Friday - Manapouri and Doubtful Sound

Breakfast on our private patio

We had purchased today’s breakfast last night from a Starbucks we passed on the way back to the hotel—the default choice for people who were too tired to look for anything better—but eating on the pleasant patio outside our room made the day-old scones seem a little fresher.

We were brushing our teeth and closing our bags when the phone in our room rang. “Your taxi is here,” said the clerk. We weren’t aware that we had ordered a taxi, and it was twenty minutes before our shuttle was due to arrive, but we were pretty much ready to leave anyway so we went on out to the lobby. Michael stopped at the desk to check out while Nancy went outside to see what was up with the taxi. Apparently the outfitter for today’s adventure, Real Journeys, had sent a cab instead of the van we had expected--and for some reason, the driver was antsy.

“What’s he doing in there?” the driver asked when Michael did not appear immediately. He sounded annoyed.

“He’s checking out,” Nancy explained. Since it was still ten minutes before the shuttle had been scheduled to arrive, she wasn’t sure why the driver seemed so impatient. Soon Michael had joined Nancy and the other couple who were already occupying two seats in the cab, and we took off up the street.

Real Journeys motorcoach

All four passengers exchanged puzzled glances when the driver pulled into the parking lot of another hotel only a block away, turned off the engine, grabbed a sheaf of papers from the dashboard, and began punching numbers into his phone. After we had just sat there in bewildered silence for several minutes, the driver said, “You can go ahead and get out if you want. Or you can stay inside. It’s up to you.”

“What are we waiting for?” one of us asked.

“The shuttle,” he replied, still sounding annoyed.

So we got out. When a bus arrived a few minutes later, the taxi roared out of the parking lot and disappeared.

Lake Wakatipu

We never did find out why a surly cab driver had been engaged to take us all of one block, but at least now we were on our way to the real journey.

Lake Wakatipu

Today’s ultimate destination was Doubtful Sound, the largest fiord in New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park. When Captain James Cook was exploring the west coast of the South Island in 1770, the cartographer on board wanted to sail into the narrow bay so he could map it. Cook declined, however, because he doubted that there would be enough easterly wind to allow the ship to sail back out. Thus, on Cook’s map, the blank space beyond the entrance to the sound was labeled “doubtful harbor,” and the name stuck.

Plains near Te Anau

But we were not yet on board a ship. To get to the sound from Queenstown, we had to take a bus that followed down the east side of Lake Wakatipu--the same route we had taken a few days earlier to get to the Routeburn Track. The ride was just as scenic today as it had been the first time.

Tea at Five Rivers

This morning we stopped for tea at a café in Five Rivers. Instead of going into Te Anau, however, we headed south toward Manapouri, stopping briefly on the way to take photos of the lake and the surrounding mountains.

Lake Te Anau

Lake Manapouri

Lake Manapouri ferry

In Manapouri, we checked in with Real Journeys, picked up and ate the box lunches we had ordered, and then boarded a ferry that would take us across Lake Manapouri.

The ferry let us off at the southwestern tip of the lake, near a hydroelectric station that generates enough power to supply the whole of Auckland. Its construction is somewhat unique in that the water drops through chutes from the lake down to generators deep in the ground, and the water then flows 10 kilometers out to the sound through man-made underground tunnels.

Manapouri power station

The bus we boarded after we got off the ferry took us about 50 kilometers along a narrow, winding road over Wilmott Pass. The road had been built origianlly to move men and materials from the sound to the power station while the tunnels were under construction, but now it provides a few authorized cruise companies and their customers access to the sound.

Outtake tunnels from the power station

New Zealand’s fiordland is one of the wettest places on earth, receiving an average of 60 meters of rain annually(!), so although we were a little disappointed that the mountains around us were obscured by clouds and mist, we weren’t surprised. However, even though the bus windows were streaked with rain, we were able to see end of the tunnels from the power station.

Scenery along Wilmott Pass

Rain created lots of waterfalls

Loading the cruise ship

The road ends at a dock in Deep Cove on the sound. Our cruise ship, the largest on the sound with a capacity of seventy passengers plus crew, was waiting to meet us.

Bunk mates

Bunk room

We were assigned to a tiny four-bed cabin below deck. Although standard length, the enclosed bunks were very narrow. Our cabinmates, a young couple from the Netherlands, did not seem bothered by the size of our accommodations, so, considering that Pietr was about 6’ 6” and Ellen was only a couple of inches shorter, Michael decided that it would be petty of him to complain about feeling cramped.

View outside our porthole

A never before seen request

We got to share the co-ed bathroom with forty other passengers. It wasn’t quite as bad as steerage on the ocean liners of old: the facilities were clean, and each shower stall was behind a door, but that was the extent of the provisions for privacy.

Co-ed bathroom

Dining hall / meeting room

Once we had settled into our rooms (if one can ever "settle" into such tight spaces), the passengers gathered in the dining room and were treated to afternoon tea (featuring hot raspberry muffins) while the ship’s chief officer gave us a brief orientation and reviewed the schedule for the rest of the day. We also met the onboard naturalist, who described the plants and wildlife we could expect to see along the way. By this time, not only was it raining hard but the wind was blowing with equal force, so we weren’t sure whether we could expect to see anything but water and mist. Only the hardy ventured onto the deck for more than a minute or two at a time.

Seals

Doubtful Sound

As we cruised by some small islands, we did get a pretty good view of a seal colony and a variety of seabirds, but no penguins.

Doubtful Sound

During the periods when there wasn’t much to see out the windows, we enjoyed getting acquainted with a few of the other passengers. Kris is an eighteen-year-old from Hamburg, Germany, who is spending his gap year working at odd jobs around New Zealand to earn enough money for his next adventure. He speaks English very well and enjoys discussing literature. Peter is probably around thirty. He is on holiday from his duties as a lifeguard and groundskeeper for a recreation center in Zurich, Switzerland. His English is less confident than Kris’s, but he is eager to learn. He’s also quick to point out (and photograph) anything interesting that appears outside the foggy windows.

Kayakers

Tenderboat

For anyone discontent with simply watching the passing scenery from the cruise ship, options for the afternoon included going out in small "tenderboats" to get a closer look at the flora and fauna along the shore, or, for the more adventurous, venturing out in a kayak. Having already been sea kayaking within the week, we were happy to stay onboard where it’s relatively warm and dry. Kris, however, jumped at the chance to paddle a kayak over the choppy waters. (“And why won’t they let us go swimming?” he asked, motioning toward Peter. “We’ve got a lifeguard!”)

Ship's galley

Chef

A soup course (cauliflower or curried vegetable) had been served at about 5:00, before the tenderboats and kayakers left. While they were out, Nancy enjoyed watching the crew prepare dinner in the ship’s galley. Although there wasn’t much spare room, the head chef let her step inside for a few minutes. She was amused when he asked if she’d “ever been in a kitchen this big before.” (She simply answered, “Yes, several times,” without mentioning that she’d prepared scores of meals in much bigger kitchens for more people than this ship can hold.)

Dinner buffet

The dinner buffet offered a choice of three salads (pasta, garden, and slaw), boiled potatoes, steamed mixed vegetables, baked kumara and pumpkin, chicken wings, rice, vegetarian ragout, broiled salmon, roast beef and lamb.

Dessert buffet

Desserts included a platter of cheeses and crackers, fresh cut fruit, chocolate cake, pavlova, and white chocolate cheesecake.

In addition to Kris and Peter, we shared a table with a couple from Minneapolis who were about our age: Beth (an artist) and John (an IT guy).

Table Mates: Peter, Kris, Beth, John, Michael, Nancy

We anchored in the calm waters of Precipice Cove for the night. Even though the boat’s rocking was nearly imperceptible, Michael still had a hard time getting to sleep in the narrow bed. A midnight cup of camomile tea with honey must have helped, however, because Pietr had to shake him sometime during the night to stop him from snoring so loudly.