A drive through history

Kay messaged me while I was on holiday and I never picked her message up. I guess I was preoccupied with reunion stuff. So she repeated it when I got home, sure I'd get it this time. She was inviting me on a bus tour of the Taieri Plain. When she never got a reply a second time she invited another friend instead. About five minutes later, she said, I replied that yes I'd love to come. Oh, was there going to be enough seats? She checked and yes, happily we were all able to go.

And so on Saturday afternoon we embarked on 'A Historical Tour of the Taieri Plain'. The bus was full and we had Chris commentating. No time for small talk, her commentary was comprehensive.

Basically the tour was a history of the Presbyterian presence in the area, and really quite interesting, even for those of a different persuasion like me. Otago was settled in the main by Scottish Presbyterians. We saw quite a few of the old homes and churches, or sites, that had been built way back in the 1800's. One of the homes was Woodside Manor, first known as The Poplars. Built in 1848 originally it had large gardens in front of the house but now it is just a grassed area. I was sitting on the aisle so couldn't get decent photo's but the Poplars is below.

A bit further around the plain we stopped at the North Taieri Presbyterian church for a comfort stop and to have a walk around. Built in 1867 it is the oldest surviving church on the Taieri Plain. It is a small plain church and to be honest I find it quite boring. I suppose that is good, nothing to detract from worship :) But it does have a lovely (fairly modern) stained glass window. We were given a short talk by the caretaker and then were able to have a walk around the grounds and manse garden. Services are still held every Sunday and because it is rural it is often used for day retreats.

Just as the talk ended my hearing aid batteries decided to die! And just to make matters worse I'd changed handbags over that morning so I could put my gloves and woolly hat in but forgot to change over the spare batteries. Luckily for me this was about 20 minutes from the end of the tour so not too bad. The tour was finished off with a soup and scone tea. I was just going to go home but Kay decided she would drive me over to get new batteries so that I could join everyone in further fellowship over tea. So that's what we did.

At tea Chris gave us all a little booklet of the tour, with photo's of most of the historic buildings we'd seen, that she'd taken the trouble to make up. The tour was in aid of the East Taieri Presbyterian church building renovation fundraiser. 

An interesting fun fact about the ET church is that when it was built the weight of the roof started pushing the walls out. The walls were strengthened with buttresses on the outside and tie rods on the inside. So today, 120 years later, it is still above current earthquake requirements.

It was a pleasant way to spend what was not a very nice day, overcast and a bit cool. We were all in our winter woollies.

With that I'll finish.

Keep well,

blessings,

Diana