(by Ann) There is only one castle in New Zealand. And we found it. It sits high up on a hill, of course, on the Otago Peninsula off of Dunedin. In 1871 William Larnach had a castle built for his growing family. No kings or queens here, just stunning architecture complete with a turret with tight winding staircase at the front. Unfortunately, or not surprisingly perhaps, the castle has a dark side to it and the Larnach family suffered tragedies as two of William’s wives died at age 38 and William lost his fortune and committed suicide…not in the castle.

"Our" castle.

Dinner in the castle.

The castle was found many years later neglected and empty and for sale at a great price. The Barker family bought it and spent 40 years lovingly restoring it. Today the castle is open for guided tours or as in our case, self-guided tours. We were even allowed to climb the steep winding staircase to the highest turret. The restoration is beautiful.

Spiral Staircase up toward the tower turret.

The gardens also have been restored complete with the Alice in Wonderland characters throughout…perhaps as reference to Alice’s comment in the Lewis Carroll book,

“I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies I think…but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please Ma’am, is this New Zealand?”

Our three course dinner in the music room complete with a dramatic storyteller and entertaining company (two Americans, two Englishmen, two Irishmen and half a table of Germans!) was magical. Much like the magic of being greeted at the Stables by the butler, Graham who seemed to appear out of no-where to guide us to our delightful room for the night above the stables!

What's that in the tree?

Could this be the hidden door in the tree?