Due to an unspecified medical emergency of a crew member, we arrived at Port Chalmers one day ahead of schedule as the captain raced the ship to port as quickly as possible. Since there were no shore excursions planned, the shuttle from Port Chalmers to Dunedin was free. (I think it usually costs money.)

Our plan for Friday was to rent a car and drive around the Otago Peninsula. Since we arrived early, we contacted the rental car company to pick up the car on Thursday instead. After arriving in Dunedin, we walked to Cadbury World where we bought various chocolate covered bars, but declined to take the tour. Around 3pm, we took a bus to pick up our rental car. On our drive into the Otago Peninsula, we took winding Highcliff Road through the hills. Our first stop was Penguin Place where we could view yellow-eyed penguins. Our tour guide (who was surprisingly buff for his age) led us through a series of covered trenches from which we could view the penguins without disturbing them. Apparently, if the penguins can only see your head, they don’t realize how big you actually are and don’t consider you a threat. We also visited the nearby albatross nesting grounds where we saw lots of gulls, some marine mammals, and a few albatrosses flying in the distance. On the way back to Port Chalmers, we drove along the less scary shore-side road.

On Saturday, we woke up early to drive north. Our first stop was a beach where we could view the Moeraki Boulders, which are surprisingly round boulders that formed around fossils. (One such fossil can be seen in the Otago Museum.) Next, we drove down to a lighthouse surrounded by a small cliffside wildlife preserve. We walked along the preserve path for a kilometer or two. We didn’t see any more penguins, but we did see some seals and gulls fighting for space on rocks. Our last tourist stop in the north was Shag Point, which has a tidal shelf that we couldn’t get to because it was high tide. Shag Point was also the first place we’ve been hailed upon during this journey. We drove back to Dunedin and stopped at the Olveston house, a 1910’s era historic home, for an hour long walking tour. Around 3pm, we returned the car, took the bus back to the Octogon and walked to the Otago Settlers Museum. The OSM is an excellent, free museum chronicling the history of the settlement of the area built in an old New Zealand Rail station.

On our last day in Dunedin, we took the Taieri Gorge train through the Taieri Gorge. The train stopped along the way for tourists to take photos. At the end of the line, some local women set up temporary shops to sell trinkets and snacks. The scenery was nice, but not particularly different from what we had seen during our last two days of driving. If we had not been trudging around the countryside the past few days, I think we would have been much more impressed by the train ride. After the train, we walked to the mostly free Otago Museum (different than the OSM and home of the fossil mentioned earlier). Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to walk through the museum due to ship departure, but what we did see was some interesting coverage of the natural history of the Otago area.