Jess Wanders Off

Spectacular Doubtful Sound

Today I went on a day-long tour of Doubtful Sound, which isn’t as touristy as Milford Sound but is actually much more beautiful (in my opinion). It’s a lot more isolated than Milford Sound and our cruise boat was literally the only one out there. It was incredibly gorgeous. Waterfalls were EVERYWHERE and we saw a bunch of seals.

To start our Doubtful Sound cruise, we took a bus to Manapouri, about 20 minutes or so away.  Then we got on a boat and did an hour-long cruise across Lake Manapouri.

Lake Manapouri

After that we got on ANOTHER bus and made our way through the alpine region.  We saw the Manapouri hydroelectric power station, which is probably the prettiest power station in the world, given its spectacular natural surroundings.  We also saw lots of beech trees.  

Manapouri Hydroelectric Power Station

After that we finally got situated on our cruise ship for the 3-hour long tour of Doubtful Sound, the highlight of the trip.  Doubtful Sound is so, so pretty.  The sense of serenity and isolation was incredible.

The mists of Doubtful Sound

Like Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound’s not really a sound but a fjord, carved from powerful glaciers.  Also like Milford, Doubtful gets a huge amount of rainfall, and today was no different.  It rained a little less than it had yesterday, but the precipitation only enhanced the mysterious, moody atmosphere of this magical fjord.  The mists, of course, lended to that feeling as well.

 The isolated fjord

What I especially liked about Doubtful as opposed to Milford, besides the sense of isolation and tranquillity, was that the Doubtful Sound tour was much more extensive.  We got to traverse the whole fjord, all the way out to the open sea (which in this case is the Tasman Sea).  After these rocks, the next landmass wasn’t until all the way out to Tasmania.  So that was pretty cool.

 Opening out to the Tasman Sea

Another nice part about the Doubtful Sound trip was that we were able to see a massive New Zealand-fur seal colony.  It was mostly the males out and about on the rocks — not too many young ones or females — and they were big fellows.

 Doubtful Sound Seal Colony