Fiordland (Part 2) Doubtful Sound

Blog 25---Fiords, cliffs, waterfalls and much much more! (PART TWO) - Doubtful Sound, Lake Manapouri and the ingenuity of producing Hydro electric power..

First an extract from the final paragraph of Blog 24 (PART ONE) of the trip to Fiordland.

"We travelled back along the Milford Road and spent an hour in Te Anau (ironically had a coffee at the Sandfly Cafe eating carrot cake!) before heading down the short distance (and seeing more sheep) to our evening lodge accommodation at Lake Manapouri and a visit to Doubtful Sound tomorrow. Can it get any better than today, if you pardon the pun - it is very doubtful indeed! What an extraordinary day it has been".

PART TWO: -

View of Lake from our Lodge Park

We are staying at our delightful Park Lodge for two nights as we have a very full day exploring Lake Manapouri and Doubtful Sound. We had a relatively simple journey of 12 miles from Te Anau which was just fine after the exhausting but exhilarating boat trip and return drive from Milford Sound. Our lodge is situated on the banks of the Lake and a short walk from the boat pier interestingly called Pearl Harbour! What is different about today is that we have a three stage journey. The only way to get into Doubtful Sound from land is to travel across the lake, transfer into a vehicle (a private bus for us) and travel on over Wilmot Pass to pick up another boat to take you out into the sound. Lets get going on another gorgeous day - Oh how lucky we are once more..

The beauty that is Lake Manapouri

Lake Manapouri is regarded by many as NZ's most charming and beautiful lake. We have seen a few now on our journey and I can honestly say they are all special, all have different charms and stories and all could fit the title given to this stretch of inland water. This lake is the 5th largest and has numerous islands (34 in all) and is exceptionally deep (444m) as a result of all the grinding and scouring of the ice age glaciers millions of years ago.

The name Manapouri is thought to be a corruption of Manawapora which translated means 'sorrowful' or anxious heart.  Being a Maori legend fan I much prefer the name they gave it, 'Moturua' meaning the 'Lake of many islands'. There is nothing sorrowful or anxious here, that's for sure. More Maori legend when we see the Sound for the first time later this morning.

Tree avalanche path

Lichen and moss on the trees

We are already looking at acres of rainforest of a temperate kind (meaning non tropical). The Lake gets on average 4m of rainfall a year. Beech and native Rimu trees are growing out of the solid rock all along the coast line. There is no deep soil development here so the tree roots are matted and interlocking and depend on the build up of leaf mould, lichen and moss for nutrients and support. Pretty regularly there are tree avalanches, when a dying tree falls and brings down everything in its path.

Nocturnal pollination makes
a white flower

The flora here are pollinated by nocturnal moths and bats and the result interestingly is nearly always a white flower, sometimes yellow, which has a strong sweet smell, at its most pungent in the evening. This helps the moth detect the flower and so the process of life through pollination continues. Pretty neat I'd say...

The Rimu (Maori name), a type of conifer with long spiky branches

Rimu trees

is one of the tallest of the New Zealand native trees. The tree will grow to a height of 150 feet and can live for a thousand years. Still often called the Red Pine the European settlers used this tree to replace the majestic Kauri when it was felled almost to extinction.  The Rimu is now a protected tree under NZ law but it is still harvested from private sources in limited amounts..

Transmission  lines on the shore

We pass the Manapouri Power Station, which we visit later. A marvel of engineering, certainly one of NZ's greatest technical and environmental challenges, where the generation room is 176m below lake level all excavated from the granite rock. All that is seen above ground is the switchyard and four sets of transmission lines which travel across the lake to join the National Grid. We are going to travel down a one mile narrow tunnel by coach, alighting to view the machine hall. I am really looking forward to that part of the day.

The beautiful Wilmot Pass

We transfer from the boat to a coach to drive the 45 minute scenic 12 mile route over Wilmot Pass. This road was opened to move heavy equipment when the Power Station was built and its cost then was phenomenal due to the many construction challenges. It is still considered as one of the most expensive roads ever built at 

MS Wanganella in Deep Cove (1960s)

£2 an inch! 

Of the 1700 men who built the hydro electric plant 500 single men lived on the Wanganella  a converted former cruise liner and WW2 hospital ship, anchored in

45 metres of water at Deep Cove. After the power station was finished, Divers found a 40-metre high mountain of beer bottles under the ship. Now that was some opening party!  No wonder the road over the pass was so twisty...

Looking down to Hall Arm

A drunk Tui

Going down the steep pass, our driver tells the story of how drunken tui birds fall out of trees after drinking the fermenting nectar of the fuchsia flower which is a prevalent grower in the forests. Maybe they were the only 'birds' at the all male parties on the Wanganella  - who knows! 

Today's journey map 

The main difference between this Sound and Milford Sound is that Doubtful is more open and has three distinct arms coming off the main body. This expanse of water is much larger and deeper than Milford. The distance from Deep Cove to the open ocean is 24 miles which is the second longest of the 14 fiords.  At 420m deep it is the deepest and is home to many different species including fur seals, crested penguins and bottle nose dolphins. There are waterfalls like the Browne Falls at Hall Arms that cascade 620m alongside the immense 900m sea-cliff that is Commander Peak.

Secretary Island and the open Ocean

We are back on a boat and sail through this wonderfully remote place and head towards the open ocean protected by NZ's third largest and highest island at 1200m called Secretary Island.

nearly extinct 'tunnel web spider'

Uninhabited, it is now a nature reserve. There has been a major culling programme here to eradicate the last of the destroyers - red deer, possum, stoat and weasel which were introduced to catch rabbits when the island was inhabited in early settler times.

Weka or Woodhen 

The 'knobbled weevil'

Rare birds are retuning to Secretary Island like the Weka (woodhen) with its pretty but loud ‘coo-et’ that is usually heard at dusk and in the early evening. It's again home to once almost extinct insect life like the tunnel web spider and the lovely sounding knobbled weevil.

Marcaciones Point

In 1770 Captain Cook named this place Doubtful Harbour as he thought he could not get The Endeavour into the inlet as the sea opening was too narrow and the prevailing west winds would drive the ship onto the rocks.  It was over twenty years later in 1793 that a Spanish expedition carried out a mapping expedition of the whole area. There is a plaque on a rock off the island coast to celebrate this achievement. There are still many Spanish names in the Sound today like Bauza,  the adjacent island that along with Secretary creates the narrow ocean gap  that Cook was so concerned about. You can see this island in the map above ..

A face looking skyward

We turn and head back and sail up one of the main 'arms' and shut down the engine. Sometimes called "the sound of silence" I can understand why. There is nothing to hear except silence. Should you think that strange I simply cannot explain the feeling,  a sort of cloistered serenity only broken by the occasional bird song or far distant waterfall carried in the wind. The hustle bustle of life just disappears and you are left with only your own soul and thoughts for company. Uplifting indeed...   I look up and see a face - It's the Maori God who carved out this wonderful place, he is looking skyward in satisfaction of his work . Can you see him?

What is this out in the water?

We are heading back now but what is this we see, is it some form of Loch Ness monster? Its getting closer and another gulp it is big!

Bottle nosed dolphin 

On closer inspection it's a family group or pod of dolphins. The bottle nose come to say hello. In the wild, these sleek swimmers can reach speeds of over 18 miles an hour. They surface often to breathe, doing so two or three times a minute, communicating with each other by a complex system of squeaks and whistles. 

One last look at Doubtful Sound

I could stay out here all day but now it's time to return the way we came, back over the Pass in the coach and on to see the hydroelectric underground marvel but first one last look at this most entrancing and mysterious piece of our world's landscape jigsaw. I thought yesterday that Milford Sound was awe inspiring but I have to be honest and say this beats it, only because it had that moment of silence that I will remember for ever. I am only sorry I did not see the crested penguins - Hey Ho.

Manapouri Power Station on the Lake

The generator room underground

Manapouri Power Station was completed and commissioned in 1971 to serve the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter near Bluff (which we will be passing tomorrow) and now provides 14% of all NZ's power. After travelling down that one mile dark tunnel I mentioned earlier in the blog we then descend by foot down some quite steep stairs to enter a chamber and it looks like a scene from a James Bond film! These generators are only the tip of the iceberg, for underneath are millions of gallons of fast 

Water flow control dams and sluices

rushing water, filling the equivalent of 80 olympic pools per 

minute creating 850 mega watts of power. The original plans to release the outflow involved raising the whole lake level by 30 metres, which would have flooded the shoreline beech forests and drowned most of the lake's 34 islands. There were huge, widespread protests and the environmentalists won the day and a complex series of dams and sluices were built to control water flow output from the plant. 

16 men lost their lives building this hall out of the sheer granite rock and also the road over the pass. A plaque to honour those brave men are at the entrance at the top of the stairs. I had to stop to read their names in respect for their work. It just amazes me how this power station was built into the rocks and forests in this wilderness region and yet somehow the whole geography still manages to retain the raw beauty that captures one's imagination and leaves you in wonderment..

 Return to our mooring at Pearl Harbour

Travelling back to our lodge in Manapouri gives me time to reflect on yet another extraordinary day in this unique part of this wonderful country. Fiordland is not just a national treasure but something the world must learn from and grasp the significance of what is happening here. A place to enjoy for sure but not just because it has raw untamed beauty and has panoramic scenes to click away to and show off in your photo album. Our world is so small, so polluted, so fragile that we forget that we are losing it slowly day by day, it is disappearing before our eyes; its glaciers, its wild life, its plant species. Coming here inspires me to believe that if all of us work hard as one human race irrespective of politics, capitalism, differing religious beliefs and all those other areas of life that keep us on separate agendas, like the Kiwi and Maori we can respect our heritage for the benefit of future generations to enjoy. Captain Cook believed this 250 years, we should too....

Last look at a Panorama of Lake Manapouri from our lodge shore line

Tomorrow we are travelling to another place of raw beauty, to an island that is  97% uninhabited, in fact there are still many parts where no human has ever visited! Stewart Island, where it's 2000 miles of open ocean to Antarctica I can't wait for the adventure to continue - how much more is there?!    Stay locked in for Blog 26 - The trip to Stewart Island....DKT