February 15: It was a Royal day Dunedin will never forget - a garden party of colour and fashion and a magnificent under-four-minute mile by the world's top miler. These made the day for the Queen and for Dunedin.
Her visit ends this morning when she and the Duke of Edinburgh leave Dunedin Airport for Christchurch.
But yesterday will remain a memory to cherish - a day of rain, umbrellas and coats, crowds and the cheering schoolchildren. For the Queen and the Duke it was one of the fullest days of the tour.
They saw topdressing planes swooping at Invermay Agricultural Research Station - the first time the Queen had seen them.
They graced Dunedin's most important social occasion for many years, and spoke to chosen citizens from all walks of life.
They watched in the evening the world's top miler, Peter Snell, smash the four-minute mile for the first time in Dunedin.
Yesterday was a day of travelling for the Queen and the Duke. This meant a day of opportunity for everyone to line roadways, cheer and wave.
It was a day, too, for the children - a holiday for them to see the Queen. By train, bus and car, they came from all over Otago to wave flags and shout.
Rain stopped for the Royal athletic meeting in the evening.
But in the morning the Duke trudged through mud and wet grass at Invermay while the Queen watched from the Rolls-Royce.
At the garden party no-one seemed to mind the rain. People came pre-prepared with hundreds of colourful umbrellas.
The Duke of Edinburgh was in good form - chatting with guests, waving to the crowd on the terrace, and joking about the weather.
"Quite like an English garden party - even with its rain," the Queen said.
By midnight last night, thousands of Otago people had not only seen the Queen and Duke once, but two, three or half a dozen times.
The first crowds to greet the Queen and Duke at Port Chalmers were a little restrained. It was only the children who seized the moment to show just how excited they were to have the couple in their midst.
But then the cheering started, and by the time the entourage reached Stuart St and the Octagon, the welcome was as noisy and warmhearted as anything given so far on the tour.
By nightfall all restraint had gone.
And when the Queen came out of the Grand Hotel to leave for the variety concert the crowd really let itself go.
APPLAUSE EXPLODES
They had been waiting for a long time, cheering, chanting and whistling. By 9 o'clock the atmosphere was tense. Then the Queen came out on the balcony and the applause exploded. As she and the Duke moved off in their car it became louder and was taken up by the crowds lining the route all the way to the Town Hall.
Those in the front ranks yesterday kept long vigils to get their vantage points - especially those in the Octagon and outside the Grand Hotel during the arrival, and in the evening outside the Town Hall.
Crowds became boisterous as the hours wore on, but people were tolerant and never unruly.
Only once did disorder threaten - when people who had watched the procession down George St nipped in their hundreds through Moray Pl to try to glimpse the Queen arrive for the concert.
CROWD HELP
Soldiers and policemen linked arms and, grimacing, managed to contain the crowd in a line that bulged but did not break.
People lining the main street on each occasion quickly broke ranks after the Royal car had passed, chasing it for one more glimpse of the Royal couple.
In the evening the floodlit buildings and hundreds of coloured lights in the trees of the Octagon created a magnificent setting.
People standing on the right-hand side of the route - the Queen always sits on this side of the car - had a particularly good view of the Queen in evening dress.