Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Port Chalmers and Dunedin

Last night we went up to the Observation Bar for a cocktail before dinner, where we ran into some friends from Houston, Carol and Molly Smith and Meredith, one of the vocalists on the ship. Meredith is from the Woodlands and graduated  from the John Cooper School .  Small world.
After a not so spiffy day in Timaru we were ready for some fun and this morning we woke up to beautiful blue skies and a lovely port in Dunedin. We had hired a classic Jag for today to tool around round in.  Our plans were to see Dunedin and go out to the Royal Albatross Centre.




On our way we picked up Cecil "Paddy" Millar. Paddy is on the cruise with us and we had dinner with him the first night of invitational dining. Julie and I have deduced that Paddy is somewhere between 80 and 85, a delightful gentleman. He left Northern Ireland when he was in his early 20's and move to Africa, then Rhodesia, now Zimbawe.  He started out as a farmer and then entered politics and was part of their Parliament . After 3 children they all moved to Australia.  His stories are mesmerizing. More of those later when we are at sea.
So, I invited Paddy to come with us and he did.


We started out from the ship and into town to the world's steepest street- sorry San Francisco, but it is here in NZ. It is just steep, not crooked. 
From here we go around the Otago Bay to see the Albatross- this is unbelievable !!



Yes, that is one of our photos!!! See the tag on his legs, they are tracked to see when they come back.  He has 3 bands so he his a mating bird. Their wingspan is 9 feet and the Royals only mate here in NZ.  They spend most of their time at sea and are very clumsy landing on land. After they are born they spend about 6months with their parents and then off they go for 4 to 5 years at sea. When they return they are referred to as the juveniles and then after a couple of more years they will be adults and ready to breed. They normally have one partner for life.







From here it was back to the ship by way of their train station in Dunedin, one of the most photographed train stations in the world. 
It is also here they do the New Zealand Fashion week and they use the train station as their designer's runways!

All for now

2 comments:

  1. paddy looks adorable enough for ME to hug. love the monster big smile on your face. you look like you are having a ball.
    a vintage classic jag? awesome. need photo of that.
    and how in the world did you capture the flying albatross? he kinda looks like a big seagull. really, a 9 foot wing span?

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