Te Anau - Doubtful Sound

Here's the description the brochure provides for the Doubtful Sound:

"Doubtful Sound is an unspoilt and remote wilderness of many moods, one minute clear, blue and sun-drenched, the next mysterious and mist-shrouded."

"Doubtful Sound is a place to towering peaks and bush-clad islands, of twisting hidden arms and sheltered coves."

"At 421 metres deep, Doubtful is the deepest of the fiords and is long and winding with three distinct “arms” and several outstanding waterfalls in the area from Deep Cove to the open ocean, a distance of around 40.4 kilometres."

We'd like to repeat it with a William Shatner Star Trek acting style.

Doubtful Sound is part of a World Hertitage area. The only way to Doubtful sound is via helicopter or the way we did it. We caught the 10:30am shuttle, rounded up the rest of the tourists and made our way to the docks on Lake Manapouri. The flashy catamaran-style speed boat whisked us across the lake while a voice commented on the surrounding scenery and history. We were already seasoned from 3 days on the Kepler track and felt like we were miles ahead of the others. 45min later we arrived at the western shores where the amazing Manapouri hydro electric facility is established. From that side of the lake, water plummets through unseen tunnels to turbines for generation of electricity. After generating power the water diverts to Doubtful Sound. We took a tour bus down a 2km tunnel that spirals through granite to the generator station. It looked like it was straight out of a James Bond movie, me 007 and MJ the beautiful, distracting secret agent.haha We were in the underground lair of Goldfinger or someone like that....

Back topside we piled into another tour bus to cross Wilmot Pass, NZ's most expensive highway (note - it's still only a dirt road). It was originally built to supply the workers on the powerstation with heavy equipment brought by ship into Doubtful Sound. It careens up through native beech and Rimu forest and finally crests with a magical view of Doubtful Sound below.

At Doubtful Sound we boarded the next boat and cruised slowly past mountains that rose so steeply they almost appear to overhang the water. One after another I kept my finger on the trigger of our camera. We pushed against the strong gail that rushed into Doubtful Sound. We pulled into smaller inlets to see creeks and waterfalls making their way back to their ultimate source. The cruise took us all the way to where Doubtful Sound opens to the Tasman Sea that spans the distance between NZ and Australia. The swells were large but we managed to make our way to the Knee Islands (incidentally not at the knee but at the mouth of Doubtful Sound) to see some resident seals. We finally turned back and sailed with the wind exploring other arms of the sound on our way back to the docks to make our way again over the pass, across the lake and up the road to our little campsite at Te Anau.

A spectacular day filled with so many views. That night's dreams were but one image after another that we were witness to by day.