Doubtful Sound

We got to Te Anau on Friday and spent the weekend walking around town and doing a short section of the Kepler Track, a 60km circular track running through Fiordland. We walked about 6km in total!

Monday was the day of the big spend tourist excursion we picked for our trip to NZ. Based on advice from our friends Sarah and Jens in Auckland, we chose to do the day trip to Doubtful Sound, and all we can say to sum it up is WOW! We booked the early departure (07:30) so an early start from Te Anau for the 20 minute drive to Pearl Harbour in Lake Manapouri where the company REAL NZ departs from (they have the exclusive concession for Doubtful Sound tours). The first part of the trip is across Lake Manapouri. It was a beautiful, sunny, clear day, somewhat rare around Fiordland. At the far end of the lake is the Lake Manapouri Power station, where the next stage of the trip begins. The power station is produces 800 MW of power for the aluminium smelter in Bluff and is pretty unique. The turbines are powered by the 230 meter drop from the lake with the water exiting through 2 x 10km long tunnels through the mountain to Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound. The history of the project is rife with secret government deals, and politicians ignoring the will of New Zealanders. It resulted in the creation of the Save Manapouri Campaign that became the basis for the environmental movement in NZ. They saved both Lake Manapouri and Lake Te Anau from environmental destruction from the proposed raising of the lake levels by 30 meters. Signatures from over 10% of the NZ population at the time were delivered to parliament, ignored by the governing National Party at the time, and resulted in a change of government, saving the lakes!

After the trip across the lake, the next part was a 50 minute drive over the pass to reach Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound. Our driver for the bus trip, Michelle, provided commentary for the entire trip, giving us a great overview of the region. Of note other than actual view to Deep Cove, is the tree shown below. It’s over 900 years old and was part of the Ent forest in the Lord of the Rings.

The best part of the trip (they were all great btw) was the boat trip in Doubtful Sound. (in reality, Doubtful Sound, and Milford sound further north are all fiords, but early names stuck).

The sound is over 40 km long and 420 meters deep. The views are stunning and reminded us both of the splendour of the West Coast of Canada, where we spent many years sailing up the long reaches. The commentary really made the trip, lots of historical and cultural background. We were also able to get right to the entrance of the sound as the weather on the Tasman sea was pretty calm. Captain James Cook spied the sound in the late 1700’s but did not sail in, but sent a long boat. They did not realize the full extent of the sound until much later. The 2 rocks by themselves pictured below are called the Rabbit Ears and are still used for navigation from the Tasman Sea into Doubtful Sound. We took a lot of photos, and I’ve tried to include the best of what we saw below.