Day 78 - Doubtful Sound

We had a nice early start to the day so we could have breakfast and make ourselves a packed lunch for today’s trip out to Doubtful Sound. The coach picked us up from Te Anau at 08:30 and took us on a 20 minute or so drive to the town of Manapouri, where we could all board the first cruise of the day.

This boat took us on a 45 minute journey across the placid waters of Lake Manapouri and offered very nice views on its own, though the main part of the trip was yet to come.

We reached the other side and could see the outside of the huge power station here; something which we would later visit as it’s quite an impressive structure. Firstly though, we all got split onto two separate coaches for the next part of our excursion which would take us through Wilmot Pass until we reached the main cruise boat. Whilst on this scenic drive we were being given information about our surroundings and the history of the road and land etc along with little mentions such as: “Around the next corner you’ll be able to get a glimpse of the head of Doubtful Sound.” And so on. These comments were always followed by a unified “Wow” or “Amazing” by the rest of the coach which made the two of us giggle. They did this at every opening in the trees that allowed such views, and to be fair to them, all the views were that good.

We boarded the main boat which then set off on the 3 hour cruise through the waters of Doubtful Sound. This whole trip was incredible offering some of the best views of our entire trip so far; the weather was sunny with a pretty clear sky and so all the hills and mountains around us were relatively unobstructed. This great weather meant we could go on deck and get better photos though it was very chilly with the wind. We imagine it would be equally as impressive on a day where it chucks it down as the rain would create hundreds more temporary waterfalls to cascade down the hills. The trip was also enhanced by the fact that there were no other cruises on the waters and we think this is because Real Journeys are the only ones who operate on Doubtful Sound; thus giving a more tranquil and relaxing experience. The scale of the sides of these valleys was impressive to say the least and seemed to play tricks on the mind as we found out later on. 

We ventured out to the patea and could see the Tasman Sea meeting the fresh waters before turning around and slowly making our way back, branching out along the forks off the main water as we went. One of these detours brought us very close to what appeared to be a very small waterfall from a distance; when up close though this tiny waterfall was over 50 metres high and the cliffs towered way above this. Another of these side routes took us to an area of water amongst all this stunning scenery where the skipper shut of the engines and we were all asked to be as quiet as possible (no cameras or walking etc) so we could experience Doubtful Sound’s raw beauty. This was very nice and created quite a dramatic atmosphere for a few minutes, letting us take in the grandeur of the area with only the sounds of falling water and birds in the distance.

It wasn’t long before we were back on dry land and making the coach, then 45 minute cruise and then coach trip back to our campsite though just before all of that we did make the stop at the power station and venture deep through the tunnel to see the inner workings of it. This tunnel spirals deep into a mountain and is approximately 2km long. Just the scale of the place and how it was made was impressive enough and made for quite a nice end to a fabulous day out. The whole trip was money well spent and definitely something we’d recommend to others as doing the trip is probably the only way to fully appreciate the area; Corrie’s got good photos but we don’t think any amount of snaps can possibly do justice to such a gorgeous place.

Back at camp we decided we couldn’t be bothered cooking tea tonight and so went and treated ourselves to Subway sandwiches for our meal!