BACKGROUND INFO:
This morning we docked in Dunedin, the second largest city on the South Island of NZ. It lies at the head of a fjord like inlet which we sailed into earlier this morning and is surrounded by seven hills. Dunedin city has a land area that is larger than the state of Rhode Island with a population of 126,000.
In 1861 gold was discovered at Gabriel’s Gully to the southwest of here and led to a gold rush which lasted 10 years. This resulted in several “firsts’: first to have water mains, hydro power, gaslights, and steam trams. From 1881 to 1957, it had cable trams, being the first and last to use this system in the world. New Zealand’s oldest university, University of Otago, was established here in 1869. Education is the most important activity in economic terms with 22% of the population being between ages 15 & 24.
The Otago Peninsula is home to the world’s only mainland breeding colony of royal albatross. These huge birds have wing spans of ten feet and the colony is at the entrance as we sail into the inlet early this morning. Hopefully I will be able to get a photo of them. We will also be watching out for other rare species, such as, yellow-eyed and Little penguins, fur seals, and shags.
Our ship docked at Port Chalmers at 7:00 this morning. We are leaving the ship at 7:30 with overnight bags in tow. We are booked on the “Milford Sound Overland-Dunedin to Milford Sound” excursion. This is what Regent calls an “Adventures Ashore” excursion and this one was an additional charge of $1700 for the two of us. I felt it important to see the beauty of NZ up close and personal so worth it. It is a two day motor coach tour that will traverse the South Island, through the super scenery of its countryside, mountains, and lakes before arriving tomorrow evening at Milford Sound. There, a tender will return us to our ship which has repositioned in the sound over night. We will be spending the night at the Novotel Queensland Lakeside Hotel in Queensland and will get to enjoy some of NZ’s fine cuisine and excellent wines.
WHAT WE DID TODAY:
We departed the ship at Port Chalmers where we were docked for Dunedin. We each had our carry on luggage for our over-night bus trip from Dunedin to Milford Sound. We had to get up at 5:30 this morning for our 7:15 am departure time. There are only 16 of us on the very nice motor coach that has 44 seats.
Our driver/guide is Paul. He has been telling all about this part of the south island of New Zealand. He has a great sense of humor which makes this trip very special. The change of scenery as we cross the country is amazing as you will see in my photos. We had a very good lunch at The Packing Shed just outside of Alexandra in the country. We stopped in Arrowtown for an hour of walking around in this quaint, very small town. I had some more Hokey Pokey ice cream. We arrived in Queenstown around 4:00 pm and rode the gondola to get an incredible view of the valley and Queenstown before arriving at the Novotel Hotel where we are spending the night.We have a very nice room with a sliding glass door out to a garden with table and chairs so we went out and bought a bottle of chardonnay. We then sat out and enjoyed it while my photos taken today were being down loaded. We then went to have a very nice dinner at Lombardi's restaurant in the St Moritz Hotel. This place was recommended to us by our good friends, Allan & Kerry Gillan, who had stayed and eaten here a couple of times.
Here is the link to today's photos. Same instructions as yesterday about how to view the link. Cut and paste link to browser. Click on first photo to enlarge. "i" will let you see my captions. Arrow through rest of photos.
https://goo.gl/photos/ny5ZjQQ9AtJZCZwK6
Bed time as is 10:00 pm and I can now post this. Long day!! Getting up about 7:30 as will be boarding coach at 9:30 tomorrow to continue to Milford Sound. Paul says we will be seeing some incredible sights tomorrow. I thought I had today!
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