February 13, 2019
We got up before dawn to get ready for our 7:15 AM trip to Doubtful Sound. The weather was partly cloudy. The boat dock was only a few km down the road and there was plenty of parking since we got there early. At the boat dock we saw amazing bright pink and orange colors from the sunrise.
The first 45 minutes of the journey was a boat ride across Lake Manapouri. The early morning sun lit up the surrounding mountains and cliffs with a nice orange color. I went up to the top deck and took numerous photos and videos.
We docked at a visitor center facility that had nice display panels of the area geology and wildlife. After a few minutes we boarded a bus for the second leg of the journey: a one hour drive up Wilmot Pass. The road went through dense rain forest. As we got closer to Doubtful Sound, the weather progressively deteriorated from mostly cloudy to full cloud cover and a lot of mist. I took pictures of a couple of waterfalls near the road. These were narrow ribbon waterfalls cascading off the mountains.
There was a very misty view of Doubtful Sound near the top of Wilmot Pass. I did not take any pictures there.
We boarded the Go Orange boat. It was not filled to capacity: I am guessing about 50 total people were on the cruise: no tour groups and no children. I spent most of the time standing on the top deck. Despite the weather which was initially drizzling, it was not that cold or windy. The water was quite calm. That also led to the very misty conditions at the start of the cruise.
It was a very different experience from Milford. The morning light through the mist made the surrounding mountains look ghostly. I thought it was pretty cool. As we progressed through the sound toward the Tasman Sea, the weather improved. The light through the clouds was lovely, and there were patches of blue and periods of sunlight. At the entrance to the sea there was a faint rainbow. It was windy there but still not too rough on the water. On the way back there was one spot that had sun rays coming down from the clouds that looked wonderful with the mountains as a backdrop.
There were several ribbon waterfalls to view throughout the sound, but nothing as large as Stirling Falls or Bowen Falls that we saw at Milford. We also did not see any wildlife. That was surprising to me since I thought we might see dolphins or seals. Still, overall it was a fun experience.
I am glad we took the morning cruise instead of afternoon. The morning light on the mountains was a highlight. On the bus return trip the overcast conditions returned and it was not as interesting. The tour guide stopped the bus at Helena Falls for a short photo break. We also stopped at the outlet tunnel from the power plant, where the water from Lake Manapouri was let out into the river. At the top of Wilmot Pass the view into Doubtful Sound was a complete whiteout, so there was no reason to stop there. We passed four full bus loads of the Real Journeys folks for their afternoon tour.
The boat trip back across Lake Manapouri was uneventful. It was very nice being in a small group of people. Everyone was friendly and well behaved.
After the tour we drove back to the hotel room and walked over to the restaurant. They had a takeaway menu where we ordered 2 servings of the blue cod fish and 1 scoop of chips. We discovered that 1 scoop was plenty for 2 people. Total cost was $17. The hotel also gave us coupons for 2 free beers which we were allowed to take outside of the restaurant to have with our fish and chips. We ate at the picnic table outside our room. The weather that afternoon and evening was very nice: partly cloudy.
We spent that evening relaxing. I had taken so many pictures and videos that it took a while to go through all of them and select the ones to post to Facebook. The internet at the room was very slow (almost as bad as in Yellowstone) so I used my cell phone data connection most of the time.
I was hoping for nice weather for a sunset walk at the lake, but we did not get it. The clouds rolled in and the mountains in the distance were fogged over.