The Silver Whisper's visit to Port Chalmers, the port for Dunedin, New Zealand, was shorter than Michael or I would have liked. Michael really wanted to see the small city of Dunedin, about half way down the eastern coast of the South Island. He had only passed through it on a tour the last time he visited.
Silversea was offering a number of interesting tours mostly to sites on the Otego Peninsula. There would not be enough time to take a tour and see the city too. After doing some research before we began the trip, I decided that I would rather spend the time seeing this small city of 123,000, but the fourth largest in New Zealand, than to spend hours in a bus to view penguins or albatross for only an hour or so.
Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest city. It was settled in 1848 by Scottish migrants who gave it the Celtic name for Edinburgh. It was a sleepy farming community until gold was discovered in central Otego in 1861. Dunedin grew and profited from being the principal staging area for getting to the goldfields. Although the gold played out in just a few years, the city remained with a legacy of magnificent Victorian stone buildings and New Zealand's first university, the University of Otego.
The Silver Whisper docked at Port Chalmers, about eight miles away. Dunedin lies at the head of Otego Bay. The bay is navigable by large ships only as far as Port Chalmers and we docked at the container port there. The port has two of the largest cranes for loading cargo that I have ever seen. There were also piles of logs awaiting shipment to China. All of New Zealand is a major lumber producing area. New Zealanders claim that it is a sustainably managed resource. I'm inclined to believe them as New Zealand is the most environmentally sensitive country I've been to. They never greatly messed up their environment and the government takes pains to keep it pristine.
There was, inevitably it seems, a large Princess ship berthed at the adjoining pier. A great many large but not enormous cruise ships spend the Southern Hemisphere summer (U.S. winter) traveling between Australian and New Zealand ports on trips of a week to ten days. The Silver Whisper has had company in all the New Zealand ports she has visited. Michael and I were on the first shuttle bus to Dunedin as is usual for us, beating the rush from the larger ship.
We had picked up an up-to-date map from Whisper's tour desk. So we were prepared to take a walking tour of the city on our own. The shuttle bus let us off at The Octagon, the eight sided central town square. We viewed St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral, the City Hall, and the grassy area in front of the church which had a statue of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet. A plaque by the statue said that one of the founders of Dunedin was a nephew of the famous poet. The Dunedin Public Art Gallery looked interesting but was not yet open. We had not realized from the map that the Octagon area is on a steep hillside. It is fair to say that almost the entire city is on a steep hillside. Seeing the sights proved good exercise.
We walked downhill on Stuart Street past the Victorian grey stone Law Courts, still in use today. There appeared to be people lined up outside the door for parking ticket payment, awaiting the court's opening. Across the street, the newspaper appeared to be still publishing. Most buildings had awnings across the sidewalks. Michael remembered pouring rain the last time he visited and was of the opinion that the awnings are to keep off wetness rather than sun. Dunedin really looked like a city from fifty years ago.
We came to the Dunedin Railway Station at the foot of Stuart Street. It was, as the brochure described it, 'a massive bluestone structure in Flemish Renaissance style, lavishly decorated with heraldic beasts, nymphs, scrolls, a mosaic floor and even stained glass windows of steaming locomotives.' What a wonderfully curious building! Nowadays, only the Taieri Gorge scenic railway runs tourist trains on two scenic routes, one year round the other seasonally. Michael and I spent nearly an hour exploring this unique building. The ticket office doubled as a gift shop and tourist office. I purchased a lovely gold plated pin in the shape of a dragonfly, ornamented with iridescent paua shell. Paua shell is the shell of an abalone relative native to New Zealand. It is gorgeous.
Michael and I stopped at the Otego Settlers Museum mainly to use the free Wi-Fi. You will notice that we tend to live off the land as far as Internet access is concerned. On board ship it costs $.35 a minute even with a pre-paid package. So we take every opportunity to find free minutes.
Dunedin was our last stop at a port in New Zealand and the last opportunity to spend our New Zealand dollars. We had purchased toiletries at Bay of Islands and a watch battery, coffee and meals in Auckland. I spent a little at Akaroa. We still had about $20 New Zealand left. A visit to the Dunedin Chinese Garden took care of eighteen of it. It was interesting to learn about the long history of the Chinese community in Dunedin and view the scholar's garden. Built in China and shipped to Dunedin for assembly, the garden was a reasonably authentic copy of a garden Michael and I visited in Shanghai in 2010. Shanghai is a sister city to Dunedin; the garden was a joint Shanghai-Dunedin project. The plants in the garden are required to be all native to New Zealand, as one would expect from such an ecologically careful country.
Michael and I climbed back up to the Octagon and waited for the Silver Whisper shuttle bus. We had a fine show. The Princess passengers with their key cards on lanyards and tour stickers such as tour 18 or tour 9 on shirtfronts entertained us as they tried to find the correct bus to their ship. Our bus had not arrived yet so they couldn't go too far wrong.
We were scheduled to sail out at 3:00 PM but everyone was back on board early. We left shortly after 2:30. From the top deck at the front of the Silver Whisper Michael and I watched our progress sailing out through Otego bay and into the open ocean. We had cocktails and dinner while watching the east coast of New Zealand slip by. It did not become dark until nearly 10:00 PM as were far south in the southern hemisphere. Finally, we saw the Southern Cross as the sky darkened.
We would spend one more day in New Zealand waters. Wednesday, January 30 we spent cruising into both Dusky and Milford Sounds. The weather was uncharacteristically sunny and clear, the first time for Michael in other than rain and fog. The pictures tell it all.
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