Wed, 2/12/25

Day 38 – Wednesday, February 12, 2025 – Dunedin

Mary's research paid off. She found a mobility company and Dunedin or Port Charles. She was talking to the owner of the company, Matt. Unfortunately, the day that we wanted to be there, Matt already had a booking. Matt’s backup had the flu of some sort so he couldn't talk. That left a lady named Kiri. She drove a bus for this company, but she had no tour guide experience. We didn't care. We got off the ship around 9:30. We were set to meet her at 10:00. As with the previous port, she could not bring the van in near the cruise ship. Thankfully, we were able to get outside the gate without a bus ride during this time. We made our way to the end of the cruise terminal. There the security people said that the van we were looking for pulled away, but she was coming back. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later a red van pulls up. Kiri is a bubbly lady in her mid to late 40s.  We did the introductions, as she put me in the van. This was another first class operation when it came to safety in the van. I was strapped down to the nth degree. We were asked what we wanted to see. Because we've never been there before, we were open to anything. Kiri told us that she was not a tour guide. She did not know a lot of the history or fun facts. That didn't bother us.

We drove a few miles to the botanical gardens. The paths that went around the gardens were hard packed, but they were at incredible angles. So what this means, is that we did not go very far. We did look at a lot of plants and trees and flowers. You would expect to see little signs that explained what the various plants were. They didn't have any of this. Some of the plants and flowers were pretty but we had no idea what they were. The highlight of the gardens were the macaws and cockatoos in the cages. If you remember, back in Costa Rica we saw a real macaw in the wild. These birds were pretty but they were behind black mesh screens. They were hard to see, but when we did see them they were incredible in color. There was one that was all black except he had two little red tail feathers. He looked pretty sharp. The blues and the yellows and the oranges were very vivid on the others. We only spent about 45 minutes there. We loaded up and moved on to the next stop.

We then drove to the high point of the area. It seems that every stop we go to this is a common attraction. Thankfully, it was clear out. It was warming up too. When we got off the ship it was only about 50°. Now it was about 70 so it was a little more comfortable. The view was very cool. You could see forever. We were looking north, I believe, so we can see the port. There are some pictures below that show the view.

From there we drove back into town. It dawned on me then that Dunedin was a very Old Town. Many of its buildings were built in the 19th century. I then thought back to Napier. All those buildings were more modern. Tom, our Napier guide, mentioned that there was a earthquake in 1931 which wiped out most of Napier. Apparently that same earthquake did not impact Dunedin.  Our next stop was one of those older buildings - the railway station. If you look at the architecture, you can see that it is Flemish in nature. It was built in 1906. It is still an active train station although the trains now are strictly tourist trains. I read somewhere that the train station is the second most photographed building in the southern hemisphere - behind the Sydney Opera House. Interesting little fun fact. This is where Mary found her postcards. It’s  a cool building. A lot of history, obviously train related.

Kiri then took us to a little coffee shop. Mary and Kiri had sandwiches. I shared a brownie with Mary. So when ordering coffee, Mary was offered the short or the tall option. Not knowing which to choose, she chose the short version. It came in like an espresso cup. Mary said that's not what we want, so the guy brought over a cup of water and poured it into the espresso cup. Apparently, that was the tall. It tasted just like coffee. I just thought it was weird you could add water to expresso and get real coffee. One of them things I never thought about before. It was good. We sat there for about 30 minutes or so.

Back in the van, we drove a short while to a souvenir shop. I stayed in the van. Mary jumped out and got T-shirts and was able to send her postcards on their way. In our conversations, we mentioned going to a brewery. It was getting late, but we have just enough time to go to this brewery. It was called the Emerson brewery. It was a newer brewery. It opened in 1992. It had a tap room. That's where we went. I was set up with the flight of beer. I tried to stick close to IPA's. The selection the bartender gave me was pretty good. There were none that were great. There was an IPA called The Dirty Bird which was pretty good. Orange Roughy was another pretty good one. Because it was getting late, I did not have a lot of time to savor them. I bought a sampler 6 pack. I was able to get it back on the ship and into our room period I will drink it later in the trip. It was a good experience. I could see that if I lived there I would go back periodically to try new things. They also had a nice kitchen area where you could get all kinds of food.

The ship left at 4:00. We wanted to be back by 2:30, but now it was a little after three already. We hustled our way back to the ship and we were there about 3:15 or so. It was not a lot of time for goodbyes, but we said goodbyes and took the pictures and went our separate ways. Kiri did a great job in showing us Dunedin. It also helped me understand Napier a little better too.  When Mary gave Kiri a tip, at first she would not accept it. She said she's never received a tip before. The first time for everything. Hopefully, it made her day. She made our day very nice.

We were one of the last ones back on the boat. We still had about 30 minutes or so, so it wasn't that close. We made our way back up to the room where we chilled for a while. We did eventually go down to dinner.

As far as dinners go, it was pretty uneventful. My appetizer was liver pate. I like this. Mary and I both had a salad. I had fried snapper. Unfortunately when they fried it the skin stuck to the meat so you had to pick the meat off the skin. There was not a lot of meat for the work. For my dessert I had brie and gouda cheese. Mary had chicken for her entree and, you guessed it, vegan ice cream. By time dinner was over it was getting late period we had a long day so we went upstairs and did this and that until we finally put our heads on the pillows. Another successful day.