We docked on Friday in Port Chalmers which is used as the port for Dunedin. We decided not to go into Dunedin, but to instead, take a boat tour of the wildlife in the harbor on a small boat called the Monarch. We were not disappointed. We saw rare Royal Northern Albatross, Little Shag Cormorants, Black-backed gulls, blue penguins, New Zealand Sea Lions, New Zealand Fur Seals, Cape Petrels, White-capped Albatross, and those are just the ones we remember!

After lunch, Alan decided to take a walk. He walked from the ship to the town and out along the harbor and then back to town and up to a high observation point above the town, arriving back in time to keep BJ from getting too nervous about his missing the ship’s departure.

On Saturday the ship was anchored at the port for Christchurch. We have friends who spent a six month sabbatical there and loved it, so we were looking forward to seeing it. In February, 2011, there was a huge earthquake centered there and much of the city was either damaged or destroyed. Because of this there is still quite a bit of building and retrofitting still going on, and there are large numbers of empty lots in the town center.

The first thing we did was a drive through the central area, then we met the restaurant tram and boarded it for high tea (although it was morning) and a tour of the area.

The tram took us around much of the central city and through a large city park, finally dropping us off at the botanical gardens. On the way there was a lot of new interesting architecture and wall art.

We got off the tram and crossed the street into the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. We both thoroughly enjoyed our tram ride through the Gardens. The driver was very knowledgeable and we saw trees, flowers and plants from all over the world. It is summer here and much was in full bloom so the colors of the flowers and trees were stunning.

It is on to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, next. We will write all about it in our next blog.