Blogs from Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 10

So on to Dunedin. This will be the last port of call before scenic cruising in the Fjordland's National Park then a 2-day crossing to Australia. Once back on this ship this evening, the next time Chris and Roisin disembark will be with their luggage! Dunedin port is not big enough to take a cruise ship so the Sapphire Princess tied up at Port Chalmers and shuttles were organised to take passengers the 20-minute drive to the centre of Dunedin. Scottish settlers founded Dunedin and the name is derived from the Gaelic for Edinburgh. It is located on the Otago Peninsula and is New Zealand's 4th largest city. It is spread over the hills at the head of a beautiful harbour – a kiwi city with a Scottish heart? A statue of Robbie Burns proudly stands ... read more

Hey, Just arrived in Dunedin a week ago. Here're some pictures. Cheers, Stefan... read more

Hello y'all! Hope everything is good with all of you and the weather is wonderful and not raining as it was here. Both Ed and I are loving New Zealand, but we should probably work chronologically and take you back to our last evening and full day in Sydney (which now seems like a lifetime ago!). So we did go to the posh Indian I mentioned in the former blog and it did not dissapoint; first of all when we arrived the manager greeted us with two different tables reserved for us depending on our preference of either being seated in the cosy interior, or outside with the fantastic views of Darling Harbour; we chose outside and were greeted by a great view of beautiful boats, busy Sydney and a 'crackin' harbour' (Ed). The food was ... read more

To be poetic, an exquisite jewel of a place, the lower part of the Waitaki Valley is wide and green with mainly sheep and fields, all very well tended, surrounded by hills. Then slowly we moved up the valley, past several dams and the valley became narrower, the hills became mountains and the lakes from the dams took the place of the fields and sheep. Its the colours that made it such a magnificent sight. The blues of the rivers and dams covered the whole spectrum from aquamarine through to sapphire. The deep emerald green of the fields. The trees have turned the most wonderful shades of red through to gold, and where the sun shines through them they look like liquid gold against the deep blue of the sky. There are berries on many of ... read more

We are so lucky, we have had yet another fabulously sunny warm day. Everyone keeps telling us that it won’t last, but hey! We’ll make hay while the sun shines! It’s not just that its warmer with the sun shining, it’s also that everything looks so much prettier with bright blue skies, blue seas and sunny hills! And what better place for us to enjoy the wonderful weather is the spectacularly beautiful Otago Peninsula. I suppose it reminded me of Scottish Lochs, and this wasn’t a great surprise, because the southern part of the South Island was predominantly settled by Scots, to the point that their accent has a ‘rolled r’ which they say is from the Scottish accent. There is a very strong Scots heritage here, with lots of tartan and talk of Burns’ Night ... read more