An early-ish start today for something we'd
booked several weeks ago - an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound with Real
Journeys.
Drive to Manapouri
It just shows how little else other than
snowboarding we've done in the last few months - we were in new territory as
soon as we went past the entrance to the Remarkables! (that's only 4km from
home!) quite strange seeing all the same mountains from the other side of the
lake (I hadn't even realised there was a road there to be honest!).
Other than thousands of new-born lambs and
snow-capped mountains there's not a lot down this way - barely anyone lives
here. You can really see how there are 10 times as many sheep as people in New Zealand! Leaving one mountain range behind, the peaks
of Fjorldland got ever closer, and soon enough we arrived in Manapouri, where
our cruise departed from. Had plenty of time to spare, so went down to the
perfectly still lake to take it all in. Fantastic! So calm and peaceful.
Gordon Ramsey would have a thing or 2 to
say about Café 23 in Manapouri. Looks great from the outside, freshly painted,
nice benches in the sun, looking over the lake. So the 2 old munters working
there just sit out the front on the sunniest tables, smoking away. Went inside,
which looks all nice but smelt of nothing but grease. Strange empty food
warmers and cakes in the cupboard. What's this place all about? Coffee machine
seemed to have them stumped too. Sort it out!
Boat across Lake
Manapouri
Started our journey on a catamaran across
the lake. Incredible how still it was - check these pics out:
Arrived at the other side where Manapouri
Hydro-Electric Power Station sits. Now, Dan Black - how the hell did they build
that then? Find out please. So you find an inaccessible spot on the edge of a
fjord, dig underneath it for several kms and build an underground powerstation?
Ok then. On to a coach with the most bored of boring
coach drivers, to take us up and over Wilmot Pass,
apparently the most expensive road in NZ at $2/cm.
Fjorldlands Navigator
27 of us boarded the Fjordlands Navigator, our boat for the next 24 hours, at Deep Cove, the head of Doubtful Sound. We’d done well doing this in the low season, as the boat has room for 70! We also got locals’ special prices – only around $400 for the 2 of us for the cruise and all meals – bargain! Didn’t let the others on board know they’d paid almost twice what we had!)
After an introduction by the crew, the boat set off down the Sound. Weather and scenery were amazing – perfect blue skies and trees right down to water level. Doubtful isn’t quite as steep-sided as Milford Sound, but is longer and less touristy – we barely saw another boat in the whole time we were there. First stop was at Crooked Arm, where we went kayaking around the shoreline – so peaceful! Back on board, we had the opportunity to go swimming if we wanted. Well I don’t think they’d even finished asking the question before I’d climbed up and jumped off the back! Mid-air Sloth:
From there we cruised over to Blanket Bay (see photo of Blanket Bay Hotel above) – long used as a safe spot to anchor after rough seas. Headed on out to sea – quite a lot of swell by then; got some great shots of fur seals basking in the sun.
Back into the Sound again with sails up and saw a Fjordland Crested Penguin – got these mad bright yellow eyebrows. Was hard to get a good shot of him unfortunately.
We spent the night anchored in First Arm. Ridiculous amount of food there in our buffet dinner, accompanied by a good Triplebank Pinot Noir and of course finished off with a selection of cheeses. Damn English twathead on table behind us.
Day 2
Managed to get myself up and out of my deep sleep to catch sunrise – a very eerie experience! So stoked about the photos I got, especially this one (which at last count had 566 views on Flickr!:
Farmed out a huge buffet breakfast, before cruising over to Hall Arm – wasn’t long before a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins was swimming alongside the boat and jumping up out of the water! Genius. At the end of this part of the fjord they turned the engines off for “sounds of silence”, allowing us to fully appreciate the sounds of the wildlife. Felt so lucky to be in such an amazing peaceful place, albeit damn cold cos we were in the shade and I was just in shorts and thongs!
Back to Queenstown
Straight back to Deep Cove, over Wilmot’s Pass, across Lake Manapouri and ashore. Stopped at a great café on the way back at Five Rivers – check these beauties out – who’d win? Alpaca vs. Mini Cheval. Alpacas really aren’t right at all! Looks like a cross between a llama and a sheep, makes a noise like a cat/sheep and scratches itself like a dog. I wouldn’t want to be in his head, especially hanging round with Marvin the Mini Cheval all day.
Lambs, lambs everywhere.
Been a bit of a Slothanory that one, but was an amazing couple of days. So lucky with the weather, cos 2 days later the roads down there were blocked with 30cm of snow! What’s that all about then? Gone from 23c to deep snow.