16th 17th November
Friday and Saturday
Its very easy to loose track of what day it is and as time has moved on its got worse.

The drive from Queenstown was about 4 hours to Mannapouri. The scenery was a mix,
plenty of farms and a surprising amount of farmed deer. It becomes apparent not many folk live down here and they say 7 sheep to each person in NZ. 19,000 inhabitants in south island out of 4.3 million in all, still not a lot


Te Annau was the town closest to Mannapouri, I use the word town loosely as it was like a big village on a huge lake. It was dull and nippy,there but apparently buzzes with Trampers” ( walkers) in the summer.

Mannapouri had what I expected mammoth views of what we were to encounter the next day. We booked into our motel and I felt quite down whenI saw the room, it had seen better days and was very tired. Im not a room snob by any mean feat, but Icouldn’t understand why I had chosen it on the internet. The reason became apparent when we went in the big bar with a lovely huge log fire and views of the lake Mannapouri and fjordland beyond.
The food was pretty goods too . Couldn’t use the internet for long as it was really expensive, it has varied so much on this trip.

Early to bed and up at 6.30 and out side waiting for the tour bus at 7.30……yawn…… 230;.we were taken with our fellow travellers a party of Dutch folk to the boat, and a smattering of germans and English.

We first crossed Mannapouri Lake by boat on a 45 min trip which landed at the Hydro Electric Power Station at the end of the lake and the start of the wilderness.

First was the trip to go underground by coach, an old coach....

The coach took us 2 kilometers underground via a tight fitting tunnel to the depths under the lake where we could see the workings of the station. Its didn’t take long, it was steep and rocky, with the coach almost touching the sides........Interesting once there but hot and airless, wouldnt want to linger long.


Then back on the coach, the bumpy ride, it bounced to the surface, with the
coach barely fitting into the craggy wall space.

The Doubtfull Sound our main objective, was 28 k from the end of Lake Mannapouri, so the bus continued through thick rainforest on a dirt road with beautiful surprise views of huge
waterfalls .

The old bus was old, and struggled up to the pass and over where we then first spied the Doubtful Sound, one of those Wow views that surpass all seen before.


We then got on our boat to have a 3 to 4 hour tip along the fjords, stunning rainforest steep granite sides dropping into the sea, the islands, and the many arms of the fjord opening up other views. How can a camera capture what iveseen, well I tried but I know it doesn’t reflect the moment. The waters were silky smooth, hardly a ripple till the boat carved its way along disturbing it.
It was only our little boat, we seemed very small compared to the steep sides and the deep water.






Fortunately the way we came to the sound by boat and then coach limits the amount of people arriving and so you do get a sense of the vast unkown and can imagine Captain Cook arriving in there for a safe harbourafter the wild seas, he named it Doubtful because once he was in he realised the winds were seemingly all westerlies and were for a month, he doubted he’d
ever get an easterly to get out again .

We were lucky to see the little penguins local to this region, both in the water and on the rocks. One sweet pair was swimming on their backs and cleaning their belly’s!!!


We eventually left the eerily still silk like fjord water to reach the end of Doubtful Sound and hit
the ocean, the boat got rather rocked around a bit and Tom and I went up to and enjoyed the momentum as we really dipped and rose( I used to have a fear of boats, but I seem to be fine now!!), I was quite hard to hold on and I did think heck I should go downstairs but to be
honest I dare not move so I was stuck where I was, but it was worth it .









Entering back into the sound we saw more penguins and seals.the skipper took us a foot away from the sheer rock face at one point , and the young’uns on board were able to get under a waterfall, sensible oldies stayed dry!!





Back to the jetty and then the bus ride again along the bumpy grit dirt track and then the boat trip back to Mannapouri. We both felt really tired, but what a day. The guy Chris, who stayed with us all the time was so enthusiastic about his part of the world he imparted that enthusiasm on us all.

Back to the motel tired.......next stop the deep south scenic route to Ivercargill.