Day 1 - Larnach Castle and Sandfly Bay

Yesterday we went to Larnach Castle and Sandfly Bay.

In the morning in Room 1 we got Google Maps directions to our destinations (so we could all be navigators), read up on and watched videos about the 23 sightings of ghosts at Larnach Castle (among other things, but the ghost sightings seemed to take priority).




It was a cold and icy day; how appropriate.

We went to New World and dug through the skips out back for boxes to equip us for our adventure at Sandfly Bay.

Then we piled into three vehicles to make the drive to Larnach Castle. Mrs Cook was very excited...although the four girls in her car wouldn't stop talking...all at once. Seven students were lucky enough to ride with Andrew (a friend of Mrs Cook's), who enjoyed performing unexpected "brake tests", taking detours to mislead Mrs Cook, and demonstrating a different sort of driving style. The final vehicle was driven by Tōrea's Dad, Jimmy (who knew the fastest way there, and arrived first!).

We arrived at Larnach Castle at 11:35am for our self-guided tour.



Mrs Cook loved the dungeon.


Tōrea loved the geese and garden.



and Ben liked the turrets.


Martine, Sam and Amber enjoyed running up the tower steps. Again...and again.

The view from New Zealand's only castle was impressive. Larnach apparently rode with his son on horses to pick the best spot. (It was pretty overcast while we were there.)


One thing we all loved was seeing the photo of Larnach in the ballroom that looks like a skull from far away. This added to the students' fear of ghosts and all things creepy. Andrew couldn't resist jumping out to "boo" us regularly.


After lunch in the castle gardens, we left Larnach and drove 10 minutes to Sandfly Bay.


The sun came out, even though it was still chilly.


The walk down was fun.



Sliding down the hill was fun.


The walk up was not.
It was steep, and "ugly" according to Nga.

While there, we got to see two sea lions playing, Tōrea's Dad told us about them (he works for DoC - handy!).



We even got to do some conservation work ourselves, replanting nga pikau that had tipped over (including replacing the fertiliser pellets - which we were excellent at finding).


After all of this, we had sand in our shoes, socks, ears, eyebrows...and yeah, you get the idea.

We made that ugly trek back up, and got back into the cars, and THEN it started to rain. Mrs Cook is certain it held out just for us.