Off to the mighty Fiordland. One massive piece of conservation land that makes up ten percent of New Zealand’s landmass. Stretching from Mt Cook down to the very bottom of the South Island on the west coast. I had always wanted to visit this amazing place but somehow never managed it during my four years at Otago University. Queenstown and Wanaka spoilt us for spectacular scenery and there didn’t seem to be an imperative to venture further south and west. We picked up Viv from Dunedin and headed through the Southland towns of Gore, Clinton and Lumsden before arriving at Lake Manapouri. We had booked a house right on the lakefront. Mega bucks but hey – this was our first time in Fiordland and we wanted to make it a memorable one. The house was just amazing with 180 degree views out over the lake and mountains.
The undoubted highlight of our Manapouri trip was our cruise on the Doubtful Sound. At $240 each it seemed expensive but in hindsight it was cheap for what we experienced. The Real Journeys company has been around for years in the area – heavily into conservation and preserving the ecology. They took us over Lake Manapouri as far as the Manapouri Station. During my years in the electricity sector I was lucky enough to visit power stations in many of New Zealand’s remote and beautiful locations. But the Manapouri Station had always fascinated me – mainly for its remote location and the sheer size and complexity of the engineering construction project. The station actually looks quite underwhelming when you see it, but of course the bulk of the station lies underground going down some 170m. There are 10km of tunneling to reach the turbine hall where 7 vertical penstocks feed 7 machines pumping out enough power for the whole South Island – well actually the majority of the output is used by one mega aluminum smelter in Bluff. We had the number one comic bus driver for our trip over the hill to Doubtful Sound. ECNZ funded the building of the Wilmott Pass road – now acknowledged as New Zealand’s most expensive roading project per metre. Apparently the downwards section is about the steepest gradient of any road in New Zealand, but not to worry as the brakes have been checked 11 months ago. At the top of the Wilmott Pass we had our first glimpse of Doubtful Sound – just wow . . . Captain Cook was the first European to come across Doubtful Sound – but never made it in as he wasn’t sure if he could get the Endeavour out again. Hence his name for the place being Doubtful Bay. It was some Spaniards who later first mapped the area apparently. The Real Journeys Patea is big, comfortable and an absolutely first rate way to see this piece of paradise. Every turn is a photo opportunity – every corner yields a vista seemingly more beautiful than before. We were able to poke our nose right out into the Tasman Sea (which the Captain described as a millpond that day but that didn’t seem to stop one poor girl depositing her breakfast over the side). We saw some fur seals sunning themselves on rocks – a reminder of the thriving sealing industry this place supported 200 years ago resulting in over 100,000 seals being slaughtered for their blubber and meat. Viv was in the unfamiliar territory of being without internet and so no snap chatting, instagramming or facebook. At one point the captain switched the engines off and we just drifted in silence with just the sound of birds. Captain Cook apparently remarked on the bird chorus which at dawn was deafening. It’s a lot less now with the amount of introduced predators – the big problem in this area being stoats which were supposed to kill rabbits but instead turned their attention to birds and eggs. DOC is leading a new programme in NZ called Predator Free 2050 – no more stoats, rats and possums in 33 years time. Its an ambitious project and with 60 million possums in NZ, probably only achievable through a breakthrough in gene science. We all decided we wanted to come back to Southland. But for now – it’s back to Dunedin for our flight to Wellington and on to Australia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Richard and JolandaJo and I have decided to give up our work, our house and our lives in Wellington NZ to see the world. Our big adventure started on April 6th 2017 . . . Archives
January 2018
Categories
All
|