Position 45 27.573S  167 09.297E

We are in Fjordland now and booked in for an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound.  There are only two sounds that you can easily visit here and they are Doubtful and Milford.  We have booked ourselves trips on both, snow may stop play for the second trip.  Rainbow over Lake Te Anau as we drove to Lake Manapouri (right).

To get to Doubtful sound you have to catch a ferry from Pearl Harbour inlet and a cross Lake Manapouri, passing lots of islands, to the Manapouri power station.  This is Lake Manapouri.  On the right is Mount Titiroa, bit of snow on the top but the lower down, although looks like snow it is a pale weathered granite.

Paul at the back of the catamaran on our trip across Lake Manapouri

Paul with south arm of Lake Manapouri in the background (I think). Me and a waterfall.

Because it has been raining so hard lots of waterfalls.  Nice view of a bit of native forest.

Nice ferns.  At Manapouri Power Station we got off the ferry and onto a coach..

The coach takes you over the Wilmot Pass.  The road was constructed to provide access for heavy equipment to the power station.  The Manapouri ferry was also brought across this road from Doubtful sound.  The road took 2.5 years to build – its 14 miles (23 km) long.  It was supposed to take a year but the terrain so was so bad that it took double the time.  When it was built it was the most expensive road built in NZ.  It’s the only land access to Doubtful Sound. 

Cleve Garth Falls and a river we had to cross.

At Wilmot Pass we were in the clouds and the rain did not stop from then onwards.  The road down to Deep Cove, where we boarded the Navigator, is one of the steepest in NZ (1 in 5).  It’s also at the head of the fjord – 40km to the sea.  Our cabin for the night, compact.  Twenty four of us on board a vessel that sleeps 70 paying guests.  It was two passengers to one crew.