The trip to Doubtful Sound involved a short
drive to a boat that took us across a lake to a bus that took us over a
pass to a boat. This fiord was only accessible by ocean or by a
long hike until the 1950's or so. Now it is the less popular of
the two large fiords, which means smaller crowds. It is still
amazingly beautiful.
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On this fine day through the sound we saw no
wildlife, although we were looking for dolphin, seal, and penguin.
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An odd part of the tour was a stop in a hydro
power station buried deep under the lake that feeds into Doubtful sound.
Rather than build a dam to raise the water level, they put the
turbines in a cave a couple hundred meters below the lake. The
tour busses drive a 2km spiral tunnel down into the power plant.
Very much like the data haven in Cryptonomicon.
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The next day, we took a tour to Milford
Sound. Rain was predicted, which we had heard makes for good views
of the fiord with lots of water pouring off the cliff walls. It
is only lightly sprinkling at this point before we crossed the
mountains. Can you make out the rainbow just over the lake?
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Up near the pass, the snow is fresh from the
night before.
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Here, a cheeky kea (mountain parrot) is
perched on our bus. A group of them hang out at a rest stop and
alternately hop around looking for scraps or pull the tasty
weatherstripping or other loose bits off of cars.
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Here loads of tourists gawk at the keas and
the landscape before braving the tunnel through to the fiords.
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Did I mention how pretty all the snow was?
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Our cruise through Milford Sound gave us much
better wildlife encounters: dolphin, seal, and penguin.
Maybe it was the rainier weather. Definitely the rain made
the waterfalls more spectacular. Overall, the experience was a
little dampened by the bigger cruise boat and hordes of Asian tourists,
even in the off-season.
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After Milford Sound, we hopped in the car and
hiked another section of the Kepler track (which we had started a day or
two before). We'd really like to come back and hike some of the
great trails here. Are you reading this, Bill?
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