Doubtful Sound, 1

There was never any doubt we'd do Doubtful Sound on this New Zealand visit. We drove by Manipouri in 2009, took note of it all, but figured we'd be back. We'd just done the Milford Tramp and seen Milford Sound. But now, finally, we're back, and the only question was whether we'd do the day cruise of New Zealand's largest accessible fiord or the over-night cruise. We opted for the latter, with Real Journeys, the largest of the tour/cruise firms operating in Fiordland. Basically, you ride a big catamaran across Lake Manipouri, transfer to a bus, ride it across Wilmot Pass, then settle into a day and night on the Fiordland Navigator. You're in the company of 50-60 other people, many of them splurging like us, but the cruise is worth every cent (particularly with various discounts, etc.). The scenery is incredible, the nature stuff impressive, the captain and crew great, the food very good (I really over-did the greenies), the special experiences--sunset and sunrise, spending the night anchored in a secluded cove, pulling into another and shutting down all the engines and motors to hear what the fiord is really like, venturing out into the Tasman Sea, etc.--were very special indeed. I'll do a couple posts and hope they can convey some of what we experienced.

Over the pass now, our first glimpse of Doubtful Sound, a small arm of it, that is 

The first of scores of waterfalls, big and small, high and low

Fiordland Navigator

The Cap'n

Vicki and I spent a good bit of time on the bridge--less wind, fewer sand-flies,
lots of  nautical and other information from the Cap'n

The Plan

Kayak fun

Oyster catcher

NZ pigeons

Weka; day-time version of Kiwi

Swimming fun (not us)

Sparkling waters

Out beyond the fiord for an hour's cruise around its mouth and a sense of what
the Tasman Sea is like

Australia...1,100 miles out that way

Sails set

Skerries all around

Queenstown Hill, 2014

Another day we decided to hike up Queenstown Hill, which affords great views and also some needed conditioning. We did the same hike in 2009, and, although much was changed, much also was the same.

The lift up the other hill toward Launch Control (bungy,
parasailing, other Kiwi delights)

SS Earnslaw belches its way across the lake toward Q-town

The great Elven gate to the hiking path on Queenstown Hill:
"speak, tourist, and enter"

People have built numerous small cairns at one of the switch-backs

And even a Fairy House (Penelope note)

The poisonous pizza mushrooms are still there

As are pretty flowers

And dark woods

It has become traditional, we have read, to do a "Birth of
Venus" pose from the Basket of Dreams sculpture atop the
hill; well, why not? Botticelli would be proud...

And then gaze upon the Remarkables

And the lake

Skippers Canyon: The Jet Boat Ride

Were I still in Montana or the inland northwest generally, I would not go near a jet boat. They have ruined too many beautiful rivers there. But, hey, I'm a tourist here, and it's not a great fishery, and the upper Shotover is pretty desolate, and...

The captain reviews the passenger instructions, which basically say to hang on for
dear life

And we are off...

Obligatory action shot (free for booking through the Black Sheep); there were
3 Koreans, us, a young woman from Nice, and a young man from Edinburgh;
jet boats need only a few inches of water, and they can attain speeds upwards
of 50 mph; so they said; and I don't doubt

Bonus along the way...the Fords of Bruinen, where the Black Riders ask Arwen
to kindly hand over the Halfling

And she doesn't

Well, you can hardly capture a jet boat ride in still photos, so I have added here a link to my shorter-version YouTube video of our experience. Hang on!

Skippers Canyon: The Bus Ride

We moved on to Queenstown, where we stayed at the Black Sheep ("Backpackers' Resort"), obviously inhibiting the much younger clientele there. We were in what I think must have been the bridal suite, since it had a double bed and a TV. Anyhow, we did an administrative day, a day walking around Q-town, and then a couple touristic days. The first of these was doing the jet boat ride on the Shotover, the upper Shotover, to be precise, Skippers Canyon. Staff at the Black Sheep recommended this, adding that the bus ride was no less exciting that the jet boat ride itself. They were right.

Less hearty souls stop here, just outside the Queenstown city limits, to take the
more popular Shotover Jet

Not us; we took the Skippers Canyon bus up and over the pass, 6-8 miles (it
seemed like more) of the worst, most exposed mountain road we have ever been on

Built during the 1860s gold rush, and not much changed since then

Thus, after the pass

Vicki demonstrates the "drop, cover, hold" procedure during the bus ride

Finally, the river again in view

Thus

And our jet boat, waiting for us

I foolishly figured the jet boat ride would take us down river, and we wouldn't
have to endure the ride back out of the canyon, over the pass, and so on; not so...

Ringwaifs

The Glenorchy area is rich in LOTR sites, and, although we've seen them all before, we had to see them again, especially as we are this time equipped with GPS, and we're a little surer of looking at the right things.

Orthanc here

Orthanc viewshed

Nice scenery even if not in LOTR

Ford en route to Lothlorien

Sort of like Lothlorien

Ditto; southern (Gondwana) beech trees; most of Fiordland is a beech climax (as
opposed to seral) forest

Moving on down the lake to a cove on the 12-mile something or other...

The cliff from which Frodo and Sam witness the ambush of the Men of Harad
(and their oliphants) by Captain Faramir's Rangers of Gondor

Where Sam and Smeagol discussed recipes for coney stew

On The Routeburn, Again, 2014

I guess we have spent more time on the Routeburn than on any of the other Great Walks: partly because our major traverse was in bad weather, and we keep going back to see what we missed. Anyhow, this day, out of Kinloch, we walked from the east-side portal up to the Flats Hut, a beautiful and not too demanding day-hike.

As I said, so many of the walks begin with a bridge...

Going along a river up a canyon...

More great pools and even beaches

Thus

Did I mention the waterfalls?

Mountains and glaciers?

We went only as far as the Flats Hut

Commons area

Dorm area; typically the huts will sleep a couple/three dozen
or more; reservations required...

Cooking area

There are four such huts on the Routeburn, all along typically
manicured Kiwi trails; well, the Routeburn gets a bit less
manicured at its higher elevations...

A beach

Purple Gondwanaland mushroom

And returning to the bridge