Otago

How would you like to live on a road like this? Our friends do! We kept the van in first or second gear to go down it!

I love the old buildings in Dunedin! Christchurch had them when we came here, but a lot came down in or since the earthquakes.

We still don’t know what the Chinese Gardens are like. It cost to get in, so we did free things instead.

Saturday morning we had to drive south of Dunedin to pick up a turkey Mr. Inventor bought to be the new father of his flock. This is the farm from which we bought it.

The boys were fascinated with the man’s junk pile!

Random scenery on the way back to the city.

In the Settler’s Museum. Mr. Handyman twisted his foot Saturday climbing Mount Cargill, so he was glad to rest awhile.

We walked a block or two in Dunedin after dark, and saw this amazing garden. There are two sets of stairs coming down the hill, making an X, with the flower bed in between. I think the flowers were pansies, and the green plants were celery!

There are a lot of stone fences around the area.

A couple more old houses I liked!

And a beautiful church.

I liked the bus stops, too. So much prettier than Christchurch’s glass and metal ones.

Inside the Settler’s Museum—trying to figure out how it was welded together!

I don’t know what this is; it’s on top of a hill between Oamaru and Dunedin.

This building is in Oamaru; I saw it on our way home.

I have never seen mosaics like on the floors inside the Dunedin Train Station. This was the center of the lobby you walked into when you went through the main front door.

This is the landing of the staircase to the second floor,

…and the steps themselves.

The floor all the way around the top was like this:

Looking down from the balcony on the second floor: The top picture in this post is the center of that floor.

The walls around the main lobby are incredible, too!

And check out the iron work on the stairway railing!

The iron work was the same all the way around the balcony over the lobby.

The rest of the artwork was amazing, too.

I guess these three pictures should have gone with the last post, outside the station, but here they are. This is a close-up of the sculpture on top of the tower:

Even the doors are beautiful!

These plaques are on the inside of each of the pillars in front of the building. I’m guessing that the pictures represent the important or outstanding features of Dunedin.

The Dunedin Train Station is the most photographed building in New Zealand, the second most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere (after the Sydney Opera House). I can understand why. We took so many pictures of it that I’m dividing them into two posts. It is an incredible piece of architecture. This station was completed in 1906. One hundred ten years ago, people built beautiful buildings!

The gardens in front of it are absolutely amazing, too, even this early in the spring, or late in the winter—whichever you choose!

This is the steps going down from the porch in front of the door.

I let Mr. Intellectual give us a sense of scale for one of the pillars.

This excursion train is still in use.

An end view of the building.

The other side of the building, the platform side.

Standing on the platform.

Coming up next…the incredible artwork built into the inside of the building.

While we were in Dunedin (pronounced Doo-NEE-din, in case you wondered), we stayed with a family who live on Pine Hill, on the road to the Mount Cargill Lookout. Saturday afternoon they took us up to the top, and we hiked around for an hour or two. It was quite a strenuous walk for those of us who are terribly out of shape, but the scenery was worth it. The boys took the opportunity to practice rock climbing. This is Mr. Inventor.

We went to a rock outcropping that overlooks the city of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. I hustled Mr. Inventor away from the edge with his little sister. It went straight down a long way there.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Diligence

Everyone posed for a picture on top of the rock.

Looking north along the coast. It was an incredibly clear day, and we were all thankful for very little wind—they said that was quite unusual.

That rocky point in the middle is where we took the picture of everyone.

Climbing up the rocks.

Entrance to the Otago Harbour