Mandee

Doubtful Sound isn't technically a 'great walk', but we turned it into one! It's a notoriously difficult place to get to - and by difficult I mean expensive and long! You have to get a boat across lake Manapouri, take a bus 18km up the road, then get another boat out onto the Sound. All of which you have to do with very expensive tour companies. After extensive googling, I actually found that there's a hostel you can stay at there and the tour company do take the odd single passenger across Manapouri for the Dusky Sound track (8 days - not happening). The only obstacles left were the 18km walk and getting out on the Sound itself. A doddle, I thought.

So we set out across Manapouri at some ungodly hour in not the most hospitable weather. After a futile wait for it to 'clear up', we set out off the road in the rain, much to the consternation of the many bus drivers taking the tours over the pass who offered us lifts constantly! Not realising this was an option, we felt like it was cheating a bit and insisted on walking. In the driving rain. Hmm. Turns out we were quite the celebrities that day though - no one seems to walk it and news of our arrival preceded us at the hostel! A fairly uneventful walk, with the exception of nearly being mown down (no exaggeration there..) by two very low flying and clearly struggling helicopters who clearly were not expecting any pedestrians on the road!

Once at the hostel, we were welcomed by a very effusive host, Billy who over the next few days would supply with amazing food and wine. And some more wine. And another glass for good measure. Beautifully kept hostel which we had all to ourselves! What a treat.

We got in several walks on the second day; one up the Hanging Valley track which is exactly as it describes - climbing up almost vertical faces solely on slippery tree roots was tricky on the way up and dangerous on the way back! We were rewarded with a fantastically remote waterfall which we may or may not have enjoyed in our birthday suits.

Our aim was to persuade Billy to let us take out the boat the hostel owns, but it was being used by the school part of the hostel and he didn't seem keen. Nevertheless, on our last day, Eleanor commandeered the double kayak and we set out onto the Sound! I wouldn't say the part we were in was the silent haven of the guidebooks, what with many tour and fishing boats coming to rock our unstable sit-upon, but man does the beauty live up to the hype. The densely forested mountainsides plunge straight into the water with waterfalls flowing over rocks everywhere, all ending up in the sound. We did see some penguins, but after they flew off, we changed our minds... We did see actual dolphins though! There's a pod that live in the Sound and we were incredibly lucky to see them come quite close to us. We overstretched ourselves on the way back and the wind and waves were really against us, but we made it back with minutes to spare in time for our bus (yes we cheated on the way back..)!Read more