Lovely night’s sleep,
woke up in Port Chalmers. Allowed to walk off the ship and through the port into town here, which makes life much easier. We decided just to explore locally rather than take a bus into Dunedin, as the girls have been at Uni there all year.
Port Chalmers was a big deal about 150 years ago, but has gradually been superseded by other ports around NZ. It makes the place a little sad but it means the buildings are beautifully well preserved.
We had an overpriced brunch in a lovely cafe, and then browsed a local crystal shop. Ended up buying a mystic topaz pendant. It’s very pretty but sadly I forgot to find out what special crystal powers it has. Oh well, I guess it will become apparent, for example if my luck improves or if I get better at concentrating or whatever.
After that we explored further afield. There’s a lovely old church on the hillside which was sadly locked up. I’m guessing it’s derelict and would cost millions to fix. We looked around the old cemetery and up to the lookout and Scott memorial. Captain Scott left from Port Chalmers on his ill fated voyage to the Antarctic in 1910. His last message is written on the memorial, it’s very sad but it does go on about how wonderful Englishmen are.
Back to the ship by 1:30. Nice to do some physical activity after being stuck on board for a couple of days. Of course there’s a gym but none of us has managed to work up the energy to go to it. One of the daughters got so far as putting on a sports bra but got no further when someone turned on the tv and we watched a documentary about America in the 1940s instead. I must say it was very interesting.
Italian for dinner as a complete change and then went to the show. Another singing dancing acrobatic extravaganza. The “storyline” was a mermaid falling in love with an astronaut but really it was an excuse for lots of sparkly costumes and fabulous sets with a vaguely aquatic and/or astral theme. The lead character was a dwarf dressed up as a schoolgirl with pink hair – go figure! All good until some old guy in the audience tried groping her. Creepy.