Doubtful Sound

So not far off 13 years to the day since Sam and I did this trip before, we left Te Anau just after 9.15 to head down to the harbour at Manapouri to board our boat across Lake Manapouri at about 9.45. The drive was about 15 minutes and we collected our boarding passes and our packed lunches we had pre-ordered - 2 vegetarians, a deluxe and an Asian to give us a good spread of food that everyone might eat.

The boat left with 41 people on the trip - in summer it can be full with 150 people so we would have plenty of space. The weather was a little dull and cloud, but as it did 13 years ago, it cleared as we crossed the lake and by the time we got across it was sunny. The journey across took about 0 minutes and was to a backdrop of snow capped mountains and an entertaining commentary from the captain, including the fact the lake was officially 441m deep, but a boat's sonar had recently recorded it as 465m, which would put it back to the top of the list of NZ deepest lakes.

We reached West Arm where we disembarked and waited in the visitor centre (last toilet stop for about an hour) then boarded our bus to take us across the Wilmot Pass to Doubtful Sound. The road was built in the 1960's to allow machinery to be transported from the Sound to the Manapouri hydro electric power station (which Sam and I had visited before but this was not currently on the agenda due to maintenance work). The bus journey had a good commentary from our driver/guide Justin and we stopped several times to take pictures at scenic spots.

We got to Deep Cove on Doubtful Sound and boarded our boat, an impressive three level catamaran, with lots of room for us all to spread out. We headed out towards the Tasman Sea and, like Milford Sound the scenery was spectacular. Different to Milford in that the slopes weren't quite as steep or tall and seemed to have more vegetation on. But the sense of remoteness was more as we were the only boat on the Sound.

We sailed past Sanctuary Rocks at the mouth of the Sound and the swell got bigger to the delight of the kids - like a real life pirate ship ride as we stood on the bow of the boat. It had got noticeably colder as we went up the Sound and the sun had gone in here so the wind was quite biting. It was worth it though as the next rocks at the mouth (about 2m further out) were a breeding ground for fur seals and there were probably a hundred or more on the rocks - cute as before, though bigger than the ones we had seen on the Peninsula at Dunedin. After a few minutes watching the seals we headed back into the Sound and sailed around the Sanctuary Rocks and saw tow Fiordland Crested penguins, very rare and very cute. After a few minutes they seemed to get a bit worried about us watching them and hopped up the rocks and hid behind one, so we moved on. We had also seen an albatross (not a royal one) swooping above the waves.

We sailed back up the sound towards Crooked Arm, a spur off the side of the main sound. Conditions were cold nut perfect with hardly any wind and the reflections of the fjord sides in the water were very sharp. We saw classic U shaped hanging glacial valleys and towards the end of the Arm everyone was asked to stay still and silent and all the boat engines were turned off. All we could hear was the lapping of waves and occasional bird song, otherwise silence.

This was broken by the engines going back on and we sailed out and made our way back to the Deep Cove dock. We reversed the journey by coach and boat over Lake Manapouri. We went to Ristorante di Toni for a pizza, lasagne and ice cream tea - very nice it was too.

Last time we preferred Doubtful to Milford. Both were good this time but I think with flying into Milford that was the more memorable and the sun on the snow capped peaks made it spectacular. Seeing the rare penguins in Doubtful was a great bonus. Both enjoyable days.Read more