We spent the evening relaxing in the hostel.