18th February
We crossed Lake Manapouri by boat. Evading the sandflies we sitting inside out of the cold wind and when we got to the other side of the lake our coach driver picked us up at the visitor centre and drove us down 200 metres below ground to the Manapouri Hydro power station.
Manapouri hydro power station
200m below the waterline
We went down a very steep, 1:10 road to get to the main turbine hall and then made the slow journey out to head up to Wilmot's Pass and down deep into Fiordland.
Doubtful Sound
Our first glimpse of Doubtful Sound was totally amazing. Breathtaking.
Is was so quiet and the scale was nothing like I had imagined. The hills rose either side of the water almost vertically with the trees and plant life hanging on for dear life.
The wildlife cruise took us along through the sound and out to the sea on the West Coast passing by fur seals and seeing many sea birds. We returned via several arms of the Sound - stopping in one of the main arms where the skipper stopped the engine and the generator on the boat so that we could hear the silence of the sounds - it was beautiful.
Our coach dropped us back to the Lake after again climbing through the beech tree forests and a much smaller boat took us back to the town of Manapouri for the evening just in time to watch the sun go down.
Our coach dropped us back to the Lake after again climbing through the beech tree forests and a much smaller boat took us back to the town of Manapouri for the evening just in time to watch the sun go down.
19th February
From Manapouri Lake we drove Northwards towards Te Anau in order to catch our 10am coach for the two hour scenic drive to Milford Sound. We stopped at the Mirror Lakes on route and wound our way though the mountains up to the Hooker Tunnel through avalanche valley.
The road to Milford Sound
We travelled out along the sounds on a boat called the Milford Mariner. She was quite a large vessel with space for at least 150 guests. We travelled out to the West Coast and we got very close to some of the waterfalls. We were quite lucky as the West Coast is supposed to get nearly 7m of rainwater each year and we had a dry day that was windy enough to keep the sandflies away. Milford Sound is famous for its dolphin displays - unfortunately, although we were lucky with the rain the dolphins did not show.
Milford Sound
We could not freedom camp in Te Anau so we drove inland to a DOC site near Lake Manorva - it was down a 35km gravel road which we trundled along and got there just as the sun had disappeared over the mountains surrounding us.
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