If we ever had doubts...


We like Te Anau.  It's situated on Lake Te Anau, in Fiordland, and while it's pretty flat, the magnificent complex of mountains and fiords are only a hair's breadth away.  It's also a lot quieter and calmer than Queenstown. Yes, we like it.

Having arrived late the previous night and checked ourselves into our motel apartment, we were up bright an early, as we had a tour booked to go and experience the wonderfully named Doubtful Sound.  We'd been told by Joyce at the I-site in Q'town, that Milford Sound is so busy with boats, kayaks and helicopters, that it really isn't very peaceful, and that we would enjoy Doubtful much more.  How right was she!

Doubtful Sound isn't really a sound at all; it's a fiord, as a post-glacial valley flooded by the sea, but Sound stuck with the early sealers and whalers, so a Sound it is.  Captain James Cook got close to the entrance in 1770, but, fearing he would not be able to sail the Endeavour back out, resisted entering the inlet and instead continued on around the island.  Felipe Bauza eventually charted it in 1793, displacing Cook's doubts 14 years prior.

The only access to Doubtful Sound, other than by sea, is along the Wilmot pass, the only road in New Zealand which isn't connected to any other road.  It runs from Lake Manapouri to Doubtful Sound, so
Capt'n Grossart
to get there, you have to first cross Lake Manapouri.  We had the most amazing views across the lake, and after an hour's drive through more beautiful beech forest, we boarded the Patea Explorer, a cruising yacht with a capacity of 150, and speed of 30 knots. Compare this to the same sized Endeavour, which held 94 people, and traveled at 7-8 knots!  Certainly puts some perspective on what those explorers did.  If the views on the lake were amazing, the Sound was even more so.  Untouched beech forest, on the thinnest of soils, clung to the immense granite hills rising vertically out of the black water.  Rounded islands plunked in the middle of the sound and, as we made our way out towards the Tasman Sea, seal colonies sunning themselves on the rocky islands in at the Sound's mouth.  At one point the skipper turned the motors off and we all fell quiet, drifting on the water, listening to the birds calling and the stillness.  It was indescribably beautiful.  So I won't try to describe it anymore, I'll let the pictures do the talking:













We are off hiking the 4 day Kepler Track day after tomorrow, so next post in 5 days or so!

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