In the tourist brochures of Fiordland, that mountainous part of New Zealand in the far south, pictures of the Sounds, both the very popular Milford Sound, and the somewhat less accessible Doubtful Sound, show the magnificent scenery of these mountainous fiords glistening under the blue sky sunshine in all its glory. Stunning. The problem is, the pictures are just a wee bit bogus.
That part of the world sees as much as 9 meters of rain every year. On average only one of five days will see sunshine of any kind on the fiords, and five consecutive days without rainfall is considered drought. Now the boat tour operators say that the scene in the fiords is spectacular no matter what the weather – as a matter of fact if it is raining the temporary waterfalls stretching along the mountain cliffs are a wonderous sight. And that’s true. No one would be disappointed. But on our trip to Doubtful Sound, our view was different from those cloudy, foggy mystical days. Out of sheer blind luck, our visit was brochure-perfect.
Milford Sound is the more easily accessible of the two. 30,000 tourists a year trundle up the road to Milford – from my cottage perch on the hill just outside Te Anau, the town central to Fiordland, I watched tour bus after tour bus passing along the distant road. The scenery along that road is spectacular and once you reach the Sound you will find a large boat terminal where hoards of tourists, many on group tours centered on nationalities – Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese – or mixed groups on a (long) day bus trip down from Queenstown, line up to board the many boats of different tour operators to cruise the Sound.
Doubtful Sound is different. Just getting to it is a bit of an adventure. You board a boat which takes you on a 45 minute trip across Lake Manapouri. Once on the other side, you disembark and board a bus for the half hour ride down a very steep, switchback road leading down to the head of the Sound. There you board another boat for the cruise down Doubtful Sound.
Captain Cook and his buddy stood on the deck of his ship peering at the entrance to the fiord from the Tasman Sea, trying to see what was beyond the rocks and islands at the mouth of what he thought was a harbour. Buddy said “Suppose we do go in there, do you think we’ll be able to maneuver our way out again, against the prevailing winds? Do you reckon there’s enough room in there?”
“Doubtful” replied Captain Cook.
We sailed out to the mouth of the fiord to check out the view that Captain Cook saw all those years ago. Rocky islands covered with sunbathing seals are scattered across the entrance and dolphins appeared to say hello and hang out with us for awhile. Seas were calm on this beautiful day but I’m mindful that this is not the usual sight. Most of the time the tour boats cannot venture out that far.
The steep winding road that the bus cautiously traveled to get us down there was not built for tourists. It was the 1960’s and New Zealand was building a big aluminum smelter down at the tip of South Island. They needed power, and lots of it. So some genius came up with the idea of building a hydroelectric plant at the lake at the top of Doubtful Sound. The only problem with this particular plan was it would require flooding Lake Manapouri to raise it by 30 meters, thus altering for all time the geography and ecology of this pristine environment.
“Oh no you don’t!” and there started the beginning of the environmental protest movement in New Zealand. After marches and protests and petitions signed by over 10% of the population, the project as it was originally conceived was canned and the engineers went back to the drawing board. Result, the plant was built 30 meters down into the earth and the lake remained untouched. Everything to build the plant and now, to maintain it, was brought by ship to the head of Doubtful Sound and dragged up the steep, switchback road to the top. Not surprisingly, the project went wildly over budget and was completed 3 years late.
No one lives at Doubtful Sound. A Princess of Maori legend put a curse on the Sound and brought sand flies to the area – little biters that would ultimately drive away anyone who tried to live there. And it has worked.
At one point on our cruise, we sailed into an offshoot of the Sound where the guide announced that we were going to have the opportunity to inhale the quiet of this place where people don’t live. The captain was going to cut the engines, we were to stop talking and just listen to silence for 5 minutes. Right. Good luck with that – getting people to stop talking. Of course there was one Frenchman who just kept yakking away but eventually he was shut down and indeed, we were able to just listen to the sounds of silence, in a beautiful place surrounded by huge cliffs and mountains and deep deep blue sea. A magical day.
The Maori named it Patea – the Place of Silence.