Larnach Castle

Larnach Castle stands on the spine of the Otago Peninsula with the harbour on one side and the open Pacific on the other. It was begun in 1871 for a Dunedin banker and businessman who spent years and a great deal of money on it: carved ceilings, imported marble, glass and tiles, and a ballroom added later for his daughter. The family did not keep it. Over the following decades the house served as a farm building, an institution and a hotel, and by the 1960s it was close to ruin, with stock in some rooms. A family bought it in 1967 and have been restoring it ever since. The gardens around it now hold a substantial plant collection.

What you actually see

• The carved interiors - ceilings, staircase and joinery worked over several years in the 1870s and 1880s.
• The ballroom - the later addition standing apart from the main house.
• The tower - the rooftop lookout with views along the harbour and out to the ocean.
• The gardens - formal beds, a rhododendron collection and native plantings around the house.

When to go

Spring and early summer are the best time for the gardens, which are a genuine reason to visit rather than an afterthought. The house is open year-round. Coach tours arrive in blocks through the middle of the day, so first thing in the morning is noticeably calmer. Allow half a day including the drive out and back along the peninsula.

Honest expectations

It is a large Victorian house, not a castle in the European sense, and visitors expecting walls and battlements come away flat. Entry is expensive, though a cheaper garden-only ticket exists and suits some people better. The tower stair is narrow and steep. The high road out is winding and slow, with a long drop on one side.

Nearby

The albatross colony at Taiaroa Head and the beaches of the peninsula's ocean side are further out the same road.