Our next stop was Dunedin toward the bottom of New Zealand's south island. It was originally founded by Scottish settlers in the mid-19th century. The plans for the city were drawn up in Britain without regard to the actual lay of the land in New Zealand so the results were not exactly as expected. Among other things were streets that went almost straight up including what is in the Guiness Book of Records as the steepest street in existence.

However, we didn't see much of the city because we were offered a tour I couldn't resist -- a beer tasting tour of the four pubs in Port Chalmers. the cruise port for Dunedin and a major export terminus for New Zealand lumber.

Three of the pubs, The Tunnel Inn, The Port Chalmers Hotel and Chick's Hotel date from before 1900 and are all what I'd consider locals. The Cary Bay Inn is much more modern and upscale. Laura came along on the tour to keep track of my drinking but she must have lost count in the middle. She had me drinking almost two gallons of ale and beer in under three hours not possible, even for me. Maybe her sampling of some of the lagers and the porter -- she didn't like it -- made her lose count.

In any case We had a choice of lagers, a stout, a porter, pale and dark ales, and IPA beers from Speight's, Emerson's, Monteith's, DB, Macs and Pride of the South microbreweries. IMHO Emerson's JT (an IPA beer) is the best in New Zealand.

At the Cary Bay Inn we were served a buffet lunch of bread, cheese and fresh shellfish a perfect accompaniment to the beer.

On the way back to the ship we stopped at the maritime museum which was an interesting composite of New Zealand south island history.

In keeping with its Scots heritage, a piper played us back onto Solstice as we boarded to leave.