Doubtful Sound

[Apologies – this is going to be a rather long blog entry.]

Motoring across Lake Manapouri

Got up early as bus was picking us up at 8.15am to drive us to Manapouri, the start of our Wilderness Cruise on the Doubtful Sound. Weather was dry but overcast and remained so all day, despite forecast of a fine day. (NZ weather seems to change so rapidly that their Met Office has a hard time of it.) Bus picked up people from other hotels and then dropped us off at Pearl Harbour in Manapouri where we met up the rest of our shipmates. Together there were ~20 of us.  

Pomona Island, Lake Manapouri

The Doubtful Sound is one of only two fiords in New Zealand’s Fiordland  that are accessible to tourists. The most famous and easiest reached is the Milford Sound, which can get as many as 3000 tourists on a peak summer day.  Access to the Doubtful Sound is restricted, however, with a maximum of 300 tourists in peak summer and much fewer normally.  This restriction is possible because the Doubtful Sound is not accessible by road. Getting there is a three stage process.  First a boat trip across Lake Manapouri to West Arm, site of the Manapouri Hydro Electric Power Station, then a bus ride over the Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove on the Doubtful Sound, and finally the boat cruise on the Doubtful Sound.  The only other access to the Doubtful Sound is by sea.

Wilmot Pass

The Manapouri Power Station was built in the early 1960s to provide power for a huge aluminium processing plant in the south east of New Zealand. It is located on the far side of Lake Manapouri to utilise the large catchment of Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri (~1500 sq km). Once the location was decided on, there was a ‘gotcha’. The bridges (of which there are many) on the roads into Manapouri were not capable of taking the weight of all the vehicles and equipment that would be needed to build the power station some 20 km away over the lake. The solution – build a road over the Wilmot Pass linking the Doubtful Sound to West Arm and bring all the heavy equipment into the Doubtful Sound by boat. Once the Power Station was built, the road remained and enabled tourist access. Most of the excursions to the Doubtful Sound also include a visit (by bus underground) to the Power Station, which lies deep beneath the ground.

View of Deep Cove from Wilmot Pass

Our guides, Toby & Justin, who doubled as boat skipper & mate, welcomed us and then broke the bad news that, due to the breakdown of their bus the previous day, they were having to borrow a bus from another tour operator and this bus would not be able to visit the Manpouri Power Station.  This was greeted by a groan of disappointment from all the men and a shrug from all the ladies. (John says it is the largest underground power station in the southern hemisphere, generating some 700 MWatts and well worth a visit!)  Then we all hopped aboard the Fiordland Explorer, a very small motor cruiser and buzzed at over 20 knots  across Lake Manapouri to West Arm.

Lake Manapouri itself is very beautiful with lots (~30) of islands. It’s all glacier made, so most of the shoreline is near vertical mountainsides. The trip across the lake took 45 minutes then we disembarked at West Arm. Here we browsed an information display about Lake Manapouri and the Power Station while we waited for our borrowed bus. The bus trip over the Wilmot Pass provided spectacular views of forests, gorges, waterfalls and, ultimately, Deep Cove on the Doubtful Sound.

Doubtful Sound

We boarded Tasman Explorer which, thankfully, was a bit bigger than Fiordland Explorer, and headed out into the Sound. The scenery was majestic. Although overcast, visibility was excellent and we could see the tops of these huge mountains out of which the Sound has been carved. Many of the surrounding peaks were 1500 – 1800 m. Like Lake Manapouri, the mountains drop almost vertically into the water and it is incredible how the trees have managed to cover the cliffs, supporting one another by intertwining their roots in a bed of moss and lichen. Every now and then there is a scar of bare rock, caused by a ‘tree avalanche’, where the tree roots lost their hold and all tumbled into the sea.  The main cause of the tree avalanches is earthquakes, for the area is likely to receive a Richter 7 quake almost every decade, according to the guide.

Looking back into the Doubtful Sound from the entrance

Seal colony

Early on our hopes were raised when Toby thought he saw some penguins but, alas, they disappeared. We motored up the Sound, passing islands and side arms of the Sound. Sat out on the front deck most of the time, catching the wind and the atmosphere. The wind increased but from the north so it wasn’t too cold. We motored right to the mouth of the sound, where it joins the Tasman Sea, and in amongst some islands on which there is a colony of fur seals. The boat was able to go up close to these islands so we all got a good view of the seals. This was lucky as most days, apparently, it is too rough for the boat to go in amongst these islands.  We also went in amongst the ‘shelter isles’, another group of islands near the entrance where a boat could moor.  Almost all of the Sound is too deep to moor a boat.

Looking down Crooked Arm

On our way back down the Sound, we turned into Crooked Arm, one of the side arms of the Sound, and there we saw a pod of Doubtful Sound dolphins. They came close up to the boat and frolicked around us. John took lots of ‘almost got it’ pictures of disappearing dolphins J All too soon it was time to tie up in Deep Cove and make our way back home, over the Wilmot Pass again and back across Lake Manapouri. A fabulous trip.