Doubtful Sound

We were booked on a full day trip with Real Journeys to Doubtful Sound.  Our journey began in Manapouri with a 45 minute cruise across Lake Manapouri which is surrounded by the majestic

Kepler Mountains.  The area is part of Fiordland National Park and has been designated a World Heritage Area. No building is allowed here, so it is hard to believe that the far side of the lake is the site of New Zealand's most ambitious engineering project, the Manapouri Power Station.  But this is

no ordinary power station as our guided tour revealed. Manapouri Power Station is an underground hydro-electric power station. It's an impressive achievement.  Our coach descended for 2 km through a tunnel hewn from the rock over 8 years by a team of 1,800 men to a point 178 metres below the level of the lake. Here we visited a massive turbine hall where 7 turbines generate electricity, drawing water from the lake above, and then sending it through two 10km tunnels to an outlet at the head of Doubtful Sound. The Hall resembled the set of a James Bond film. The power station was commissioned in 1972 and supplies power to an aluminium smelter in Bluff, some 200 km away. Incredibly this consumes as much power as would otherwise be used by the whole of the South Island.

Our coach then drove across the Wilmot Pass, New Zealand's most remote road, constructed in the 1960's to link Lake Manapouri to Doubtful Sound allowing access for heavy equipment brought in by sea to the power station site.

Doubtful Sound from Wilmot's Pass

At Deep Cove we boarded our vessel for a 3 hour cruise on the Sound.  The weather was better than on our trip to Milford the previous day, although many of the mountains were shrouded in cloud,

giving the place a very atmospheric appearance.  The Sound is three times longer than Milford Sound and far more remote.  The temperate rainforest on the mountainsides has grown in the absence of any topsoil.  The trees depend upon the build-up of lichens, mosses and leaf mould for nutrients.  Tree avalanches are common and scars on the rock face are the evidence of their existence. The area is

Fiordland Crested Tawaki Penguin

home to a variety of marine mammals, mostly dolphins and seals.  We were fortunate to see one of the world's rarest penguins, the Fiordland Crested Tawaki, of which only 3,000 pairs remain.

As we started our return trip the clouds lifted and the warmth of the sun penetrated the fiord.   This had been a great day!

Lake Manapouri