Arrival and Day in Beautiful Dunedin on a Perfect Day.

After a beautiful day sailing through the 3 West coast Fjords we sailed for the southern city of Dunedin with expectations of an enjoyable visit in perfect weather. We have visited Dunedin on several occasions experiencing weather from superb to diabolical but this time we awake as the Grand Princess is berthing at Port Chalmers the port with a 20 minute drive to Dunedin City. On this occasion we are predicted to enjoy beautiful clear weather with light winds.

The city is always a joy with the historic railway station, beautiful Cathedral, and then the pleasant city area. We visit the famous possum shop where they knit possums coats and wool to make a variety of garments.

For the first time, there is a NZ$25 charge for transit into and from Dunedin to the Port. This is unusual but we suppose part of the new world.

We walk through the City, and sit in the central gardens then Ken walks down to the port area and the railway station and takes photos.

We visited the various botanical gardens, the bird parks, and the university college precinct. There are penguin colonies.

We spend some 4-5 hours in the city area then have a cake and coffee, before we then catch the shuttle back to the ship and enjoy lunch of hamburgers etc. We see the Rugby stadium with a closed roof.

The ship departs late afternoon and we take a position on our balcony as we traverse the strait and eventually say goodbye to the pilot boat,

An enjoyable day was had by all, with plenty of interesting things to do and see. As an aside we have been amazed by the storage of timber for export from Port Chalmers. There are many stacks of timber probably pines classified into different sizes by diameter. The amount of such timber has been a bewildering surprise and we are advised that we will see the same in Wellington.