Doubtful Sound today!

14/03/09

We emerge early today, rather bleary-eyed, and creep silently into the kitchen to make lunch and have breakfast. We aren’t supposed to use the kitchen between 11pm and 7am but we are hungry and need some lunch, so we tiptoe and close doors and drawers silently, hoping that we haven’t woken anyone… All seems well as we slink out into the grey pre-dawn light and loiter on the corner of our road. The company organising the outing, Real Journeys, is sending us a taxi to get us to the bus stop as our hostel is a little out of the way for the coach to come for us. We hop from foot to foot in the chill, early-morning darkness and watch for headlights. Several coaches go past but do not stop. Eventually a taxi pulls alongside us and it is warm and friendly inside – the lady driving has clearly been asked to do this before and knows the drill with sleepy hostellers on this trip! She chats gently as we are driven the few minutes to the bus stop and we are turfed out at the information centre, feeling rather nocturnal. Soon, other people begin to arrive too. Some quiet, sleepy couples, a pacing gentleman who peers short-sightedly at the rack of leaflets by which we are standing, and a loud American girl in an inappropriate and chilly-looking pink jacket. We are wrapped up and have spare woollies just in case it gets cold on the boat – we are expecting rain and chill today, though it isn’t spitting yet. We head out from the information centre, which is practically at Queenstown lake’s shore, and cross the road to our waiting coach.
The great peaks behind Queenstown rise high in the darkness, their great bulk a greyer mass in the grainy light. Dawn is breaking now and the first fresh blush spreads over the peaks beyond from behind. Wisps of cloud cross over their jagged heights, stained suddenly peach and gold by the crisp morning light.
We hop onto the coach and manage to nab a seat at the front. They are rather odd, though possibly a good idea. This coach has angled rows, so that each pair of seats faces slightly towards the window. It is very bizarre if you are used to forward-facing rows, and probably not great for travel-sick people, though they must have thought of that. Still, it’s a good idea if there is a lot to see…
Which there isn’t.
At least, not much yet.
However, as we leave Queenstown in the hazy beginnings of the day, there are still plenty of gorgeous views to be seen. It would be easy to become blasé about the beauty which surrounds this small town if you were to live here, because there is so much of it, but as a visitor, I remain enraptured by even the smallest mountains and the daintiest clouds!
As it is still so early, a thick layer of mist hovers lazily over paddocks in the valley near Queenstown. It silvers the view over the mountain range known as the Remarkables; they are hazy and loom, snow-tipped, above the whiteness. Red deer stare suspiciously out of the mist as we pass.
We travel on, the driver occasionally interrupting his sleepy cargo with little tidbits of information. We pass a remote and eerie lake, which has clouds hovering mere metres from its grey surface. We are near Wye Creek now. Shortly, we come to a stop at a lay-by. It is raining a little now and the sky is grey. We are told that our party splits here, with some of us going on the early boat out on Doubtful, and some of us going on the overnight trip. Andrew and I are headed for the day sailing, so we scamper off our first coach and try to get seats near the front on the second. We get the very foremost seats, which is nice. This bus is reassuringly ancient, in stark comparison to the first. There is an air of 1970s upholstery to it, but it is sturdy and not too cold! Our driver is friendly and confident too. He is given a big paper bundle of something by our previous driver, which puzzles me slightly. We are treated to more commentary on this leg of the trip (and the Americans are further back and thus their strident tones are marginally less irritating).
We pass through Manapouri, which has a population of only 300; more of Manapouri on the way back… We stop here briefly, near the shore of Lake Manapouri and the paper bundle makes sense as the guide hops off the coach and swings the big pile onto the doorstep of a local newsagent. This coach is clearly also the courier for the morning newspapers!
We wend our way onward. We pass the Lower Wye River, which used to be the second fastest river in New Zealand before the Manapouri Power Station control gates slowed it down. Manapouri means, appropriately, ‘Sorrowful, anxious heart’. This rather sad name change makes me ponder. Though I can’t help thinking that a hydroelectric power station is better than the alternative…
Lake Manapouri is the largest lake in New Zealand and the second deepest. We trot off the coach and onto a ferry to cross some of it – there aren’t many other ways to get to Doubtful sound as the roads cannot easily pass the peaks. We find ourselves sitting opposite a bundle of Americans, which state of affairs I greet with silent dismay, but only one is still American; one of them has married an English New Zealander, and the remaining sister is a naturalised Canadian… :) The largest problem Americans seem to have is saying anything which occurs to them – they’re not daft (far from it in this case; the three ladies seem highly intelligent) but as they appear to abhor a vocal vacuum, the quality of what they say is sometimes sacrificed for quantity. However, the four people we sit with are friendly and bright and we chat happily.
It is chilly and we are offered complimentary hot drinks to keep us warm as we either sit inside, or bounce around on the top deck, admiring the glorious passing scenery. The mist is starting to lift and the sun is now beginning to emerge on hilltops and mountains. Sun-dusted peaks peep over wispy silver clouds. Lush valleys peer out beneath the peaks and around steep headlands, sliding past one another in slick succession. A glacial waterfall skeeters down one bald edge, tumbling in a cascade of spray into the lake below.
The ferry operator describes this area of New Zealand as being, ‘…like Scotland on steroids…’ We are treated also to some geography, so forgive me if I relate it wrongly (geography has never been my strong point!). A line known as the ‘45th parallel’ runs through this area. The forest we are passing is just below this imaginary line and the cool verdant beech forests here are very similar to the ones in Chile, which is also on the 45th parallel. There are, apparently, many European rivers and mountains in Fiordland; as Europeans discovered it, they gave it fond names of their own memories and choosing, so England, Scotland and Ireland seem to nestle against one another in glorious typographical disarray. The Maori, however, called this entire area ‘Arto Femora’, which means Shadowlands. They rarely came here except to hunt food and look for greenstone (Pounamu). Doubtful Sound is at the heart of New Zealand’s Fiordland.
We trot off the ferry at the other end, a little chilly, but already with lots of lovely photographs. And we haven’t even got to Doubtful yet! I hope my camera battery holds out…
Our coach driver is there to meet us at the other end and scoops us up in the now warm sunshine to whisk us away further towards Doubtful Sound. More geography happens, but it is also botany, which is better for me! In fact – geography appears to be happening all over the place here… at varying speeds!
The driver tells us that the bushland here is a kilometre in height. You can see on the mountainsides that the trees only make is up so far before they peter out to be replaced by scrubby little bushes and then vast tracks of very little indeed. This is the ‘bushline’. As we go up in altitude ourselves, we see little trees – a stunted silver birch is only a small version of its lowland brothers because of the height. However, New Zealand is mostly evergreen but for a hardy few, such as the Mountain Ribbonwood, which is deciduous. There are many medicinal plants here too, such as a large hebe, known as the Koromiko, which is used by the Maori to treat stomach troubles. Further out towards the Sound, there is also a lot of sphagnum moss, which the forest uses as its own water-retention system for the dry months, as it is incredibly absorbent. It used to be used for wound dressing for this reason as it can also be made sterile by boiling and is soft.
The driver stops for us at some views too – the first one we stop at takes my breath away before we have even ground to a halt on the twisty, gravel track. I gaze in admiration at the first sight of Doubtful Sound, the heart of Fiordland, a shining, twinkling, ribbon of light twisting into a broader expanse of glittering water far beyond
We stop at another waterfall very briefly, and enjoy a brief moment of sunshine before hopping back on the bus and the next stop is Deep Cove, which has its own mini micro-climate. There is a Weka in the road, which I miss; they are sweet little things, flightless, inquisitive, flappy and clownish. We pass the Stella Waterfall, named after the daughter of an explorer.
Further geography happens – this place seems to be all about the geography…
We pass a spot which, a few years ago, was the site of a tree avalanche. Tree avalanches are particularly bad because the trees interlock their roots in order to stay more secure on the mountainside. This means that when one comes down, they all follow. This one happened because there was a 7.2 Richter earthquake at Doubtful Sound. Since this was the only road leading away from the Sound, Real Journeys had to organise a helicopter to get all the overnight cruise guests out!
Before this road was built in 1965, there was a walking track down to Doubtful Sound. It was rated amongst the more difficult walking tracks as is was fairly poor, with some bridges formed merely of a single gigantic tree, which may or may not be there when the next walker came along!
We slow briefly at a corner to let one of the passengers out – a sober, earnest, fit, middle-aged man with a large camera and specialised, pocketed, waistcoat. There are many ferns here, except for New Zealand’s emblem, the silver fern, or ponga. The naturalist hops off the bus here and goes to inspect traps, marked with a bit of pink ribbon. These traps are important in NZ as they catch stoats, which can and do decimate the local wildlife.
This is all our fault.
In the 1800s, rabbits were introduced as entertainment and food. They quickly became a problem, breeding, as they do, like rabbits!
In the 1900s someone had a bright idea to control the rabbit population and introduced stoats, which were fantastic and had the rabbit population down in no time. However, the stoats then realised that they’d been chasing these silly, tasteless bunnies when they could have been having the really idiotic and fearless local birds, like kiwis, for lunch instead, so they started on them and didn’t look back, leaving NZ with a stoat problem as well as a rapidly returning rabbit one.
So, in 2000s traps are being introduced, which keep the stoat population down a little. It may not be having a huge impact yet, but it is a start which should be helping the poor vulnerable kiwi.
We arrive at Deep Cove, pop. 1 (his name is Charlie and he looks after the Education Centre).
The Education Centre organises various tours and trips for people of all ages, but particularly for children, who seem to love it out here, in the wilds.
Doubtful Sound is larger than Milford, and less commercial.
We are pointed towards our boat (and nibbled by mosquitoes – grr…). The ferry is called ‘The Navigator’ and as we wait to board I take in the amazing scenery. Even just here in the cove, there is so much to see. The water stretches out, deeply green and rippling, except here under the jetty, where it is still and limpid green. It practically glows, reflecting the borrowed sunlight back to the surface tinged oddly with bright translucent green. It ebbs and flows gently in the light current and we are ushered onto the ferry. It’s rather posh, and has lovely seats and nice little touches, like art deco lights. It could be anywhen. As we bask in the unexpected sunshine, we find a spot on the top deck near a friendly Canadian lady who kindly saves my seat for me, unprompted. Suddenly, someone notices a dorsal fin – we have dolphins! They come to look at the boat in the glittering sun in the limpid green water, peering at us and then disappearing into the distance near the rapidly disappearing jetty, making glittering patterns in the dark water below the looming mountains. The sun is still shining and makes clear patches on the water in the valley. The gentle zephyrs in the valley give way to a stronger breeze as the valley opens out and I feel the wind in my hair, whisking is about in the sun. I feel the weather gently tanning my exposed skin and delight in the purity of the air and freedom in the landscape. Peaks and tops slide by one another, a constantly unfolding vista of green mountains and glassy water, twinkling and clean in the sun.
No mammals lived here in New Zealand, except for a small bat, until they were introduced by Man. With the lack of mammalian predators, birds became flightless and therefore extremely vulnerable, this is why the stoat problem became so severe – the birds had no way of protecting themselves against these sleek, new predators, and have not yet had time to evolve any defences. This is unlikely to happen as they are running out of population and therefore time, so we have to step in to help undo the mess we have made with our meddling.
The fiords, however, are peaceful and wild, as they were intended to be. The waters are deep and clear right up to the rock faces, with a good depth of freshwater overlaying the deeper saltwater below. We are joined once more by bottlenose dolphins, who are more inquisitive than the first pod; playing right up to the side of the boat, this alien thing in their clear water. We inspect each other as they play alongside the hull. Their sleek silver bodies cut through the water and gentle sighs punctuate the silent ripples.
We pass a huge waterfall, tumbling gleefully from rock to rock almost vertically down a mountainside. According to which geographer you ask, this is actually the world’s steepest river, owing to its slight gradient away from vertical.
But I think it’s beautiful anyway, whichever it is!
Andrew and I have a little wander around the boat and admire the interior.
I have found Andrew a piano too! Soon, happy trills and key changes issue in an old-fashioned tone and chirp daintily around the sunlit lounge.
The captain’s monologue is gentle and informative, in a soft Kiwi accent, and he tells his passengers more as we round yet another headland. He relates to us the reason behind Doubtful Sound’s name. In 1769, Cook’s Endeavour left the UK and spent three years on the seas. They were looking for an island which was believed to be here, which would balance out Europe. Cook discovered the North and South Islands and thought at first that he had discovered the Great South Continent. He was disappointed to find that he had discovered merely islands. The crew were keen to get ashore at Doubtful Sound to collect fresh drinking water and specimens. Cook, however, risked a mutiny by denying them this as he was afraid that they would be trapped in the Sound by the wind direction, which didn’t seem to change so they didn’t go in and on his charts he named it Doubtful Harbour for this reason.
On a later trip, the Resolution was captained by Cook down to Antarctica. They eventually gave up on finding the Great Southern Continent as the men were frozen, frostbitten and really suffering. Cook remembered gentle New Zealand from before and set a course for it, arriving at Dusky Sound, the largest fiord. They spent five weeks here recovering. They caught fish, made beer, met and befriended the local Maori people, who were fascinated by Cook’s on-board animals.
Eventually Cook and his crew used the stars to plot their location, and sailed away. Sadly, in 1779, Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands proved fatal to Cook owing to a misunderstanding where he was killed, but his contribution to exploration was groundbreaking and invaluable.
Travelling this way by water is so restful to mind and spirit, watching the peaceful mountains here, untroubled by the rest of the world, all your cares and concerns can be allowed to drift away, unheeded and immaterial, lost in the beauty.
The captain is clearly sensitive to this ethereal feeling and he demands a silent moment, to be at peace with the silence and stillness which surrounds us. As the engine winds down, there is an awed silence from the passengers on the boat too.
This is a special moment.
All that can be heard is the sound of wind-water-waves blown to the shore as we drift in the currents, peaceful and at one with the majestic mountains which benignly surround us. We drift in a gentle current and turn in silence, unbroken by anyone as we all feel the sanctity here. Birds twitter and call in the vertiginous wilderness of the lower slopes.
Be still and remember what peace there may be in silence
This moment could almost be holy; there is certainly something here, something larger than any of us, larger than humanity, something older and wiser than we can ever aspire to be…
The gentle breeze makes tiny white ripples on the black surface of the deep dark water.
It is with some reluctance that the engine begins again, righting us gently from where we have drifted, and powering on, back towards reality.
We are quite close to Dusky Sound here, the next Sound along, a smaller one. Fiordland has the largest sea cliffs in the world – and these are visible here, huge, looming beasts of land.
"You don’t have to leap up and down to take photographs the whole time, sometimes it is sufficient and best just to Be." -CD, Doubtful Sound, NZ, March 2009-
The reason geography keeps cropping up in our guides’ monologues, is that there is so much of it here. To paraphrase one of my favourite authors, the tectonic plates here are still zooming around and crashing into one another in sheer high spirits! Our captain tells us that the Fiordland mountains grown very fast because of all the tectonic plate activity here. It is right on the Pacific Plate, leading to earthquakes and thus tree avalanches, of which there is evidence in several places along the Sound, in the form of long, pale, rubbly scars down the slopes. Geography is not the only discipline to get a look in however; 20 new sea creatures were discovered near here recently – and they weren’t all the same one!
We arrive back at the jetty and reluctantly disembark, envying the people who had come to hop on next – they would be spending the night on board!
Next time…
Back onto our coach, still in the sun, unexpectedly, and we are off again. The coach driver is good to us and stops for photo opportunities. Lady Ellis Falls is rather lovely in the afternoon sun – cascading in white beauty down the mountain and bouncing in white spray below, leaping from boulder to boulder as it continues beyond the bridge on which we stand, it is rather impressive.
I love the way much of New Zealand looks so like England (maybe how England ought to be?) or Norway, and then the vegetation throws in a few surprise tree-ferns and palms for outrageous foliage, making it just sufficiently Other to be exciting whilst still being verdant and homelike.
I think I am slowly learning to stand my ground with other people, rather than deferring to people who haven’t earned it yet, photo spots, queues, good seats, being sufficiently confident and open to accept offers of help. I realise that people don’t offer unless they hope you will say yes – as I do it too!
Someone stands in front of me as I try to take a photograph and instead of sighing and wishing he hadn’t, I look at the glories I am now missing but want to try to capture in my own amateur way and step back in front of him to regain my frame.
I take my shot.
I Can so I Should.
I would recommend Real Journeys. They are thoughtful and efficient, for instance, they organised mine and Andrew’s free taxi this morning, unbidden, and had clearly done the same for several other people in awkward accommodation too. So far, I would suggest that if you only had limited time in New Zealand, spend it around Queenstown. Alpine Lodge and Turner Lodge are nice – homely, clean, friendly, old-fashioned and quirky.
Our next stop is something I am a little dubious about, but looking forward to, especially as not everyone gets to see it on this tour, so we are lucky.
Manapouri Power Station.
We head for the tunnel which leads to the power station itself, deep inside the mountains, though not actually below them. On the way our driver pauses for a brief photograph at Helena Falls. Helena Falls is named after the first teenager who stayed here, the daughter of an official. Her full name was Helena Fell, so they decided not to call it Fell Falls! We pause at a bridge over another waterfall, which tumbles cheerily down some boulders and zooms down the other side of the bridge. A cobweb glints in the sun between two railings, just above the water and on the other side, some mossy boulders and ferns offer dainty drips to the discerning eye, each one a tiny, distorted reflection of the whole green world in a single drop.
We wend onwards, heading generally downwards. We pass the ‘Turret’ range, which looks like the crenellated battlements of some great fortress; a section of road we traverse is known as Gentle Annie, after a huge horse which helped to build it; and the Memphis Mountains are always snowy.
We all have a bit of a chuckle at the signs near the Memphis range – they have mostly been altered by some wag with spare letters.
‘WARNING - mICE’
‘WARNING - spICE’
We approach Leaning Peak, just above the power station. The beech trees here are evergreen, known as False Beech. There is one which is pointed out to us that is over 600 years old; it has avoided being the victim of tree avalanches. It is old and mossy, covered in Goblin Moss. There are many different kinds of moss and lichen here, some so old and verdant here in this clean air that they hang off the trees like old green beards, swaying in the breeze. It’s impressive and I take big lungfuls of air, safe in the knowledge that it is pure and clean if the lichen likes it! There is also a lot of Spagnum Moss here. This is the plant which keeps it a cool temperate rainforest, because of the way it stores water. Spagnum was used during WWI to treat gas wounds and even now members of the New Zealand army always carry a little with them because it is both absorbent and antiseptic.
We arrive at the Manapouri power station entrance. The driver makes a phone call to let the officials know he is here and he begins our descent. We pass through barred iron gates at the entrance and as the light recedes behind us, it grows dank and cold outside the coach. The tunnel alone is impressive. Drilled and blasted by experts brought in from Italy, it is 2 km long and makes one and a half spirals before it reaches its destination. The granite, schist, and gneiss composition of the walls makes them so strong that cement capping was unnecessary and the blast marks and chips are still plainly visible on all the walls.
We are allowed into the inner workings of the power station, so far beneath the layers of rock, on the understanding that we do as we are told and don’t wander off. We are ushered into a large, hot, Perspex-walled observation deck.
It is like something out of 007!
This vast underground chamber hewn out of the naked rock houses several enormous blue machines dotted at regular intervals along the hall. Inside each massive machine is a faint flapping behind a mesh screen. They are held together by some serious bolts and are clearly designed for function, not beauty. Their very size, however, makes them impressive, and they are clearly well maintained internally for work reasons and externally for the visitors! They are painted various shades of textbook blue and hum massively in their magnolia chamber, monitored by numbers displayed on black and red matrix screens.
All we need now is a man in a sharp grey suit stroking a fat white cat…
The seven generating machines are 20 metres high – we see a tiny fraction of each one and the rest extends for three levels below us, each the size of this one. It is hot in here with these machines, beneath the mountains by the lake.
The huge halls were bored by hand, not with tunnel boring machines. The company expected and allowed for a death rate of 10% during construction… Given that they employed 1800 workers that’s rather a lot, I think! However, probably partly because they employed experienced, knowledgeable workers, they lost a mere 16, and of those 16, two were nothing to do with the work. One had a heart attack and the other died in a bar room brawl over a woman!
Manapouri is New Zealand’s largest hydroelectric power station and is here because it is near to a vast source of water and also because it is close to a large aluminium smelter who uses 80% or what Manapouri produces. In fact, they tailor their production to the smelter’s needs so as not to take too much. 15% of Manapouri’s produced electricity goes to the National Grid.
Manapouri’s full capacity, working at full steam, is 120 gigawatts.
That’s a lot.
However, there are restrictions on the intake and discharge of the water of Lake Manapouri.
The site itself is run by only two people on site at any one time; the rest of the work is done from Twizal, across the lake. There are 20 permanent members of staff, some of whom get the boat to work every day – how nice is that?! Wonder if they need any more project management or admin staff…?
;)
Timeline:
1960 – Rights to power station granted
1963 – Government steps in with cash and work begins
1969 – First power is transmitted
1971 – First aluminium is smelted at Tiwai Point, Bluff
1972 – It is realised that full capacity cannot be achieved because there is more friction
than at first thought and there is not sufficient tailrace for the escape water.
1990 – Te Waipounamu is designated a World Heritage Area
1998-2001 – New tailrace is built
They have tried to keep Manapouri Power Station as ecologically sound as possible, or so they tell us, but it is clear from its history that there are certain groups of people who are unhappy with the power station being here at all, disrupting the water, and although I prefer it to the alternatives, I have to say I agree with them…
We are taken back onto the coach (which turns around in an awkward space I wouldn’t even try turning my Corsa in!) and the driver pops us out at the ferry jetty again. We are tired and very happily full of things we have seen today. An American lass to our left asks in strident tones, ‘What’s my accent like?!’. Andrew and I look at each other, restrain ourselves and keep mum…! I have come to the conclusion that Americans appear stupid because the majority of them say exactly what they think as they think it and they’re so used to each other doing it that inane rubbish is the norm and they don’t notice it any more. Aussies, Kiwis and Brits tend to have more effective mental filters betwixt brain and mouth. I know some of the stuff I think privately in my brain isn’t fit for public consumption because I’d look a right blonde ninny – I just manage to screen it before it comes out!
However, at least the Americans we have met here have acknowledged, accepted and visited some of the rest of the world… They’ve managed to effect an escape!
We snooze most of the way back in the coach, and are dropped off just as dusk is falling, to the information centre on the waterfront again. We toddle down to the wooden jetty and admire the Remarkables and Queenstown Lake in the embers of the day’s gorgeous sun. It is still relatively warm and the mountain tops are bathed in a pink glow as the sun sinks beside us. I envy the view the tandem paragliders must have, far above us, having taken off from their lofty eyrie in the evening sun. We watch them steer and glide, circling high above us, tiny dangling dots below their white canopies, floating peacefully between mountain and town…
!
My heart leaps into my mouth as I watch!
A tiny blob tumbles from beneath one of the canopies.
This has to have been an accident.
His little legs wave in the air and he tumbles haphazardly towards the forested mountainside. A mere whisker from the hillside, a tiny white mushroom bulbs out above him, swiftly followed by a navy canopy.
But it is twisted and dimpled!
He falls far too fast, spiralling towards the ground in slight disarray. I find it hard to believe that this was a deliberate activity; there seemed too little time between his partner and the ground for him to have opened his ‘chute safely.
I fervently hope that Someone was watching benevolently and that he landed safely.
That’s put me RIGHT off the idea of paragliding, though the other half-dozen or so land apparently safely with their tandems still intact…