Overnight on Doubtful Sound

Thursday morning we woke up very early, had a fabulous breakfast at our B&B, and headed out straight away to Te Anau to catch the bus to our overnight on Doubtful Sound. We planned to leave at 7:00am to make it to Te Anau by 11:30 when our bus was to pick us up at the secure park area. The drive was supposed to take us about 4 hours so we gave ourselves a bit more time just in case. I was driving and ended up doing the drive in a bit over 3 hours, NICE!

Upon arrival in Te Anau, way ahead of schedule, we went for a coffee and snack at a local café because we had no meal coming until dinner, and the coffee and snacks were no good. But, oh well! We went to the secure car park to drop off my car after the snack and it was quite a site. It did have a secure entrance and it claimed to have an electric fence, but outside of that it was not clearly any sort of secure car park area. But, after my experience with the attempted car theft, I was happy to give it a shot. The most concerning of the sights in the car park were the half disassembled cars that had clearly been there for a long time and were not in any great state. Although this wasn’t a very promising location, I was not willing to leave my car parked on the side of some random street in a town I didn’t know, especially in a town that is used to having cars parked there overnight where the owners are 100 kilometers away on the water. Anyways, we got the car parked and were on the bus in no time, off to see Doubtful Sound.

The trip out to Doubtful Sound consisted of a bus from Te Anau to Manupouri, a boast ride across Lake Manupouri, another coach bus ride from the far side of Lake Manupouri to the near side of Doubtful Sound and then we finally got onto the boat on Doubtful Sound. For those of you who know my mother well, the fact that she was willing to put up with this was amazing in itself! We did, however, make it with little problem. Almost no wind on the boat and a rather seamless coach ride across NZ’s most expensive road – this is the one connecting Lake Manupouri and Doubtful Sound. The road is NZ’s most expensive because everything had to be brought to the road by boat, either across the lake or through the sound from the Tasman Sea, to build it. And even though the road isn’t very long it took 2 years to built as they had to clear the entire forest and used 1,000,000 tons of crushed rock they cleared from the building of an underground/underlake power station on Lake Manupouri. Anyways, we made it to the boat and we were quite excited about it! Here's a few photos from the journey:

Okay, this was from a bit earlier. The view from the B&B Thursday morning.

Family photo.

Waiting for the boat in Manupouri

Dad

Elizabeth

Elizabeth and I on the boat on Lake Manupouri

A giraffe shaped land slip

The Lake Manupouri boat captain.

My driving the boat.

An overlook for Doubtful Sound

A waterfall

Dad

On the way to the boat, we decided to start a little project, RFORJ, short for Real Faces of Real Journeys. Explanation – Real Faces because they are photos of real people’s faces and Real Journeys because the company we were traveling with is called Real Journeys.  This project occupied a great deal of our (mine & Elizabeth’s) time over the next 22 hours and we got hundreds of photos of our travel companions, and hopefully most of them without our noticing. Here are our top RFORJ photos from the next 2 days.

Unknown Name, Unknown Country

Ya Ping, China

Unknown Woman, Unknown Country of Origin

Carl and Unknown Name, Utah and Washington

Torsten, Germany

Unknown Name, Unknown Country

Unknown Name (Daughter of Mustachioed Man), America

Unknown Name (World's Easiest Man to Sneakily Photograph), Unknown Country

Unkown Name (Ya Ping's Daughter), Chins

Unknown Name (Chinese Female Gangster - matching red tracksuit and metallic high heeled trainers and matching metallic backpack), China

Unknown Man (Mustachioed Man), America

Sim (Nature Guide), New Zealand

Duncan, Unknown Country

Unknown Name, Unknown Country (Very Photogenic)

Group Photo - All Unknown Names, All Unknown Countries

Tim (Tinder Boat Driver), New Zealand

Same as Above

Unknown Name, Indonesia

Besides taking more of our time to snap candids of our boat mates, we spent the next day doing activities in this order:

The boat trip started with a short boat introduction/orientation, assignment to our sleeping quarters. We were staying a quad share so this meant 4 single bunks in a small compartment with no door. My parents were on the bottom and we were on the top. We managed here quite well, although I stayed almost glued to the wall as I was very afraid I would fall out of my top bunk that had no barrier/bar whatsoever.

We then moved into afternoon tea, consisting of muffins and coffee/tea. It was a nice time to relax and energize on the boat. After a snack we had the choice to kayak or tinder boat trip around the sound. Elizabeth was not feeling the kayak so we decided to tinder boat with tour guide Tim. We asked another one of the staff members, Steph, whose tinder boat trip we should take, Sim or Tim, and she suggested Tim. At this time we did not know this was Tim’s maiden voyage. Has we known this earlier we may have gone with Sim as it was clear Tim was not well practiced on his nature facts. We did, however, enjoy the trip nonetheless and got a few great shots of Tim.

Loading into the tinder boat. Elizabeth and I

Peaking between the Kayaks

Elizabeth

Family photo

Me and Elizabeth

Me, Elizabeth, and my father

A beautiful waterfall

Looking back at the Navigator, our overnight ship

After the tinder boat we did some activity, can’t remember what, oh maybe that was soup time. Probably was… we had a nice hot soup or leek and potato with bacon crumbles on top. Yum! And delicious rolls as well.

After soup time we cruised out to the Tasman Sea and that was fabulous. The sound is 40 kms long, or something like that, and we cruised out to the end and went a few hundred meters out into the sea. And the Tasman Sea is rough! You could feel the massive swells of the ocean, which was so cool. I can’t ever remember being on a boat feeling swells like that. It’s not like feeling waves, unless the waves are meters deep. It felt like the ocean was alive. That might sound stupid because it is, but I’ve never felt anything like that before. It was a rough time, though, and I made sure I stayed outside where I could see the horizon and help cut down on possible motion sickness. After maybe 20 minutes out in the Tasman, and after seeing fur seals and albatross, we headed back into the Sound to find a place to put down anchor for the night.

We then moved into dinner, which a nice buffet with many good options followed by a plethora or desserts. I can thankfully say I cannot complain on the food from this trip. I mean it wasn’t the best food I’ve ever eaten, but it was more than edible and I went back for seconds at every meal. Smoked salmon, crispy potatoes, kumara and pumpkin mash, coleslaw salad for dinner. Cheese board for dessert. Museli for breakfast. All of those x 2 servings.

Following dinner there was a nature presentation led by Sim, the ship’s nature guide. My mother and Elizabeth attended but I was just too tired so I went to bed. I didn’t want to fall asleep during the presentation and be rude. And I slept like a baby. I’m sad I missed the info but glad I got the extra rest.

I woke up Friday morning, around 6:15 to the sound of the boat’s engines starting. I was still quite tired and a bit groggy for the first few minutes but with the rattling and loud sounds from the boat that didn’t last long. We proceeded upstairs and had a great pre-breakfast penguin viewing session. We saw Fiordland crested penguins on a small island and the captains stopped so we could get a better look. In total I think we saw 7. They are here for the upcoming mating season. Apparently they only spend a few months here a year and nobody really knows where they go the rest of the year. Glad we got to see them! 

We then moved inside for breakfast and following that a short return trip to the wharf. This concluded our time in Doubtful Sound. We then did the entire trip back to the car in reverse. So coach from the sound to Lake Manupouri, boat across Lake Manupouri, Coach back to Te Anau – where we thankfully found my the same condition in which we had left it the day before. No car parts missing and/or damaged and nothing inside was missing either. Oh yes, this was another reason we left the car in the secure car park area, we were leaving almost everything we had brought to NZ in the car minus the few personal belonging we brought with us on the boat. Have to keep that stuff safe!

And that concludes the overnight. I will now work on another post for the time since we got off the boat and add more photos later. It's late and I don't have time left tonight.