The walk through sloping hummocks of native and exotic forest to the Wairongoa springs and beyond is an excursion of constant revelation.
Looming from the shadowy bush are tangled trunks of fantastical trees, the ruins of a fanciful stone fernery, and fountains corroded but strangely elegant in the fecundity of the overgrowth of decades.
Amid kauri, beech and totara planted by a damaged soldier from World War 1 are the relics of a Dunedin company that once took water sourced from deep beneath the Taieri to sell here and overseas.
Wairongoa is a property once visited by Dunedin people in their thousands for its spacious lawns, fountains and special beauty.
It was once the home of the Neill family and its well-known son, the actor Sam.
And at its heart is a spring that bubbles the most remarkable water into a brick and battlement building emerging incongruous and anomalous in the Dunedin bush.
The company’s buildings at the site also include the mostly intact remains of a gasometer building, once used to aerate the soda water, and a bottling plant, both on what is now a neighbour’s property.
Austen and Clare Banks have owned the land for the last 25 or so years, but are due to leave soon for the next phase of their life.
Mr Banks says his time at the land, which includes farm land on which he has run cattle, has been one of stewardship of a beautiful and historic property.
That history began when Alexander Thomson arrived from Linlithgowshire (now known as West Lothian) in Scotland in 1860, the youngest of 10 children from a family of assisted immigrants who arrived in Port Chalmers on the Silistria.
Alexander worked for cordial makers before starting his own company, which set up in Bond St.
He bought Wairongoa in 1894, and built the bottling shed that year.
The bottling business closed in 1939.
But the land was not just used for commerce.
Writer Daphne Lemon, in her 1970 book Taieri Buildings, says Mr Thomson created a farm that specialised in raising prize-winning Clydesdale horses, but he "also created a beauty spot".
"Visitors in their thousands used to come to see the trees, spacious lawns and two splendid fountains.
"Trains made a special stop there."
And, although the bottled water was on sale in the shops, visitors were allowed to drink it on the property and to take away as much as they could carry with them.
Such generosity, sadly, did not last, as "it was repaid with the most violent form of vandalism, and the Thomson family were forced to close the property to the public".
"Quite curiously, and I understand this isn’t always the case, the covenant applies to the whole property.
"What it means in practical terms is that it protects in perpetuity the land and the trees and what-have, [which] can never be sold or subdivided for in-fill housing or anything like that.
He said in his time as owner he had never refused a request by people who wanted to visit the site.
That included cycling, tramping and other groups.
He also never charged people for visits.
"I’m old fashioned," he said of his views on the matter.
He was lucky to have owned the land and thought it would be inappropriate to charge people to see it.
Mr Banks said people had tried to persuade him to bottle the water, including a Japanese brewer, but he had also not done that.
"We would prefer to have it as it is."
Also on the property is a cottage where a second generation Alexander Thomson, known as Alec, lived after returning from fighting on the Western Front in World War 1, profoundly affected by the experience and with health problems.
He was to have married an English woman, but decided against it due to his injuries.
Instead, he devoted his life to planting trees on the property.
"He was dotty about trees," Mr Banks said.
"All the trees you see are in fact his work."
But the heart of Wairongoa — which translates as "medicine water" — is its spring.
Heavy in iron, its water pours gently from a pipe outside the spring building, leaving a rusty colouring as it flows away as a small stream through the bush.
Perhaps its most remarkably quality is it emerges from deep underground with a distinct natural fizz.
Daphne Lemon wrote in 1970 of water that "tastes like the tonic you have in gin".
For Mr Banks, it "goes quite well with whisky".
"I think the water’s rather nice, it’s got quite a strong sort of soda flavour to it.
"Its flavour reminds me that when I was a child we were fed stuff called milk of magnesia, which had a slightly irony flavour to it, and it’s not dissimilar to this."
The water came from "very deep in the ground".
There were plenty of scientific reports on the spring, and people had come from around the world to study it, including scientists from England who were studying deep wells as an indicator of precious metals.
"I have to say they never came back, so I don’t think they found anything there."
The Banks are set to leave the property in March, after selling it recently.
Mr Banks said the part of the original spring land on his neighbour’s property — the fountain was on that property too — was being well looked after, and no fences were required between the two properties because of a shared philosophy on stewardship.
He was comfortable that philosophy would continue with the new owners.
"I’m delighted to say I think they’re going to be perfect for the place."
But the decision to move on would not be without emotions.
"Needless to say we’re going to miss it hugely, but there comes a point when you’re going to move anyway.
"It’s a tremendous privilege to live here.
"We’ve put a lot of effort into the property, and will be sorry to go."
"The thing that gives me the greatest pleasure is the quality of the new owners."
