Doubtful Sound

We had an early morning today as we had to be on the road by 7:30 to make it to Manapouri by 10:15.  We probably could have left by 8, but we wanted to be sure.

Of course, the first thing I did was look for the mother duck and her 5 ducklings.  She wasn't around right away, but before we left, there she was, and I counted 5!  Whew, they made it through the night.  I've got to get away from here so I can stop worrying about them!

So we drove to Manapouri and were here before 10 am.  Great drive, and hardly anyone on the roads.  It's Sunday morning here and we got out before the marathoners got out and could race us down the road.  So we drove through a couple of interesting little places:

Mossburn - the Beer Capital of NZ - hmmm - we'd like to stop here but it was too early and we had no time; but then I heard it was the Deer Capital - must have misread that - now not so interested.  There are a lot of deer farms around here.

Athol - I wonder who lives here?!  Thum guy.

So we had to get to Manapouri because we had to check in for our cruise transportation by 10:15.  We were doing a cruise of Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park, a world heritage site.

We took a boat to get across Lake Manapouri, then a bus to get over Wilmot Pass to the end of Doubtful Sound, all before we got on the boat in Doubtful Sound!

We thought the weather wasn't going to cooperate today - rainy.  But then we found out that Manapouri gets about 3 METRES of rain a year, the summit of the pass gets about 6 metres of rain, and Doubtful Sound gets about 9 metres of rain per year, on average!  9 metres!  It rains 2 out of every 3 days here, or about 240 days/year.  So, it's just normal to rain and we shouldn't expect anything different.

As you can tell from many of the pictures, rain and cloud are definitely part of the story.  But we did see some beautiful scenery, including waterfalls galore.  This is on Lake Manapouri.  It snowed on the hills last night.



And so is this.  Check out the web-like rocks here.  All natural rock formations.



This is one of the 3 permanent waterfalls on the way to Doubtful Sound.

This is our first view of Doubtful Sound from the bus.



A couple of snaps from the boat on Doubtful Sound.

We cruised to the mouth of Doubtful Sound at the Tasman Sea.  So the sound got its name 'Doubtful' because Captain Cook hesitated coming into the sound as he was doubtful he'd get back out.  He called it Doubtful Harbour.  This is part of it - looking out onto the Tasman Sea.



There are 20 some fiords on this west coast.  Just beautiful landscape, and we saw some wildlife too.  There were some Fiordland Crested Penguins we saw swimming.  But I couldn't get a photo of them. There were some Bottlenose Dolphins which I did get a photo of.  They're larger here, apparently because of the colder water.

So I'm standing at the back of the boat to get some photos (I did this a lot).  It seemed like every time I was lining up a shot, this dude would come along, bend over, look at my camera to see if he was in the way, then turn to take his own shot with his stupid hat right in my viewfinder!



The New Zealand flag flying off the stern.  Did I tell you they're having a referendum to change the flag?  They have 5 to pick from that they have to rank (by Dec 11th, I think), then choose between the winner and the current flag.



Celebrating the end of another great day with a glass of bubbly.



I thought this sun beam shining through the clouds over Lake Manapouri was a fitting end to the day. It's taken from our room at the B&B we're staying in tonight.



One more day of driving tomorrow, then that's it!