A rude awakening at 6.45am with the alarm going off, we needed to check in for our coach at 8am and had to move the van as we'd decided to switch camp sites. A takeaway sandwich for breakfast, a quick panic when Shirl thought the coach had left without us and Dave was ahem...in the loo, 8.30 and we were off!

A drive to Manapouri - the next town (pop. 350, Te Anau pop. 2,500) through rolling farmland and red tussock scrub (much loved by cows apparently!) and we were ready to collect our ready-made - and scrummy packed lunch, Shirl did a quick check before leaving on our first boat ride across Lake Manapouri. If you check the NZ map of Fjordland you'll see that Doubtful Sound (Doubtful Harbour as named by Captain Cook), is one of seven 'Sounds' and is fairly inaccessible hence the complicated journey.

After a genteel scrum to board, the boat ride across the Lake was on a very elegant catamaran with 'Real Journey's' - a ship designed for our every comfort with plenty of viewing decks, covered areas and tea and coffee 'on tap' as well as a Nature guide who gave us the low down on the history, flora, fauna and sea life as our journey progressed. The weather when we set out was cloudy and grey - though warm - and gave the Sound a mysterious look. Fortunately the words of one Richard Henry in 1896 didn't apply to us today - "This is a fine country for the waterproof explorer" and it was to be a day for insect repellent (damn sand flies) and sun cream!

The first boat ride over - it was onto the coach and the amusing droll banter of our coach driver for a journey over the Wilmot's Pass to Deep Cove where we would pick up our boat for the exploration of Doubtful. And awesome it was! We were told the Sound is 430m at its maximum depth and 1695m at its highest mountain peak. The sides of the Sound drop pretty much sheer into the water and continue straight down, carved out thousands of years ago by giant glaciers. The 'soil' on the mountain sides is very shallow and poor with most of its nutrients being washed out into the Sound and giving it its brown tannin colour. Apparently the fresh water washed down the mountain sides floats over the deeper sea water and the roots of the plants and trees feed directly from the Sound's surface. From time to time the rock face gives way and there is an avalanche of trees and the forest will need to begin to regenerate again. The lichens first, followed by moss, followed by ferns etc gradually building up enough of a network to enable the trees to grow. How cool is that!

The steep sides of the Sound together with brooding cloud gave the whole journey out through the sound a mysterious air, and in fact we even had Gandalph on board with his flowing white hair and long beard, but Frodo was no where to be seen. After an hour + we reached the end of the Sound and the Tasman Sea and the sun came out, the clouds vanished, there were Fur seals playing in and around the rocks, sea gulls dropping molluscs onto rocks to break them open and an Albatross flying around. It was pointed out to us that this view, and the view looking down the Sound was exactly as it would have been when first encountered by Lt.Cook in 1774. (He named it Doubtful Harbour and decided not to explore it for fear of getting becalmed in its waters and unable to sail out, so instead he set sail and discovered Botany By in Australia instead.)

The return journey back down the Sound was also magnificent with the sunshine changing the colours and chasing away the clouds. Retracing our coach journey over the Wilmot Pass we visited Manapouri underground Hydro Power Station, well we're not going to go into much detail about this - if you want to know more about how big, clever and shiny it is check this link out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manapouri_Hydroelectric_Power_Station We wouldn't have been surprised if it's been in a James Bond film as that's what it looked like, thankfully with no sign of the metal toothed thug ready to kill us all in one fell swoop!

Ok, that will do, it's getting late and it's Milford Sound tomorrow, but no power station....and maybe no Gandalph!