The first Europeans to Dunedin were Scots who arrived in 1848 and it was the largest city by population until 1900. Today its largest industry is the university.
One of Dunedin’s most famous inhabitants was William Larnach. He was born in Australia in 1833, but moved to New Zealand in 1866 to help run the Bank of Otago. He soon became quite prosperous, gathering large amounts of money through land speculation, farming investments, and a timber business. He started to build a mansion which he called “The Camp,” but is now known as Larnach Castle and is New Zealand’s only castle. He committed suicide in 1898 after learning that his third wife was having an affair with his favorite son. All the children fought over the will and the castle ended up abandoned until the Barker family bought it in 1967.
Dunedin
William Larnach built New Zealand’s only castle in honor of his Scottish heritage.
The dining room of Larnach Castle.
It took three artists 6.5 years to carve this ceiling.
Larnach, having been raised in Australia, had built a verandah as part of his castle, but he later added the glass to combat the wind.
Otaga Peninsula
Royal Albatross. Albatrosses are the world’s largest seabirds and the Royal is the largest of those. They can measure up to 1.2 meters (3.9 ft) from beak to tail and has a wingspan up to 3.3 meters (10.8 ft)
The Hooker Sealion is the rarest of the world’s five species of sealions. They were eliminated by the Maori centuries before the Europeans arrived, but the population is slowly growing as some swim up from the semiantarctic islands.
New Zealand fur seal pup. At one point they were hunted almost to extinction, but now they are protected and the population is growing nicely.
Otaga Peninsula
Otaga Peninsula
The Yellow Eyed Penguin is the rarest of the world’s 18 penguin species and they are found only in New Zealand. They are also the loudest penguin and the Maori would call them Hoiho which means “noise shouter.”
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