Yesterday we had a wonderful day in Dunedin. Hmmm...Dunedin... I wish I could say we were done eatin! Ooooh! It is very difficult to resist the many delicious food concoctions onboard the ship. Everywhere you look, there are tasty snacks, desserts, breads, burgers, steaks, shrimp, lobster, pizzas, ice cream bars, buffets, not to mention the flavored coffees, mixed drinks, shakes. Oh my. I told David I will need to get a new wardrobe when we get home. He said he didn't think he could wait that long!!
Anyway, today was a day we were very much looking forward to on the ship. We sailed through Fiordland at the southern end of New Zealand, where Captain Cook and his crew discovered and named these many wonderful sounds in he 1700's. Our trek today took us through Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound. Don't those names sound like they came from a Disney movie?
Weird. We were told that Captain Cook was only able to explore half of the sounds he found on his maiden voyage through the region. Concerns about weather and sea conditions kept him from entering all of them. The rest, he collectively named "Nobody Knows What." Several years later, Captain Cook's former first mate, who now had command of his own ship, came back to thoroughly explore the rest of the sounds. After he had done so, he renamed the formerly unexplored sounds "Somebody Knows What!" That man was Captain Vancouver, who later went on to explore the Pacific Northwest and had two cities named after him.
What to say about the sounds... Words fail to convey to you how spectacular they were on this cold, rainy day that we passed through. Can you visualize miles of waterfalls? Some just ephemeral streams coursing down the mountain; others intense gushers like Multnomah Falls. Who knows how many there were - hundreds, thousands... Add to that the whales, the penguins, the migratory sea birds... This is a bucket list place! To our knowledge, nothing like it exists on earth. Here are some pics, but unfortunately they will fail to do it justice.
This gives you an idea of just how many amazing waterfalls there were to view. We were soaking wet by the end of the trip through the sounds, but it was sooo worth it!
After we had sufficiently dried off from this adventure, we decided to join our fellow cruisers in partaking of the Mozart Tea. This was really fun! It was a very elaborate afternoon tea (high tea) where the wait staff dressed in period costumes and a pianist performed Mozart pieces over tea and tasty pastries and finger sandwiches.
Very yummy! After tea we had another sumptuous dinner, and then a nice concert consisting of operatics, jazz and contemporary music rounded out the evening.
Wishing everyone a wonderful day,
David and Karen
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