Perfect day

What a stunning day!  Early start to ensure I had plenty of time for my morning coffee and catch the 8.00am sailing from Manapouri. A quick 5 or so minute walk along the Lake front through gorgeous beech forest to the departure point then the day began in earnest.

Doubtful Sound, or Patea - 'the place of silence' - to give it it's Maori name: "The Wahipounamu is one of the great wilderness areas of the southern hemisphere, containing the best remaining fragment of primeval land known as Gondwana.  Isolated in the Pacific Ocean for millions of years, the ancient islands of New Zealand were able to evolve plants and animals found nowhere else in the world."

The region was carved out millions of years ago by a multitude of glaciers and the resulting sheer mountain sides combined with a relatively hostile environment have meant that it has been largely untouched and totally uninhabited, at least on the western side of the divide feel.  

The trip began with a 40-odd minute boat ride across lake Manapouri to the landing spot by the hydro-electric power station at the western end.  This in itself was quite fabulous, particularly given the wind was well up and there were plenty of white caps on the lake.  We began to get a feel for what may lie ahead as the only visible element of the power station clung to steep, treed slopes.

The bus ride over the Wilmot Pass took another 40-odd minutes.  The road is apparently the most expensive piece of road in New Zealand costing about $80 per square metre to construct........and it isn't even sealed!  Unfortunately, the tour guides didn't tell us what a more 'usual' cost would be so there's no meaningful comparison.  It also has the status of being the only road in New Zealand that it not connected to the rest of the road network.  It seemed odd, therefore, to see a "STOP" sign as the bus left to begin its journey!  There are, however, a small number of side roads and turnings leading various places so the STOP sign turned out not to be the joke I initially thought it was.  The road is narrow, bounded on both sides by tall, dense bush so when the occasional view came into sight we stopped briefly to take a look.......waterfalls (running quite low but apparently ready to explode into more vigorous life when significant rain falls, as it often does in these parts), travalanches (avalanches of trees) and slips were the main viewpoints, though we did also have just one small glimpse of the fjord we were heading to.....

Being the first trip of the day it was a quick changeover when we arrived at the launch.  It was spacious (there were just 49 passengers on a launch that is able to carry 130) and within minutes we were heading off on the 'real' part of the journey.  It's impossible to describe and now I look back, the images simply can't convey the atmosphere.  Pretty much just us in a towering wilderness, inaccessible to the general public, miles from anywhere in a country miles from anywhere.  The cruise advertising says 'Discover the place of silence' and when the launch was taken up 'Crooked Arm' - one of the 'arms' of the main fjord - and we were asked to go outside (I spent pretty much the entire journey on the deck) "....sit or stand, don't talk, don't photograph, turn off your music and I'll turn off the engines...." and we heard it.......silence.....just the gentle lapping of the water, the occasional bird, and the silence of the planet.  It was a truly moving experience.

The journey back to Manapouri rounded off an exceptional day and I arrived back at the campground oddly exhausted......

Perfect.