Day 10 - Dunedin

Tuesday 13^th January 7.20pm

Our dinner last night was sooo good! Almost my favourite meal on the cruise. I had garden vegetable minestrone, almond crusted turkey breast with potatoes and broccoli with béarnaise sauce and green apple sorbet. Yum!! After dinner we all went down to the big heated pool and had a soak to relax before bed.

Today we were in Dunedin and the forecasted temperature was 11 to 17 degrees. We woke up early, had breakfast and were off the ship by 9am. We were docked at Port Chalmers and took a shuttle bus to get into the city centre. My main aim for today was to see and walk up the steepest street in the world! The steepest part of the street has a gradient of 1 in 2.86. Crazy! We asked at a gift shop in the city centre for directions and were given a map and told that it was definitely possible to walk up it. So, we set off. Turns out we have walked over 8km today!!! The walk to and from Baldwin Street was about 4km each way, and we sure climbed a lot of vertical metres walking up the street! We had dressed for cold weather, but along the way lost our layers of clothing. The weather was really strange though, because Emma and I kept putting them back on and taking them off and putting them back on, especially in the afternoon when it got really dark and overcast. After we walked up Baldwin Street, we stopped at a fish and chip shop to get Dad a piece of fish. We spoke to Grandma and Grandad, as well as Mum Q and were told that it has been raining non-stop in Townsville. How insane – it always rains like crazy when we leave town! Anyway, we were assured our houses are a-okay, which is good. We have had fun buying little presents for our little nephews, too! There are some seriously cute things over here for little kids (and bigger kids like ourselves!).

We stopped at the Otago Museum on our way back to the city to have a delicious lunch and explore. We had an excellent time looking at several different exhibits. There was a hall dedicated to Polynesian and Micronesian people. I particularly enjoyed this exhibit because of the anthropology and history subjects I have done at uni that have investigated these areas and people. They had lots of interesting artefacts, including a case of fishing implements from many different islands which Jordan enjoyed. We also had a look at an exhibit dedicated to the Otago peninsula (where Dunedin is), and the maritime history of New Zealand. I would have liked more time there, but that is always the case with museums! J

After this, we still had about 1km to walk back. We were SO tired, I felt like I was just staggering along. Hope it didn’t look like that, of course.... but it sure felt like it! When we got back on the ship, we slept for about 1 ½ hours. We’re about to head off to dinner so I should finish this up so I can post it. Hope you’re not too wet! Love to you all.

P.S – Congratulations to Brad and Georgia on the birth of Lucy!! We are so excited to meet her!