Dunedin

February 19, 2002-Confusion
(photos:Larnach Castle,
Castle Foyer)

The last email you received was sent from a McDonald’s cyber café in Dunedin, New Zealand. It’s the first of its kind that I’m aware of. They only charged $NZ 5/hour. They had a café where you could get fancy coffees as well. The only thing that was hard to find were hamburgers. After our hard day yesterday, David passed out at 9 PM. He had to get up to brush his teeth before he could go to sleep for the night. Fortunately, he slept so well that he was unaware of my sneezing & blowing. Now that Karen and Ron are home, & Karen,s parents know they’re fine, I can tell you that this is their cold. It’s a humdinger. I’m feeling better today & think it’s drying out.

The first thing David noticed this morning was that, contrary to what I told you, our car doesn’t have white wall tires. The tires are coated with a pale clay-like mud that gives the appearance of the old white walls. We must have picked it up on the dirt road leading to the clay cliffs. The next thing David noticed was that the steering wheel of the car was missing. I watched him get into the wrong side of the car & settle himself in. I knew it wouldn’t take him long to discover his mistake. That darn steering wheel just keeps moving around. Even after all these months we do have lapses.

I feel like I should be saying, “Beam me up, Scotty.” We drove to Dunedin today. Dunedin actually means Edinburgh & it’s reminiscent of a Scottish town. Established in the late 1800’s, its main industry is the university. Gold miners almost took over during the rush, but it seems as if the establishment prevailed. The centerpiece of the town is The Octagon. It’s an 8-sided park around which several old stone buildings are situated. These are the massive structures typical of old world European cities. The railway station & St. Pauls Cathedral are notable among these & are riveting for their sheer bulk as well as their intricate Victorian & Edwardian architectural features.

Royal Living

This is the closest we have ever been to Antarctica & it’s suitably blustery. I was happy to see our room had an electric heater. The ones they use here are quite efficient. They’re wall mounted & thermostat controlled. Our hotel is on the Otago Peninsula, one of those strips of land that’s breathtakingly beautiful & breathtakingly terrifying at the same time. Why these people don’t use guardrails is beyond me. As it turned out whether we took the high road or the low road, we would have ended up at the same place. The road climbs to its peak & falls off into Otago Bay & the ocean. I’m running out of superlatives to use to describe sun glinting on water, but you get the picture. We’re staying in the guesthouse of Larnach Castle, the only castle in New Zealand. They say that as if you’d expect NZ to have lots of castles. Our room overlooks that superlative view. As we approached the gate to the grounds, a guard stopped us. He checked our reservation & told us to proceed down the road & ring the bell at the castle door.

The grounds are exquisite with a variety of flowering plants that add interest to the tailored hedges & more formal gardens. There are walking paths along the edge of the promontory & numerous places to sit & gaze out over the water. Of course, you have to be careful not to get blown over the side. This is the end of summer here & fireplaces are being used. That gives me the creeps. The people in the next room must be thrilled with the weather. I heard them talking outside the door to our room. They have distinctive Southern USA accents. Our room is supposed to be “romantic.” There’s a brass 4-poster canopy bed that creaks & sways precariously. It’s netted in a lacy shroud that almost strangled us until we tucked it up & out of the way. The windows only have shades & they’re not well behaved at all. One keeps inching up from the sill. I think it’s trying to tell us there’s a magnificent view to be seen & not to waste time doing other things like sleeping.

We toured the castle this afternoon. The story is that William Larnach married a rich 17-year old heiress & made the most of it. They built this palatial house, had several children, & then she died of apoplexy. Not to worry, he just married her sister so that his children would have someone to raise them. Wife #2 died of an infection after having a fibroid tumor removed from her “womb.” Wife #3 seemed to have had her own problems, & she too died. The house is a majestic towering 3-story mansion crafted by the best Europe had to offer. There are so many different woods used, including Douglas fir from America, that I couldn’t name them all. The “castle” was bought in 1967 by the Barker family & has been lovingly restored. Their children are continuing the project.

We ate dinner in a restaurant that’s in a row of old Victorian terrace houses. The name of the place is A Cow Called Berta & that’s why we tried it. The owners had no reason for the name but wanted something that would get attention. It worked. The furnishings were very period & the food was delicious. The desert we didn’t have was a white chocolate & almond fudge cake.

Toby