NZ - Staveley

We returned from the West Coast via Arthurs Pass and traveled south along the foothills of the Southern Alps a short distance to the Staveley / Mt Somers area.

This is Mt Somers, which is an extinct volcano.


The first stop was to visit the old Mt Somers schoolhouse where Frances and Don Stanton have created a wonderful garden, and also sympathetically renovated the school as a home and cottage accommodation.



By one of those 'small world' coincidences, the Stanton's are the parents of one of my colleagues from work, and my parents had already visited their garden and met them. Unfortunately Don was away on business but it was nice to meet Frances. This is Frances and Mum in front of the old schoolhouse.


Family group in the garden.


I was very impressed by the skill and hard-work which had obviously gone into creating both the garden and the decoration of the house. The overall effect was really lovely.


The next stop was the 'Birchlands' homestead a few minutes up the road at Staveley where we stayed the night. You could say that this is the 'ancestral home' of my fathers family. This farm is where my grandfathers grandfather, William Tayler Smith met Hannah Graham around 1867 after returning from the West Coast gold-fields. They married, bought land and eventually set-up their sons on farms in this area.



Birchlands has a dramatic setting on the Canterbury plains near Mt Somers and the foothills of the Southern Alps. The hills behind Mt Somers were the location used for 'Edoras' in the 'Lord of the Rings' films. This is the view from the gate at Birchlands early in the morning.



The current house was built by William and Hannah in 1902. But William never lived in it. Before it was finished he disappeared from the ship 'Zealandia' while on a trip to Auckland to buy horses. It is presumed that he was robbed of his money and thrown overboard.



Birchlands has been beautifully restored by Lorna and Alan Dent who now run a homestay business, providing accommodation to tourists. Lorna is also a descendant of William and Hannah so a distant relative of my father.



Alan is a retired sheep-farmer, and he was able to demonstrate how to round up sheep with his sheepdog. Actually Alan's sheep-dog is also retired so he was a bit out of practice - he isn't suppose to bark that much.



This is Rika's mum feeding the sheep.





The next day we visited the old Staveley school which my relatives had attended. It is now a small museum, and we could see relatives like my great-grandfather in various old school and sporting photos.



And then to 'Alford Forest' cemetery to visit the graves of Hannah Graham and her children.


This is a memorial to WT Smith on the cemetery gates. My great-aunt use to say that the blood-red colour leaking from the letters was a sign that he had been murdered.

NZ - West Coast

After a couple of days in Christchurch we took the 'Tranzalpine' train through the Southern Alps to the west coast of the South Island. This can be a very scenic route but as the weather was overcast we didn't see it at its best.

This photo was taken in the dry east-coast side of the mountains.




The west coast is a special place. It is much wetter than the east coast and consequently mainly covered by sub-tropical rain-forest. It also has a rugged coastline battered by westerly winds. The next day we drove up the coast from Greymouth to the nature reserve at Punakaiki and had a picnic lunch. We were lucky to have beautiful dry weather.








This is the coast just north of Punakaiki.




Hannah with Mum at our picnic. (Hannah is asking Mum where the plates and cutlery are).




This is Hannah entertaining my Dad with her Winston Churchill impression at our motel in Greymouth. The 'cigar' is actually a hard wheat biscuit for ther to chew to help with the discomfort of teething. One of many helpful suggestions from my Mum.


The west cost is now the most sparsely populated part of New Zealand with only 40,000 people in its biggest town Greymouth. But 140 years ago it was the scene of a gold rush and some of our ancestors worked in these goldfields. This is Kumara c.1880s with the town fitting in among piles of tailings from the diggings, and the hills being stripped of wood.


Most of the goldrush towns were long ago been reclaimed by the bush. But some of the buildings and equipment has been preserved and brought together in a heritage park called 'Shantytown'.



I was very interested to see the watchmakers, tailors, tinsmiths workshops, and the sawmill because some of our relatives had worked in these trades after they arrived in NZ in the 1800s. In particular John Hannah (my grandfather's grandfather's brother) was a watchmaker in the town of Kumara a few miles south of Shantytown. Newspaper reports suggest he was a member of the town volunteer fire brigade, so it was great to see the old fire station and old manual fire-engines.


Shantytown also has a functioning steam railway and we could take a ride for a short-distance into the bush.


This is a 'Weka' which is a native flightless bird that used to be very common in the bush.


After 2 days on the coast we drove back east across the Southern Alps through Arthur's Pass National Park. We had another beautiful day and could appreciate the mountain valleys and native bush. Along the way we visited Kumara and had morning tea at its one remaining shop.



This is the view from the Otira highway on the west coast looking east up the Otira valley towards the Main Divide.




This is the view from further up the Otira Valley just below Arthur's Pass.

NZ - Christchurch

Well, we have just returned from 2 weeks holiday in New Zealand with Hannah, Rika's mum. and my parents. We did so much it will take some time to update the blog for it all.

First stop was Christchurch to visit Rachel, John and their children, William, Sophie and Claire. This is William holding Hannah with Claire, Rachel and Sophie in the background.



Sophie holding Hannah


Hannah, Rachel and William


On our first full day in Christchurch we had unusually heavy rain. So we visited the Canterbury Museum. It is especially good on maori and early settler history. This photo shows a reconstruction of early Maori hunting a moa, a large native flightless bird that is now extinct.



By an amazing coincidence, one of the early-settler exhibits included a copy of an newspaper advertisement from 1853 of our ancestor William Graham of Brenchley Farm, Lyttleton. WG was a turner who came out from London in 1851 with his wife and children, one of whom was our ancestor Hannah Graham.



This is my Mum with our Hannah at the Museum cafe.


On the second day we had glorious weather so we went for a drive with Rachel's family around the Port Hills. This is Dad with Hannah looking out south-west across the Canterbury Plains to the Southern Alps .



This is Rika's mum and Rachel.


Me, Dad, Hannah and William.


This is the view from the Port Hills looking north towards Lyttleton Harbour and the town of Lylttleton in the middle left.


Looking east from the same spot. The ring of hills you can see in these 2 photos is the rim of an old volcano. Lyttleton Harbour in the middle is the centre of the old crater.





The photo below is from later the same day. It looks south from Lyttleton towards the crater rim where the above 2 photos and video were taken. This spot is actually Brenchley Farm where William Graham lived 155 years ago. As you can see WG had a terrific view, although of course in those days it would have been all black-and-white. While we were in Lyttleton we had a picnic of the local delecacy 'fush n chups' in a park where a local pipe band was giving a display. Its strange to see men in woolen kilts playing pipes in the baking NZ sun.



After driving around the port hills we visited the Ferrymead heritage park, where Johns father has been helping out as a volunteer. Ferrymead has a collection of historic houses and also various collections of old technology including a working steam railway. We were able to ride the train a short distance.



They also have a working tram-line. This is everyone riding an old tram. I think this one used to be used in my home-town in Dunedin.