Dunedin, New Zealand

October 28th

Today we joined the tours with Des Harris of Indigenous Trails.  Joyce Caballero worked very hard arranging these tours that will cover all 4 ports in New Zealand.

Our tour started with a drive thru of Dunedin.  Dunedin is located in the southeast of the South Island on the Otago Peninsula.  Originally a Maoris settlement, Dunedin was first discovered by European whalers in the early 1800s.  By 1848 a group of Scots settled in Dunedin to escape religious persecution.  The city was laid out to resemble Edinburgh.  In fact, Dunedin is the Gaelic work for Edinburgh. Our first stop was Baldwin Street which is said to be the “World’s Steepest Street”.  Delia climbed all the way to the top and was back down within 10 minutes!!!!  We stopped for a coffee near the train station.  Bobbie and Jack were taking a Taieri Gorge train excursion that started at the train station.

   

 

We then headed out on the Otago Peninsula to the Royal Albatross Center.  We saw many sea birds but unfortunately no albatross.  This is their nesting season and since the winds were fairly calm, there were none flying.  Apparently, they use wind currents to fly.  The scenery was beautiful and worth seeing even without the albatross.

After a good lunch, we headed to Penguin Place to see the Yellow-eyed penguins.  These penguins are very rare.  Apparently, there are only about 4000 worldwide and about 1000 of them are on the Otago Peninsula.  After seeing the thousands of penguins in South America, this was a different experience.  We were able to view a few of the yellow penguins sitting on their nests but there were none of them walking around.  Still, it was a really neat place to visit.

 

Our last stop of the day was at the Cadbury Chocolate factory.  obviously, I really enjoyed this!!!!! Cadbury has always been one of my favorite candies…it was fun to see how the chocolate was made.  Please note how “stylish” Rich and Delia look!!!!  Went back to the ship with enough chocolate to last the whole cruise.

 

All in all, we had a very nice day and we are looking forward to the rest of the tours in New Zealand.

**********News Flash*********8PM.  The Captain just announced that due to heavy winds, the Star Princess will not be able to leave the dock.  The winds are are not forecast to decrease until early AM.  The Caption stated that it would not be safe to try to navigate the narrow channel.  This will mean that we will miss the port of Christchurch that was scheduled for tomorrow.

 

October 29th

SEA DAY…for all my Mah Jongg friends…I have found games.  Looks like I could play twice a day on sea days.  I played this AM..got a jokerless hand by myself!!!!  In all, won $2.75.  Will probably loose it all this afternoon.  I am trying to convince Bobbie to play.  Really haven’t seen too much of her and Jack…guess they are busy doing their own thing.  They had changed their dining time so we miss them at dinner, also.  Hopefully, when we get to the Pacific Islands we will see more of them.