A 2nd day around Dunedin – 3rd Dec

Today was a glorious day – we got clean clothes!!! We went to the local laundrette and did two loads of washing and drying and it felt wonderful to leave with a bag full of clean smelling clothes.

We also discovered 'Dunedin doughnuts' who did a great coffee and doughnut combo.

The guidebook told us about a town 10km from Dunedin called 'Port Chalmers' and so of course we had to go and check it out. It was a funny place – if you looked up the main road you'd think it was a pretty historic town, but if you looked down the road you saw these 3 massive cranes from the dominating container port.

Pretty Port Chalmers...and the cranes

Port Chalmers was the departure point for several Antarctic expeditions including those of Captain Scott who set off from here to his ill fated attempt on the pole in 1910. However Port Chalmers' greatest claim to fame (which was displayed on several plaques), was that it was the first place to send out a shipment of 'frozen' meat back in 1882.

From Port Chalmers we took a drive up along the coast to a small village called Aramoana. Here we got great views of the Otago Peninsula we'd visited the day before and saw the Albatrosses flying around again. We walked up a sand spit and saw loads of wildlife including lots of birds and seals swimming in the water. We were also treated to a particularly photogenic seal who was happy to come ashore and climb on a rock for us.

Smile !!

We then headed back to Dunedin via a scenic route stopping off to drive up Baldwin Street – the world's steepest street, as verified by the Guinness Book of Records, with a slope of almost 19 degrees. Andy rolled back down in the car and I walked down and I can confirm that it was pretty steep!! It was of course a complete tourist trap with bus loads of people dropped at the bottom of the street to get their photos and walk up. But hey, out of all the claims to fame I'd seen today, this was the more exciting.