Fiordlands

We spent the next few days exploring the Fiordland National Park, a designated World Heritage area. This area is fairly remote and imposing. Our trip to Doubtful Sound was taken totally in overcast/rainy weather – a fact that had both positives and negatives (gee…heard that before). Because it was raining, we saw, quite literally, hundreds of waterfalls cascading through the forests, ferns and down impressive cliff sides. On the other hand, because it was raining, our pictures leave much to be desired. Oh well…it is one of the world’s wettest regions but nevertheless…some sunshine would have been nice.

Our trip to Doubtful Sound required quite a bit of coordination – fortunately on the part of the tour company, not us. All we had to do was show up on time. We started off with a bus ride from Te Anau up to the small village of Manapouri, situated on, well, Lake Manapouri. The driver was interesting and funny, sharing historical information and anecdotes all along the way. We boarded a boat that took us across the lake, past numerous islands and bays to the other side. Here, in the mid 20th century, they had undertaken a huge project to create an underground power station. It has a very low profile on the lake itself, unlike the huge, massive things we have. From here we got to travel down the access tunnel to check out the power station (looks just like Bonneville only a bit smaller and underground). When we came out, we traveled across a connection of land (the general direction the water travels after the dam), over the Wilmot Pass and down to Deep Cove where we boarded the boat that actually took us through the sound. Apparently there’s an ongoing battle with the name of these sounds…this is the Fiordland National Park and since these ‘sounds’ were created by glaciers, they’re actually fiord, however, way back when, someone named them ‘sounds’ so it has stuck. So…we took a trip through the fiord named Doubtful Sound. (sounds are made by rivers). End of lesson.

The scenery was spectacular - despite the clouds and rain. The falls are absolutely everywhere, traveling over cliffs, through cracks in the walls, meandering through the foliage and finally cascading into the sound, fiord, whatever. The guide on the boat gave us an opportunity to experience the awesome silence of the fiord. They stopped the boat in one of the small arms and turned off everything; motor, air conditioners, microphones, and asked everyone to go outside, get comfortable and just stand still. It was amazing – the birds you could hear (New Zealand has no indigenous mammals except for one bat – the original wildlife was all birds). It really was one of those exotic, shivery, calming moments.