"Where are you headed today?" the clerk at the motel in Dunedin asked when I checked out.
"Te Anau", I replied.
"You'll love it there." he responded. "It's so peaceful and quiet - a very different lifestyle."
When we emerged from the car about 4 hours later, we discovered that he was right. This was the view from our motel room.
Te Anau sits just outside Fiordlands National Park which covers 4,868 square miles - the entire southwest corner of New Zealand. The park consists of towering mountains covered by dense forest dissected by 12 major fiords. There are few roads, and most of the area is accessible to only the heartiest of hikers.
We sat outside on our little balcony basking in the relaxing atmosphere until it got too cold for our Hawaiian blood. Some hearty Australians enjoyed a picnic dinner at one of the tables scattered across the motel lawn and some equally hearty Europeans sat at the far end of the balcony drinking and discussing the challenges of getting home, but we were forced to retreat to our toasty (after we figured out how to turn on the heat) living room where we enjoyed the sunset view through our big glass sliding door.
The most popular activity for tourists in Te Anau is to cruise Milford Sound, but when I was deciding which tour to book, I discovered that the company I chose, Real Journeys, also has boats that cruise the more remote Doubtful Sound. You cannot reach this fiord via the national highway system. It can only be reached by sailing across Lake Manapouri and then boarding a shuttle bus that travels through the forest and over the Wilmot Pass.
The gravel road the bus travels on doesn't connect to any other roads because it was built solely to facilitate the construction of the Manapouri power station which is located across the lake from the town. The equipment required to build the power station was too heavy to ferry across Lake Manapouri so ships sailed down the sound and offloaded their cargo at a dock they built as part of the construction project.
Our journey began before dawn. We stood shivering in front of the motel in the frigid pre-dawn hours waiting for the bus that would take us to the dock on Lake Manapouri. The sun didn't rise until we were on the boat sipping hot beverages and enjoying the crossing.
Although this area of the country sees an average of 200 rainy days a year, it didn't look like this would be one of them.
We docked by the power station and piled onto the shuttle bus which traveled slowly through the forest. Although we didn't stop at Wilmot Pass, the driver promised we would have a chance to enjoy the view on our return journey. We finally arrived at the dock on the Doubtful Sound and boarded the tour boat.
The water was smooth and calm. We cruised past steep cliffs and long tumbling waterfalls. Our boat was the only one on the sound.
Doubtful Sound is 25 miles long which makes it the second longest fiord on the South Island. At its deepest, it's about 1,400 feet to the bottom. One thing that makes it unusual is that it has two distinct layers of water that scarcely mix - a low salinity layer on the top created by fresh water from the mountain cascades and a warmer layer of undiluted sea water on the bottom.
When Captain Cook first encountered the sound, he named it Doubtful Harbour because he didn't think that it would be navigable under sail. Its Māori name is Patea.
After almost an hour of smooth sailing, the boat began to roll. We were approaching the Tasman Sea, and the captain announced that it was calm enough for us to venture out into it. This was not good news for a sorry sailer like me.
We approached a line of low islands to view the seals lazing on the rocks.
The colors of the sky and the water sometimes seemed otherworldly. It occurred to me that we were as far south as I am ever likely to get.
I was relieved to return to the calm waters of the sound.
At one point the captain stopped the boat and turned off the engine so we could experience the quiet of the fiord. Unfortunately, our fellow passengers included a baby and a group of young teenagers. The baby took the opportunity to wail loudly and there's really nothing that can stop a group of teenage girls from giggling, but being stopped gave us the opportunity to spot a couple of penguins swimming in the water.
True to his word, the shuttle bus driver stopped at Wilmot Pass on the way back so here's one final picture of Doubtful Sound.
It had been a lovely peaceful day. We dreaded going back to the motel and reading the news.