Blog 75

After a long drive from Queenstown we treated ourselves to a power hook up in Te Anau. All booked in for Doubtful Sound the next day, we spent the evening preparing with: a trip to the local cinema to see a silent movie showing the Fjordland national park in all its beauty (Of which we'd get a glimpse of tomorrow... Eek!); Packing up our lunch boxes and continuing the battle of the campervan playing cards (Currently pretty even!)

Doubtful Sound is just beautiful, let's get that one out of the way otherwise there would be an overkill of the word beautiful in this blog. Steep sided valleys rise hundreds of feet out of the crystal clear waters of the sound, and hundreds of waterfalls come crashing down again. It's no wonder bottle nosed dolphins choose this as their home for all twelve months of the year and this morning barely ten minutes into our voyage they chose to treat us to a show. It was magnificent to see them diving around and under the boat. What a treat!

Leaving the serenity of the 'arm' we left the calmer waters and hit the choppy seas in search of the Fjordland yellow crested penguins that live on these outcrops of sea beaten rock. The seas turned our boat into a themepark pirate ship and had our 'winkles tickled' with the crash of every wave. It was all worth it, because there it was out first and only glimpse of one of those pingus (the first of the season, apparently...).

Making our way back through the sound as our boat crossed the murky divide between fresh and salt water, the captain treated us to what was dubbed the jewel of fjordland. Positioning the boat in the centre of the right arm (which is where the valley forks off to the right of the sound) the captain asked for no movement, photography or chatter as he cut the engines. Bliss.

Standing on the front deck we could appreciate the thrum of nearby waterfalls but most of all the utter calmness of the water which reflected the mountains in High Definition. We found out after that these glacier-carved valleys were once alive with sound of birdsong but the introduction of stote, rat and weasel has left the sound of silence (Simon and Garfunkel inspiration?).

As an added extra the tour took us 2km down a tunnel into the centre of the mountain to see New Zealand's biggest hydro power plant. Bizarre end to the day but still pretty cool.

Off the boat, on the road and down to the Catlin's.

Bryn and Jo x