At the other end we boarded another bus for a 30 minute ride which took us over a gravel road over Wilson Pass and down to Doubtful Sound.
What a view! At the top of the pass we looked down at the entrance to the sound. It is actually a fiord by definition (carved out by glaciers), as are all the “sounds” in this south western region of NZ. We boarded the boat about 2:00 PM and spent the next 20 hours on Doubtful Sound. Everyone has their most beautiful place on earth, but this beats all of them.The day was rarely perfect weather for seeing the sound. Mostly sunny, about 70 degrees, not too windy. We headed out from the eastern most part of the sound (Deep Cove) toward the mouth of the sound at the Tasman Sea. It took about 3 hours to reach the sea. Along the way we saw water falls at least 2,000 feet high, mountains descending straight into the water covered by the native beech trees, moss and other tree and shrub vegetation I don’t remember the name of. The mountain sides are all rock, no dirt for the roots to dig into. The trees cling to the mountain side by spreading their roots into the moss that grows on the rock. You know this moss which is the stuff a florist puts in a potted plant or flowering plant you buy. That dried moss came from these sounds of New Zealand. So… the roots of these 20-30 foot tall trees clinging to a very steep mountain side are only an inch deep, but spread very wide. Periodically they have “tree slides” which are like an avalanche but instead of snow, it’s with trees. There are many scars on the hillsides running hundreds of feet from top to bottom and only several feet wide, from these tree slides.
About half way to the sea, we came across a pod of bottle-nose dolphins. There were about 10 of them. At first they were a ways out from the boat, but as we headed toward them, they saw us and came to the boat. They were jumping out of the water and swimming next to the boat in the surf at the front of the boat, jumping and playing. It was amazing to see them having such fun with us. They stayed with us for about 15 minutes.
At the opening of the sound to the Tasman Sea there were several small islands, which makes sense since the sound was glacier formed and the glacier left all these little islands at the end from all the silt and rock it pushed out as it moved. On these small rock islands we spotted hundreds of fur seals basking in the rare sun. After watching them for a while the captain of the boat turned us toward another small rock island where we spotted a rare crested penguin. This time of year they are stuck on land while they molt and replace all their feathers. It is a rare penguin, so were were really lucky to see him.
While in the sound we had a chance to kayak or go out in the boat’s tenders and snoop around closer to the shore. That was fine, except for the dreaded Sand Fly! They are worse then mosquitoes, although thankfully, the bites don’t itch as much. There is folklore that says that some goddess brought them in as a curse to keep people out of this beautiful area. It worked, because there is no one here, except us tourists. But it is beautiful!
About 6 pm we headed back into the sound and to a sheltered cove to anchor for the night. It was very calm, and after dark we couldn’t even tell we were on the water. We woke about 6:30 the next morning to the sound of our boat’s motors. It wasn’t daylight yet, but we got up and had breakfast. By about 7:30 daylight was starting to show through the pouring rain and fog which had settled on the fiord. The lighter it got, the more beautiful it got. I thought the day before was amazing with the sun, but this fog and mist created such a mysterious look with the steep rock walls coming straight into the calm water, with every hill side behind it slightly foggier. The rain brought out hundreds of waterfalls cascading down the mountain sides from thousands of feet straight up. This day was such an amazing contrast to the day before.
We returned to the dock by 10 am, boarded the bus that took us back over Wilson Pass to Lake Manapour, boarded the water taxi for another hour ride across the lake to our bus back to Queenstown. It rained heavy all the way back.
We checked into our hotel, then headed out to dinner at the restaurant the bus driver recommended – Botswana Butchery. It was in a cute cottage like house on the lake front, but the inside had been remodeled to be rather modern – lots of black and white. We arrived at about 6:30 pm in our jeans and wet rain coats. No we did not have a reservation but our bus drive recommended the place so they accepted us. We followed the receptionist to the second floor where she sat us in a small room, single table, two comfy, overstuffed wing chairs, all to ourselves with a fire place and a window view of the lake. This little room even had a door that they closed each time the waitress came and went. How we lucked out on this, we’re not sure, but we suspect that since we were dressed in our soggy jeans, they were trying to hide us. We had an excellent dinner (lamb and steak).
Now we’re back in our room and we’ll head out tomorrow morning for Auckland, and very sad that our trip is coming to an end. We could spend a month in Queenstown and not do everything! 
Sunset in Queenstown on our last night there.
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