This was our fourth weekend in Fiordland and I think it may have been the best one! Instead of an epic hike in the mountains, this was a weekend spent on the water.
Keith found the best backpackers place yet! Freestone Backpackers is a series of lodges perched up on a hill with amazing views of Lake Manapouri-for only 60 bucks a night!
Keith and I both checked out
Doubtful Sound, but in different ways. While Keith went on a two day kayaking trip, I went on a cruise of the sound (which is actually a fjord). Since I still had a wounded hand and couldn’t go on Keith’s 2 day kayak trip, I did an all day cruise of Doubtful Sound. I was truly hoping that I would be the only single on the trip, knowing that if there was another person on their own I would be stuck chatting with them. It’s not that I’m anti-chatting, it’s quite the opposite, but on such a peaceful, solitary place as Doubtful I was really looking forward to enjoying it on my own.
Doubtful is more remote than Milford Sound is, so that means less crowds and a little longer journey to get there. Here is how to get to Doubtful Sound. First-get picked up at your hotel. After waiting at the end of the drive way of my backpacker, enjoying stunningly gorgeous views while standing in the middle of the road, the bus for my Doubtful Sound cruise finally showed up. It was hard to tell how many singles/couples were on the bus, but there was an even number of 8 people, so I knew. Then taken to the dock where you get on a boat to cross Lake Manapouri (it was a beautiful morning!)
Then you take a bus to the
Manapouri hydroelectric power station through an incredibility long underground tunnel-I have to imagine that the drive was very similar to Dr. Evil's commute to work! There you just check out the largest hydroelectric power station in NZ.
Then you get back on the bus and drive about 45 mins (finally!) to Doubtful Sound where you hop on another boat, that luckily doesn't go fast, for three hours of checking out the sound/fjord. It was after the trip on the boat across Lake Manapouri and the bus ride to the power station we finally got to Deep Cove and to the boat for our cruise that I got trapped in conversation. There’s nothing like a 19 year old British girl to help put life into perspective and make you realize that ‘Oh my God, being 19 feels like light years ago!’ Talking to someone who’s idea of home is living at home with her parents and brothers and her reaction to the fact I don’t live in the state as my family-and prefer it that way-was pure shock.
What really cracked me up the most was her reaction to the idea of marriage. It went something like this: ‘My husband is on an overnight kayaking trip, so I want to keep my eyes out for kayaks.’ ‘Oh my God, you’re married! How long have you been married?!’ Almost four years.’ A look of shocking, disgusted horror rips across her face, like I had just told her I was actually on the cruise to find Cthulhu’s sunken tomb and that when I did all life as she knows it will be destroyed by this ancient alien squid looking god. Really marriage isn’t
that bad! Well, maybe when you’re 19 it seems like it is. Then she asks what her face already did, ‘It is really horrible?’ What do you say!? I laughed and ‘I’m sure for some people it is, but for me it’s really been a lot of fun.’ She just looked at me suspiciously. Obviously I was part of some sort of conspiracy to make people think marriage wasn’t truly awful. It was time to escape this line of questioning and retreat to the top of the boat.
It was so windy and rainy that only two other people were up there, an adorable couple of extremely mismatched heights. Finally, peace and quiet and amazing views, this is what I came here for. From here you can see just how huge Doubtful Sound really is. There were parts about the cruise that were slightly disappointing: I was hoping that we would get right into the huge waterfalls like we had on the cruise in Milford Sound and we didn’t and we also didn’t really see any wildlife. But after thinking that this cruise is only twice as long as the cruise I went on in Milford and how Doubtful is three times bigger it’s not surprising that there just isn’t time to play around in the waterfalls like that. And the wildlife, the pod of dolphins that live in the Sound were waiting around to put on a show for Keith and his kayaking group, so that was cool with me.
It looked like it was going to be another cloudy, rainy day on a boat in Fiordland, but no! The clouds started to clear and I got some blue sky!!
So I got kind of the best of both worlds with loads of waterfalls and warm clear day, and I didn't need my nautical themed pashmina afghan at all!
On the way back to Manapouri I finally got to see a
Kea-I was so jealous of Keith who saw one last weekend! These cheeky buggers are the only mountain parrots in the world and are also known for ripping apart backpacks and damaging cars. I guess this makes up for not seeing any dolphins, but of course Keith saw a bunch of dolphins!
This may have been our last weekend in Fiordland during this trip, at least it was a great time!
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