Day 10: Dunedin

We arrived in Dunedin early on New Year's Day, or may be it just seemed early. This, as it turns out, is not the best single day of the year to visit Dunedin: the vast majority of everything was closed. Not to be daunted, we set off for the botanical gardens, which my guide book promised were lovely. The gardens were just as lovely as promised, and the weather was perfect for wandering around outside, so this plan worked out very well. Here we are on New Years Day:


There was even a duck pond and the duck food was free:

And a lovely specimen of the redwood:





The kind volunteer at the garden's information center informed us that in New Zealand, New Year's Day is one of very few national holidays, and that a recent law mandated that if a business chooses to open on a national holiday, it has to pay all employees time and a half to work plus give them extra vacation another time. Hence the severe lack of open shops.

When we were done at the park, we wandered around town looking for open restaurants and anything else that might capture our attention. Other than tourist traps and American chains, the only shops that were open all seemed to be little family owned places where the owner was the only one working. We had a late lunch at a Chinese place and managed to do a little shopping.
Dunedin is a lovely little town, and about as British as they come:


The slowish day and the walking felt good after three days on the ship and a late night. And before we knew it, we were back on the boat and headed for Christchurch...