Position 45 15.416S 167 9.888E

Spent the night tied to a buoy in Precipice Cove at the end of Bradshaw Sound.  This waterfall is theoretically the tallest in the world as this rock face ascends nearly 1km.

This place was built by fishermen.  When it was rough, or they wanted a rest, they anchored or rafted up here.  The story goes that they asked for planning permission to build it.  Because in a National Park, permission was refused.  However, they started to read up on legislation and discovered that one authority had control up to the LW mark and another from HW upwards but nobody controlled the in-between.  So the fishermen built the base of the hut in between the HW and LW marks.

Fisherman’s sense of humour.  The landing to the right is for a helicopter which they built to pick up their lobsters

The Navigator has three sails, totally useless but looks great.

Once more into the gloom

Think this might be a hanging U shaped valley.

Still absolutely … down with rain.  There is a nature guide on board called Josh.  The kid has been out on the deck the entire time doing a running commentary of glaciation, rock formation, bit of nature – not a lot because you can’t see a thing.  By this morning not many takers on going out on the deck, but Josh is still out there.  We have all been watching him from the observation lounge drinking coffee.  Anyway, here the boat noses up close to one of the waterfalls for Josh to capture a saucepan of water for us to taste.  We were all outside watching this. 

Paul collecting some of the water for us to drink.  Lots of tannins – Scotland.

There is no real soil to speak of, the moss grows on the cliff faces, then trees take root in rock cracks.  When they get too big the whole lot falls down.

On our return the following day beautiful rainbow. 

Had so much rain that when we returned to the quayside in Manapouri those benches in previous blog had been moved up onto the grass.