Wednesday 26th January Queenstown to Doubtful Sound

After a quick stop at the bakery in town for coffee and pastries (Ant ran down to Starbucks for mine!!), we set of for FiordlandNational Park this morning.FiordlandNational Park is part of a World Heritage area called Te Wahipounamu and includes some of the world's most dramatic and beautiful scenery.We are heading for Doubtful Sound one of the most remote areas of the whole tour.Doubtful Sound is reached by crossing LakeManapouri by launch, then travelling over the WilmotPass road to Deep Cove where we board our purpose built boat, The Fiordland Navigator.

LakeManapouri is New Zealand's second deepest lake at 444m (about 1300 feet) and is the access point to Doubtful Sound.It was raining when we arrived which apparently is quite common here - Fiordland is one of the world's wettest regions with rainfall at Deep Cove reaching over 5 metres a year (over 200 rainy days!!).After a 50 minute cruise over the lake which has 250 islands, we arrived at the bus depot and transferred to our coach for the 30 minute ride over the 22km Wilmot Pass Road to Deep Cove (the road doesn't go anywhere else!!).Once at Deep Cove, we boarded The Fiordland Navigator which sleeps 70 people in a combination of private cabins or quad share bunk compartments. We were lucky enough to get a quad share cabin with Sophie and Alysse as they needed the shortest person in our group for the top bunk which was only 1.5 metres long!!

On board we were greeted by the captain and crew with hot muffins and we set off on our trip through Doubtful Sound to the Tasman Sea.Captain Cook named the area "DoubtfulHarbour" as he was doubtful whether there was enough wind to blow his ship back to sea.Doubtful Sound is the second largest of the National Park's 14 fiords and reaches 430m (approx 1300 feet) at its maximum depth.The Sound is home to a resident pod of around 60 Bottlenose Dolphins and as we headed out to the Fur Seal colony at the entrance to the Tasman Sea, they started leaping and swimming alongside and under the boat - it was an amazing sight.Fiordland is also a temperate rainforest and because of all the rain, the waterfalls were at their best (many of them are temporary and will soon dry up as the rain stops)

The sea was quite rough when we reached the seal colony and Ant got some amazing pictures of the waves breaking over the rocks.After we had taken as many photos as we could manage, the captain turned the ship round and we headed back to a sheltered cove where we anchored over night.On the way back to the cove, the crew served hot soup and bread rolls (a very tasty spicy pumpkin soup).Once anchored, the braver (!) ones among us boarded kayaks and the tender boats to explore the shoreline.On their return, the even braver ones (or stupid I can't decide!) dived off the back of the boat into the Sound.The water temperature in the fiords averages a bracing 11 degrees Celsius although in warm weather in can reach 15 degrees - I wasn't about to find out which it was.By the time the swimmers and kayakers had showered, our wonderful buffet meal was ready to be served.After dinner we attended a slideshow and presentation by the onboard naturist where we learned all about the local flora and fauna.