Day 41 - 11/12/22 - Port Chalmers (Dunedin)

 It was a nice sail in to the port of Port Chalmers which is the gateway to Dunedin which is about 8 miles away via a very twisty coastline road.  At breakfast, it was very crowded and we got involved in a very good conversation with an Australian Catholic couple regarding the state of the church.  This delayed our departure and we ended up having to wait an hour and a half for a public bus,  I'll say more about the bus and transportation system later in today's blog.  But suffice it to say, the town is in a real pickle regarding transporting independent tourists which flood the town from many cruise ships.

In any event, after getting some local currency from an ATM and purchasing some sodas to break down a bill, we boarded a public bus in Port Chalmers at 10:45 and weren't into Dunedin until nearly 11:30.  And then because of constraints on the transportation system, we were compelled to get back to Port Chalmers earlier than we would have liked to.  Our first mission today was to find some sort of warm shirt or sweatshirt as the weather is colder that we had planned for.  Using Google, we found several likely prospects.  The first two didn't have anything I liked, but I found a nice used sweatshirt at Save Mart, a large used clothing store at a reasonable price of $13.99NZ or about $8US.  

With that task behind us, we headed out walking through the Queens Garden to the Toitū Otago Settler's Museum by the Chinese garden and Railway station.  The Queens Garden honors Queen Victoria.  It was a free museum, but donations were encouraged. One of the volunteers immediately spotted my Seattle Kraken T-shirt and engaged us in conversation.  He was keen on Canadian/US hockey and followed the Kraken although he was more of a Vancouver BC fan.  We enjoyed a sausage roll for lunch there and then toured the museum which is quite nice.  I especially liked the motorcycle and vehicle section along with the "vintage" computer equipment, much of what I either owned or operated at one time.  I guess that makes me vintage!

Leaving the museum, we walked by First Presbyterian church and then headed for a supermarket to check out soda prices.  Outside the store a young chap also commented on my T-shirt and we chatted with him a fair bit.  After checking out the store, we walked across the street to where our bus pick up point was.  Because of the constraint on available bus transportation, we had decided to catch an earlier bus back to the port and spend more time in Port Chalmers where we had no transportation issues as the ship was within easy walking distance.  The line was quite long for the bus.  

Some friends behind us in line told us that they had just had their cellphone stolen along with a couple of credit cards (she left it in a public bathroom).  With a long line and our mutual uncertainty about whether we would get on a public bus, I suggested that we just hail an UBER and share it.  The cost was $36NZ which would be $9NZ/per person or $5US.  So I requested an UBER and  just as it got there, an empty public bus showed up.  But we continued with our UBER ride which was actually in a taxi.  Bob, the owner driver, does both types of pickups.  He's got some 350,000 kilometers or 200,000 miles on his Toyota Prius and has only had to replace the battery pack once for about $3500NZ.  Because of UBER rules, it has to come out of UBER service at the end of this year (10 years old), but his wife is going to keep it for herself and he'll get a new car for his taxi / UBER business.

We were swiftly back in Port Chalmers and dropped off at the port.  Our friends went back on the ship and we decided to use the almost 4 hours to see what we could of Port Chalmers.  We started with the local Maritime museum, and it was quite nice.  We chatted with a volunteer a bit and he suggested visiting the Lady Thorn Rhododendron Dell up on the hillside beyond the closed and being renovated Presbyterian church.  The garden was beautiful and the rhodora were largely blooming.  The lookout there is excellent and one has a great view of the harbor.  It was built by and is maintained by the Lions club.

From the garden we walked back down the steep hill and north a bit before dropping down another steep hill to the Main Street where we found a local supermarket and bought some more soda and some other treats (licorice & chocolate).  We walked back to the ship and as we were getting ready to pass through the gate check, suddenly the lady passenger in front of me and the port person went into a full embrace that lingered.  After they separated, I inquired of them about what just happened.  The response was that they were school mates who hadn't seen each other in years. Tears were streaming down the face of the port person.  It was truly a serendipitous moment for them.

As we were walking down the pier to the ship, I stopped and asked another port employee what specie the stacked logs were.  She had to ask but they were Norfolk Pine.  And they are destined to be shipped to China.  She also volunteered that she had just recovered from her second bout of Covid-19 and that a Princess ship, the Majestic Princess had just been here a week ago.  The Majestic Princess is in the news for having 800 Covid cases on board upon their return to Sydney following a 2 week cruise which included this port.  It was a good chat, but soon we boarded the ship, put our purchases away and joined Erik and Marilyn in a packed LIDO for dinner.  I had spaghetti and taco meat along with mixed fruit as I didn't want to stand in line for the regular main course items.  

During dinner, the Captain announced that we were returning to a mandatory mask wearing policy while inside the ship or on HAL excursions or on Holland transportation.  This was due to the outbreak of Covid in New South Wales which includes Sydney.  He also reported that we are down to 3 isolation cases (2 passengers and 1 crew member).  We've been self masking for about two weeks, and general compliance after his announcement was not very good.  We'll see how this develops.  

After dinner we watched the Step One Dance Company and the Billboard Onboard artists perform a repeat of "Off the Charts" One of male dancers was missing and I don't know if it was a Covid issue or not.  Following this we came back to the room as we have a need for an early start tomorrow as we are able to meet friends we sailed with on our 2019 cruise to Australia.  They are picking us up in Littleton and we'll be able to spend the day with them. It should be fun.  We really enjoyed our time with them on that cruise.

I'll end this cruise with a cautionary tale for the independent traveler in this port.  Public bus transportation "is" available.  However, due to Covid, the route frequency has been reduced to one bus per hour.  AND if there is a huge line, the bus driver will leave the large crowd behind to wait for another.  He has to leave space for the locals.  Additionally there's a driver shortage due to Covid. For our ship, there had to be 200 plus independent travelers.  The other real issue is in Dunedin, one doesn't know if there will be enough bus capacity to get back to the ship and realistically the last bus one can take is the 4:30pm bus for a 6pm onboard time.  So for us, we decided to cut our stay in Dunedin short, hire an UBER to get back to Port Chalmers early, and tour this little berg without any worry of being stranded in Dunedin.  

This morning, if a HAL shuttle bus driver hadn't deviated from his customary shuttle route which cost $35NZ per person roundtrip and only charged us the $3NZ regular current bus fare, we might have had to stay in  Port Chalmers.  Also, this morning there was an enterprising fellow with a large tour bus who stopped unannounced at the bus stop and offered a ride to Dunedin for $5NZ.  He filled the bus promptly.  I suspect he did this on the return trips in the afternoon.

If you are on a HAL tour or are willing to pay the $35NZ fare per person, none of the above matters.  But it matters big time for the independent traveler.