Doubtful Sound: In Stereo

I’ve finally decided to get off my arse and write a blog entry, so here we go.

Great trip into Doubtful Sound over the weekend.  As you know, Ellen and I split up on Saturday. She did an all day cruise and I took off for a two day sea kayaking trip.

First off, I think Freestone Backpackers needs a little more play here as it was an exceptional place to stay. I couldn’t have imagined a lovelier place to spend a couple days in Fjiordland. They’re located about 3km into the country outside of Manapouri, which itself is just a town of about 200-300 people. It is set up on a hill overlooking the lakeside town, and the mountains beyond. The proprietors have their home on top of a hill surrounded by woods and a bit of grazing land for their two horses, which were just walking freely, munching on grass and leaving reminders of their presence around the place.

From New Zealand

There are about half a dozen small cabins going down the hill. Each had its own name, and the appearance that it was built by hand and outfitted with furniture and hardware that seemed to have been salvaged from somewhere else. It’s all quite rustic, but neat and tidy and well thought out – kind of like most of New Zealand. Each cabin has a small covered porch with a lazy boy or two, or a couch – think student housing - and a magnificent view of the scenery out toward the lake. There is a shared set of toilets and showers that are centrally located in a separate building for all cabins, which makes for dark walks/stumbles to the toilet in the middle of the night and cold walks to the shower in the morning, but these minor inconveniences were well worth it. The cabin interiors are pretty basic with a queen sized bed, table and chairs, sink, gas burner, and a wood burning stove for heat.

We took great advantage of the wood burning stove as we have been dying to be able to have some sort of fire for a long time. There are few greater comforts than cozying up to a fire with a fresh bottle of wine and a full belly – thanks to a delicious meal of pork rillittes with apple chutney on toasted bread, venison (accompanied by an ‘orgy of mushrooms, beets, and assorted vegetables’ – quoted direct from menu), fresh grilled fish with cinnamony roasted eggplant and parsnips, finished off with a sumptuous self saucing chocolate pudding with fresh spearmint ice cream, all washed down with a couple pints of Monteith’s black for myself and a well balance and smooth syrah for the Mrs, courtesy of the Redcliffe Café in Te Anau.

Without a television or even a radio to distract us, we fell into a meandering and pleasant conversation and let the wine leaden our eyelids to a point where we had no choice but to retire to bed at about 9pm. Thankfully, we did have enough sense to stoke the fire and fill up our hot water bottles to keep us warm and snug in our bed. Have you ever put a hot water bottle at the foot of your bed? If you haven’t tried it you should. Not only does it make your toes nice and toasty when you get into bed, but the thing stays warm all night. Any time I woke up chilled, I would just rest my feet back on the warm bottle and I would be right as rain in a minute. Delightful!

My adventure for the next two days began by meeting the kayaking group at the wharf in Manapouri. I was instructed to bring along a sleeping bag, food for the trip, a change of warm clothes, rain jacket, and lots of insect repellent, all of which I had tucked away in my backpack and a grocery bag. At the wharf I met Tara, our very young but competent guide, and the 7 other tourists on the trip. Altogether, we were 4 Americans, 2 Aussies, and 2 Kiwis. I immediately recognized I would be teamed up with the only other solo traveller, let’s call him ‘Mitch’, who is a University student from the States on a semester abroad at Otago University ‘Mitch’ may or may not have had Asperger’s syndrome and already seemed fairly green to these sort of trips as he was wearing blue jeans in a rainy place on a rainy morning. More on that later…

The ride takes roughly an hour down the fifth largest and second deepest lake in New Zealand and, truth be told, it is almost as beautiful as the fjiords themselves. As is typical of Fjiordland, there was extensive cloud cover, so the sunrise was just a yellowing of the sky to the East, just enough to illuminate the sharp, green mountain peaks and many waterfalls running down. All of the scenery slightly obscured by some low lying cloud and mist, such that the mountains adjacent to the lake could be seen in some detail, but those behind and in the distance were merely shadows. The mist and cloud in Fjiorland imparts an amazing texture to the landscape.

Upon arrival at the West Arm Power Station, unloaded our gear from the boat and reloaded into a van with a trailer. It should be noted that despite the cost of the trip, this was very much a do it yourself affair. There was one guide for eight tourists. This meant that we helped unload all of the gear for the trip – wet suits, clothing, tents, cooking supplies – including our own stuff from the boat and to the van. No one seemed to mind however, as the kind of people who sign up for this sort of thing are used to carrying their weight. This with the exception of ‘Mitch’, who seemed to be incapable of initiating any sort of activity without express direction from another human being.

Up and over the pass we went on New Zealand’s most expensive road – it cost $2NZ per inch when it was built back in the 1950’s. It is a gravel affair that is in most parts wide enough for two vehicles. Really, we not not even be able to access Doubtful Sound from this way if it were not for the power station as that is why the road was built in the first place. Heavy equipment and building materials were shipped into Doubtful Sound and then loaded on trucks to be taken over the pass for the building of the dam and power station. I won’t go into it, but the whole project was quite a feat of engineering. Google Manapouri Power Station if you are interested.

We arrived at Deep Cove, which is the closed end of Doubtful Sound, unloaded all of our gear, and loaded it into four tandem sea kayaks. We shoved off into a light rain and paddled for the rest of the day out of Deep Cove along the steep walls of the Fjiord.

From New Zealand

When I say ‘we’ paddled, I mean the guide, six other tourists and myself. ‘Mitch’ seemed to be suffering from some sort of dementia, such that he would take a few strokes, stop and go into some sort of trance, and then about 30 seconds later look around as if he had just been teleported into the kayak, and then start paddling again. And when I say strokes, I also use that term loosely because it was more like he was dipping his paddle into the water just to remind himself of its potential use. If you have ever paddled in the rear of a tandem kayak, you will know how frustrating this can be. Each time he decided to start paddling again I would have to reset my tempo to keep us in sync. At one point I started counting his strokes, thinking there may be some secret pattern and that he was trying to communicate with the creatures of the deep. All I could come with was that he always paddled an odd number of times and that he never paddled more than 29 times in a row. Perhaps I’m the crazy one… Maybe he had it all figured out that he could just be chauffered around the fjiord by some dumb shmuck who never stops paddling. Either way, I enjoyed the exercise.

There had been a light rain going all night and into the morning, so a multitude of waterfalls were gushing and skittering down the face of the rock. Just as at Lake Manapouri, there was a low lying cloud and mist that left a detailed view of the nearby walls of the Fjiords, but shrouded the outlying surroundings, giving the entire scene a textured appearance.

From New Zealand

It is not until you are inside the fjiord that you realize just how huge the whole thing is. It is 70 square km (30 sq miles) in area and 40km (25 miles) long, that is three times the size of Milford Sound, with four different arms that reach away from the main fjiord. It would probably take a ten day trip to see it all.

On the first day of paddling, we made it all the way down into and partially back out of the first arm (Hall Arm). Just as we were passing from the main fjiord into Hall Arm, the sky opened up a bit, the rain stopped, and there was actually some sunshine. The brighter greens that resulted lent a more lush appearance with the waterfalls cascading down. About 90% of these falls would be gone the next day without rain. The amount of rain coming down in the fjiords is tremendous with about 6m (19 and a half feet) of rain per year, but the entire ecosystem and appearance of the fjiords are dependent on this. It makes the rain so much more tolerable when you keep in mind that if it were not for the rain, the place wouldn’t look anything like this.

From New Zealand

By the end of a full day of travel and paddling for two I was famished, even with a brief shoreline lunch of sesame crackers, hummus and an apple. The outfitter had a semi-permanent camp on the shore where had been placed a large, mesh, community tent on a wooden platform. This is where we would prepare our meals – tuna and a package of instant rice, yum! – and relax for the evening. We carried our kayaks out of the water and unloaded our supplies. Quite nice that it was not raining, but the sandflies were on us like Jessica Simpson at a Chinese buffet.

Meanwhile, I’m walking around in a wet, wetsuit and my warm, dry clothes are looking pretty inviting. The dilemma: strip down to change and be covered in blood sucking sandflies in the process, but sooner to warmth, or shiver while I set up the tent, with less exposed skin for those evil creatures, and then change inside a mostly sandfly free tent. I chose the former and three days later I am still itching in inconvenient places.

Within the safe confines of the community tent we had a piping hot, simple dinner and friendly conversation – everyone has seen Avatar, but me – and there was even wine, cleverly dispensed from a plastic bag. It was the American girl’s birthday, so her partner brought steaks and a piece of chocolate cake and we all sang happy birthday, how nice. ‘Mitch’ sat quietly, clutching his bag of food and not eating a thing, how odd...

It was early to bed and a peaceful night as the rushing sound of the river lulled us to sleep. Unfortunately, my sleeping pad had the nasty habit of relieving itself of its air over the course of about three hours, so I had to wake up a couple of times to blow it back up again, life’s little inconveniences.

Tara woke us all up with voice that was way too cheery for 6:30am, and after wolfing down a warm bowl of muesli it was time to pack up the tent and insert myself once again into my still very damp wetsuit. I had been dreading this since the night before and it felt exactly as bone chilling as I had anticipated. To try this at home, while it is still nice and chilly in the mornings, get up out of bed, strip naked, and wrap yourself in a wet towel. To make the experience even more authentic, see if you can get hold of some sandflies.

The plan was to pack up the kayaks, carry them back down to the water, and shove off, but, as luck would have it, we spotted a pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming just off the shore. I was amazed at how close they were, probably about 15 feet from the beach. At first, their dorsal fins just skimmed the surface, then we could see and hear them coming up to breathe and blowing through their blowholes. Next, as if on cue, several of them began leaping clear of the water. 'Mitch's paddle to porpoise communications had worked! We all stood there, mouths gaping, as they put on an acrobatic show for about ten minutes. It was an auspicious start, watching this exhibition of aqua-mammalian athletic prowess with the backdrop of the mist ensconced sound.

After all of the excitement, we finished carrying out the boats, plugged ourselves in and paddled off toward the main fjiord. The scenery was much the same as the day before with a noticeably reduced number of waterfalls, given the absence of rain since the afternoon before. 'Mitch’ continued his paddle and stop routine, despite our battling a fair headwind in the main fjiord, but again, I didn’t mind much – good exercise.

We made a brief lunch stop, during which I polished off my remaining ration of crackers, fruit a Bumper Bar, and managed to consume an entire ‘mini’ wheel of cheese. Thankfully, my nose was separated from my lower half for the return trip and the episodic vibrating of the boat didn’t seem to throw off ‘Mitch’s paddling mantra.

The rest of the trip was much like the beginning in reverse, with transfers from kayak to van to boat, with majestic scenery all the way. Already-worn nylon pants, warm socks, and an old, synthetic ¼ zip shirt never felt so luxurious. It was altogether an amazing outing and I would do it again in a heartbeat, only next time I’ll spend five days.