Blogs from Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

The highlight most anticipated by many visitors to New Zealand's South Island is a visit to Fiordland National Park, and for many that means a cruise on Milford Sound. In normal times, this means about a two hour car drive from Te Anau or a longer drive from Manapouri or Queenstown, followed by a relatively short cruise on what is a surprisingly small body of water. However, this was not normal times. Continuing our string of catastrophic near-misses, we arrived in Fiordland just days after an historic flood event devastated the road to Milford, stranding hundreds and requiring several air rescues. Over 39 inches of rain fell within a 60 hour period. https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/hundreds-stranded-flood-hit-fiordland The result of the consequent flooding was that the road into Milford was several damaged in several places. When you drive the road, ... read more

Absolutely the best morning of the entire trip! We woke up deep into Doubtful Sound. We had a 180-degree view from the bunks on the top deck, and we were surrounded by magnificent mountains, waterfall and calm see. Within 20 minutes we had dolphins jumping out of the water. Amazing! We had booked an overnight boat trip on Doubtful Sound. It had required a bit of planning and researching to find out how we could best see the Fiordland National Park. The two big sounds are Milford and Doubtful Sound. A blog comparing the two explained (in much more detail) how Milford has more jaw dropping landscape, higher waterfall and taller mountains. It’s also the busier of the two, and often has several helicopters flying above you at any one time. Doubtful is less dramatic and ... read more

Wednesday 4th December, 2013. Doubtful Sound, Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand We had to get up early again as we had to be at the Wharf in Manapouri (about 20 minutes drive from Te Anau) at 7.40 for an 8 am departure. We arrived first at about 7.30 am and were issued our boarding passes immediately. Doubtful Sound is not accessible by road. It is necessary to go by boat across lake Manapouri (the 5th largest in NZ) to the "neck" and then cross the Wilmot Pass before taking another boat up the Sound itself. Doubtful Sound was originally named "Doubtful Harbour" by Captain Cook when he sailed past in the Endeavour on his first circumnavigation of NZ in 1770. He skirted past the entrance wondering whether there was sufficient wind to manoeuvre his vessel in ... read more

Queenstown, a tourist town on Lake Wanaka flanked by the ‘Incredibles’ mountain range and Ben Lomond. Ok that’s the boring bit done, Queenstown is an adrenlin packed playground and our welcome involved travelling by cable car to the sadle of Ben Lomond and looking down to Queenstown with hang-gliders above us, bungee jumpers below us, Luge drivers alongside us and jet boaters on the lake. So we took the soft start and raced the Luge circuit in a go-kart no less than 5 times. Then to the serious stuff…45 minutes on the lake and Shotover River in a twin jet boat driven by Kevin with a glint in his eye like it was his last drive…it was. The boat shoots down the river like something from a Bond film, aiming for any obstacle and swerving at ... read more

Winding down with the Weather The morning after my incredible luck at the glaciers, the weather was anything but pleasant. You will not be able to tell from the pictures I have chosen for the blogs, but I have had nasty weather on the way. But I have managed to time it, so that I have been on the road on those days and not missing out on anything really important. It is also a way of cleaning the dust of the EDS. I headed further south - into the mountains and stayed a couple of nights in Wanaka. Some of NZ's skiing territory is in this area, but the season was over weeks before I arrived and the summer activities had not really kicked off yet, so it was nice and quiet. I went tramping ... read more