Welcome to Port Chalmers

Port Chalmers is a short drive up the inland shore of Otago Harbor. Our cover photo for this blog was taken on this lookout above Port Chalmers. 

Hilltop view of Port Chalmers showing the containers stacked up on the dock and the quaint village in the background.

Love the architecture of the buildings in Dunedin and surrounding areas.

This photo is looking towards the entrance to the harbor where arriving ships come in. As we were leaving later this day we saw a gigantic container ship making its way into port.

This is the docking facility in Port Chalmers where the big ships load and unload.

The water in Otago Harbor is too shallow for the large cruise ships and container ships to navigate to Dunedin so they offload at Port Chalmers. We hear it gets kinda crazy when the cruise ships come in. They load all the tourists who want to go into Dunedin into shuttle buses and drop them off at the Octagon (center of town). Some of the ships carry as many as 2500 people. That's a lot of busloads. 

Don't know where they come from or where they are going, but there are a lot of logs laying around the port.

We had a wonderful drive up the coast to Port Chalmers and have included some more pictures below. We had lunch in a little hotel cafe on main street.

 

On a day like today it's hard to take a boring photo!!

Some of the homes along the coast are so picturesque.

You never know when you might see a gigantic headless statue sticking out of the ground feet up. That's why you always carry the camera!!

Looks like someone familiar hiding in the trees!!

Close-up of an earlier picture. So peaceful and serene!!

There is so much to see and do in and around Dunedin. We have been told by our leaders to take the time to enjoy the culture and sights on our mission. This little adventure only took us about four hours. We are glad we have 18 months to take it all in. Dunedin even has an excursion train and the most amazing train depot ever. Wonder if Bart will find that interesting?