Doubtful Sound

Jess and I spent this past weekend on the west coast of the South Island visiting Doubtful Sound. We had bought tickets, along with most of our roommates, for an overnight cruise through the fjord. (Our roommate Sandra had discovered a local discount for the trip which is why we were all going). It was an incredible trip. We left early Saturday morning for the town of Manapouri, our entry point to the Fjordland, driven by our Austrian roommate Michi.

On the road to Manapouri

Jess and a Kea

The drive was about 3 1/2 hours long, but it didn't feel it thanks to the beautiful scenery. Lambing was also in progress this past weekend, so we spent much of the drive looking for adorable lambs. Arriving in Manpouri was only the first step in our journey to Doubtful Sound though, as getting to the isolated fjord is a bit complicated. Manapouri is a small town in the southwest of New Zealand, and it sits on the edge of Lake Manapouri. After checking in at the tour office we took a boat across the lake, which took about an hour. We landed at a dock right next to the Manapouri Power Station, which is an underground hydro electric station that provides something like 14% of New Zealand's power. While waiting for our bus we also ran into a Kea, which is the world's only alpine parrot and has a reputation for mischief. Next up was a 30 minute bus ride to Deep Cove, our final point of departure. Our group, there were fourteen of us in total, made up about half the passengers on the boat. From the beginning the trip began to exceed our expectations. The boat was beautiful with plenty of space. Not only that but Jess and I got a four person cabin to ourselves. The biggest surprise was the food. We were greeted with huge banana chocolate chip muffins, and as much coffee or tea we wanted. After an hour or so of being on board we were served a delicious soup course. This was followed a few hours later by a full course buffet meal which was unbelievably delicious. They had everything from lamb, grilled salmon, and mussels to a wonderful pavlova for dessert. We also had a delicious buffet breakfast. Needless to say, we ate really well. The real highlight though was the scenery.

Doubtful Sound is an incredible place, and its scope and majesty are impossible to really capture in a picture. We gave it our best shot though! It rained nearly our entire time in the fjord, which made the trip a bit cold and wet. The rain wasn't all bad though, as it meant that the cliffs were covered in hundreds of stunning temporary waterfalls.

Waterfalls!

Benefits of a rainy day

We're on a boat!

Some nice scenery

The feeling of being in the fjord was pretty incredible, what was even better though was seeing the fjord from a kayak. After our soup course we went out on kayaks for about 45 minutes. Being right on the water surrounded by mountains was a pretty incredible feeling.

View from a kayak

Kayakers!

Enjoying some time on the water

After kayaking the crew gave us the option to take a dip in the water, which was near freezing (around 7 degrees Celsius). A few of us took them up on it; it was quite the shock to the system.

It was cold

The swimmers

The rest of our night was spent eating, relaxing, and playing charades. Unfortunately our trip had to end the next morning, but Doubtful Sound had one more surprise for us...snow!

The bus ride back was slow going

Snow on the road

Our first trip out of Dunedin was a rousing success. We saw beautiful scenery, bonded with some of our roommates, and even ate really well. We have plenty more pictures from our trip, which hopefully will make into onto Facebook sooner rather than later. Next weekend should be equally exciting, we are going to see the All Blacks!