Getting Away from it all in Doubtful Sound

One of the top (ten?) things I wanted to do on the South Island was an overnight cruise of Doubtful Sound, one of the southern-most fiords in Fiordland National Park. It was the first thing we suggested to my parents to do, before we had even thought about the possibility of an overnight cruise on Milford Sound, and several people we met on our travels also mentioned how much they had loved it.

Doubtful Sound isn’t accessible by car (you have to take a boat to an isolated road to a boat), making it far less visited than Milford Sound. We’ve met people with varying opinions on whether Doubtful Sound or Milford Sound is more beautiful, but the comparison is really difficult to make, especially because our experiences on the two were so different.

We drove to Lake Manapouri to board a boat that ferried us across the lake to the Manapouri Power Station, where we got in a shuttle bus that took us over Wilmot Pass on the only road in New Zealand that is isolated from the highway network. Finally, we boarded our overnight boat in Deep Cove and headed out into Doubtful Sound. We had a beautiful, long day cruising the main body of the fiord as well as a couple of the arms, enjoying the sunshine on the top deck while gliding past incredible hanging valleys and rock faces. There were hardly any other boats on the fiord, so we felt wonderfully isolated and alone on the water.

Dave, our skipper, bus driver, tour guide, mechanic and electrician, was also our hunter/gatherer. As we got close to the mouth of the fiord, he anchored the boat and left us for a half an hour to go scuba diving for crays (kiwi for lobster). He caught about 15 good sized spiny rock lobsters that we would later have for dinner. This was also the first opportunity for the passengers to try their hand at fishing, to supplement the dinner menu. Scott was the first to get a snag on his line and after some strong pulling and swerving, reeled in a shark. Our slightly surly crewman Adam helped get the shark close enough to cut loose, cursing as he tried to untangle the other fishers’ lines.

We moved back into the fiord and to a calmer cove to look for better fishing locations, and Scott did some more fishing while I went for a kayak. The cove we were in was beautiful and empty, and I had a very pleasant paddle while Scott helped catch quite a few sea perch… and another shark – this one was more than 6 feet long! We finished the evening with a really delicious 4-course dinner: soup, lobster, fish and shark (though sadly, not Scott’s) with potatoes and salad, sticky date pudding with caramel sauce and cream.

In the morning the clouds had rolled in, to help us get yet another comparison point with our Milford Sound trip, and we finished the cruise with the mountains disappearing into the clouds. The fiord itself is much wider than Milford Sound, and the walls are less dramatic, but it is still amazingly beautiful and interesting to cruise through. Feeling free of other tourists out on the water definitely also adds to the experience. We had a wonderful time!

Scott: Also, the walls here are tall! Check out the photo with the boats on the water and imagine that scale on all the other photos. The place is huge.