Fiordland

Fiordland is a remote area in the South West corner of New Zealand’s South Island. It has high mountains and deep glacier-cut valleys which were subsequently flooded by the rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice-age. When they were first discovered by Europeans at the beginning of the 19th century they were assumed to be “Sounds” (valleys cut by rivers and flooded) as the Norwegian term “fjord” or “fiord” was unknown at that time. The most well known NZ fiord is “Milford Sound” since it is the only one accessible by road, but for this trip we decided to do something a little bit different and booked ourselves on an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound.

Since Doubtful Sound can only be entered in two ways: the Tasman Sea, and via a road that connects with the western edge of Lake Manapouri, itself only accessible by water. Since the road is 20km long and has to reach an elevation of 680m to cross Wilmot Pass, just getting to Doubtful Sound was a beautiful journey in itself.

Our vessel, and home for the next 20 hours, was the “Fiordland Navigator”—a lovely medium-sized ship which could comfortably seat her 70 passengers in the saloon, and also had a forward observation lounge, lots of viewing space on deck and compact but sufficient quarters down below. Since Fiordland gets 7 metres of rain per year there was an infinite supply of free tea and coffee whenever you felt a bit cold, and great food—tasty and plentiful!

Our first afternoon on the Sound we had low cloud and some misty rain, but this just made the scenery all the more atmospheric: the cloud creates this amazing ghost-like/eerie atmosphere as the rainforest covered sides of the fjord rise up steeply from inky waters. Happily the rain stopped for long enough for us to take a close up look of the shore from some sea-kayaks (little one seater craft in flat calm waters, much more fun than the Abel Tasman). After kayaking we travelled all the way out to the Tasman Sea with the hope of seeing some wildlife which we duly did: seals, fiordland crested penguins, albatross and huge numbers of birds; but as we reached the sea the weather worsened and the misty rain became so thick that visibility dropped to practically nothing so we retreated to the saloon to play cards.

We moored for the night in some dead calm waters and walking about on deck after dark was amazing: there were giant black walls looming above us as the only light came from the partially obscured moon and the ship itself, but best of all was the silence—we were experiencing true wilderness!

The next morning was bright and clear: a blue sky with whisps of cloud which is apparently almost unheard of in Fiordland! After a fantastic breakfast we cruised round to another “arm” of the fjord which had 1000m high walls and water so still that it had almost perfect reflections. The Captain powered down the ship for a few minutes so we could savour the remoteness (and incredible variety of bird song) but then it was time to sail back to Deep Cove and reverse our earlier journey over Wilmot Pass and Lake Manapouri, back to “civilisation”.