Manapouri and Doubtful Sound

Unfortunately on our way to Manapouri and Doubtful Sound the Clifden Caves were flooded. These caves are another great example of the Kiwi attitude to life I reckon, as they're referred to as 'Common Sense Caves'. By that they mean that you make your own way to the caves, and your own way through them - i.e. there is no tourist centre there, or any form of support, safety backup or security. You just bring your own common sense and a couple of torches each, and crawl into and along the caves on your own - brilliant. Or least I reckon it would have been brilliant, but the recent rains meant that the cave system was too dangerous (although if I'd been there with one of the lads I probably would have at least checked them out a bit first). But the caves were a short detour from our route, so we just decided to head straight on to Manapouri.

Manapouri is a very small town, and really just acts as a gateway for travelling into the Doubtful Sound (apparently more correctly called a fjord, but there you go). So on arrival we checked out a couple of the operators for tours to the Sound, and after chatting to a really helpful guy I decided to go with the main operators, Real Journeys. He persuaded me (along with a hefty discount) , to go for the overnight option, meaning you get to sleep onboard the boat that takes you into the Sound itself, and thereby get to have much longer exploring the area. He also told us of a free campsite just outside the town, so that made our rest point for the night.

So the next morning (after giving a guy at the campground a push start), it was back to Real Journeys and aboard a fast boat to take us on the first part of our journey across the beautiful Manapouri Lake. At the far side of the lake we boarded a bus for the short trip to the departure point into the Sound itself. This trip was gorgeous in itself, stopping at mighty waterfalls, and lookout points.

On arrival at the other side, Deep Cove, our ship and crew waited. I must say I was very impressed with the quality of the ship, it was all very plush and extremely comfortable, and within half an hour of boarding the food started to arrive. Why is it that on any kind of cruise, even this one day cruise, they throw so much food at you? Anyway, it was just a 'snack' of huge freshly baked muffins, so obviously I had to have three!

There isn't much point in me describing the whole trip really, the website probably describes it much better than I could anyway, but needless to say it really is a spectacular place. It was great to just cruise peacefully along the Sound with it's towering cliff faces, nipping back into the ship for a hot chocolate or coffee to stave off the cold or the intermittent rain (this area is one of the wettest places on earth, but we were lucky to have mostly clear skies).

Later in the afternoon we did the kayaking for an hour or so, which was really nice (not as good as kayaking in Halong Bay in Vietnam though), followed by jumping off the ship into the freezing water for a bit of a wee swim (I was quite surprised by the number of people who actually did the swim, as it was pretty cold).

A couple of times we had dolphins chasing the ship, playing in the bow waves. Apparently environmentalists now think that the bow waves of ships interfere somehow with the normal behaviour of dolphins, so whenever they are spotted frolicking about, the ship has to slow down until they go away. It seems a bit strange, but it still made for some great views, as the dolphins put on quite a good show.

The crew were all brilliant and very approachable, you could even go into the bridge and chat to the captain any time you wanted. The only small quibble I would have about the whole trip would be the environmental officier guy. His job was basically to inform us all (over the very clear, but inescapable, intercom system onboard the ship), of all the flora and fauna as we cruised by, along with telling us some of the local Maori legends about the area, and he was very good at all that. But he had the rather annoying habit of repeatedly telling everybody of how 'amazing' the scenery was, or how utterly 'magical' the waterfalls were, and kept saying that if anyone was still indoors, to get outside immediately to appreciate the beauty and wonder all around us. I mean if people weren't interested in getting out on deck to actually look at what they'd paid to see, then that is indeed rather sad, but it's their loss, and the repeated calls to 'get outside and see this unique landscape' just became a bit annoying to me. But like I said, it was only a small quibble on what was overall a brilliant trip.

So after a huge, and delicious dinner chatting to a few English travellers (including a really cool and funny couple from the North of England who were cycling all over the world), there was a slideshow presentation by the environmental officier guy. The show was quite good, although the best parts were the cheeky kids at the very front that kept interrupting the presentation, or answering his questions for the audience with silly answers. He actually got quite cross with one of them at one stage, which was the funniest part of the whole show really, as he was a bit too 'cool' and slick, and I reckon he fancied himself a bit too much, and so the cheeky 10 year old kid brought him down a notch or two!

After that it was bed, and a very early rise the next morning for a needlessly huge breakfast and to explore another arm of the Sound, and eventually to head back to the bus. The guy we booked the tour with had thrown in a free tour of the Manapouri power station, something I was really looking forward to in fact. So after waiting around for a bit for the tour group that were seeing only the power station, and exploring the local area a wee bit, we boarded another bus and drove over 2km into the mountain itself to the power station deep inside. Although the shear feat of engineering involved to build the station really is quite amazing, there isn't that much to actually see, as the turbines are quite small and simple looking, and the whole operation is now completely automated.

So then it was back across Manapouri Lake to pick up our van, and then it was on to the far more famous, and accessible Milford Sound.