Tuesday, Feb 26th - Dunedin

What a fantastic day! Awoke at 7 AM to a slightly cloudy sky which, by the time we ate and got dressed turned into the most beautiful, clear, cool day that we've had so far! AND this time, we had no problem meeting our group of 8 Cruise Critics exiting the ship and finding our Van. Our tour was arranged with Arthur's Tours of Dunedin based on very positive reviews on CC. Our guide was Colleen, Arthur's wife, and our driver was Charles, a quiet man originally from Scotland and, interestingly, from a small town where 2 of our group - Isabel and Tom - had lived after they got married (they are from Scotland, too).

We left promptly to ensure our arrival at the Penguin Place and enjoyed Colleen's commentary along the way. The drive was lovely on a 2 lane winding road along the harbor and across from where our ship was docked.

We had visited the Penguins (Yellow- eyed) on our last trip but that was by boat and on a cold rainy day. Today was perfect - lots of penguin sighting (adults and chicks) viewed through penguin blinds built by the owners to protect the birds and keep noise to a minimum.

And the flowers near the entrance were beautiful.

We walked along a hill to the water and saw seals and some sea birds as well.

Then we drove to the Royal Albatross Colony just a bit further down the road, ate a light lunch (savory scone for me and steak pie for Art) and viewed the exhibits in the Albatross Center. Our guide presented good information about size and anatomy of the Albatross (wing span of 3 meters) and about breeding season and raising chicks...then we climbed a VERY steep path to the top of the hill - my aching Knees - where we viewed an Albatross with a chick on the side of the hill, another one further up the hill and several flying around. They are quite amazing birds and we felt privileged to have encountered them in the wild. Of course, between the birds and the scenery, we all took lots of pictures.

If you look carefully, you can see an albatross chick under the mother!

Our next stop was Lanarch Castle (reminiscent of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC) which we toured with Colleen as our private tour guide. It has quite an interesting history, beautiful rooms and gardens (we could only take pictures of the gardens, and lovely views.

Then we had a driving tour of Dunedin's beaches, neighborhoods, the University of Otago campus, Botanical Garden, and finally rode up and back down the steepest street in the World!! Quite a feat and even steeper than it looks!

Returned to the ship at 5:40 - just 20 minutes before we were due back...we chose not to get the certificates saying that we had driven the steepest street due to our concern about time. It was a wonderful day - full of new experiences and a wonderful appreciation of beautiful Dunedin.

It was lovely to snack on Pizza and wine on our balcony as we sailed out of Dunedin harbor.

We were so tired that after dressing for dinner (thankfully casual tonight), we went to the Cova Cafe for coffee for me and a Coke for Art for a caffeine boost....lots of walking up and down hills all day had worn us out. We enjoyed our dinner conversation - tonight trying to solve the problems of the world! Laughed a lot over the antics of our terrific waiter, Keith, who keeps challenging us with his mind bender tricks, and talked about plans for our stop in Christchurch tomorrow.