after the exciting day of kayaking, the doubtful sound cruise began to look like a smarter proposition as i was entirely composed of pain. the cruise is composed of 3 parts – first we board a boat from manapouri harbor, which is all of 5 minutes away from our hostel, that boat takes us across the lake to doubtful sound, where we board a tour bus, which takes us across the mountains where we board another boat which takes us around the doubtful sound itself.
first off, we were the exactly last two people to board the boat at manapouri, so we were almost too late (which would have sucked as we don’t have the time to be late!). other than that it was a very pleasant, calm ride through the lake, with very pleasant scenery, but nothing out of usual at this point.
the bus ride was more exciting, with a trip to the hydro facility in the area, which was pretty interesting to visit, but i doubt that its interesting to read about. the only remarkable story to tell is when the bus driver said that “i have to turn this 11 meter bus in a 5 meter cave, and the company expects me to return with a 11 meter bus and leave the cave at 5 meters”.
i honestly preferred the sea kayaking to the cruise, but regardless, doubtful sound is an incredible place. we were basically in nature that has stayed on its own since 1700s. (sandflies included – a few days later both oleg and i had enough of the painful bites). we even saw dolphins swimming in the sound, which was awesome, but did not let me get a good enough of a photograph of them. argh! we also saw seals (of course), who were lounging around under the perfect sun.
oh yeah.
sun!
the west coast gets about 5 meters of rain per year, and doubtful sound, which lies behind a mountain and essentially is the coast of the tasmanian sea gets 7 meters of rain per year. however we have been blessed with perfect weather – blue sky, shining sun, and thus lots of photographs.
since the day ended with: