An overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound was a splurge on our trip. Milford Sound is the popular area for tourists. Doubtful Sound is about ten times larger than Milford and three times longer. However, it is only accessible via boat crossing of Lake Manapouri and a bus ride over Wilmot pass. The remoteness of Doubtful sound is less convenient for tour groups, hence there is little tourist traffic. Both are technically fiords since they were formed by being carved by glaciers, not by rivers.
The tour firm bus picked us up at our hotel in Queenstown for the drive to Te Anau where we boarded a boat to cross Lake Manapouri. From there another bus took us over Wilmot pass to join our vessel that would be our home until noon the next day.
The crew told us that the two days of sunshine with only a brief shower was a rare occurrence. Apparently one normally gets extensive rain during the visit. During the cruise we could examine the shore from a small boat or via kayak. Swimming was also available and a few did that.
The second day we picked up a crew that were filming for the New Zealand tourism bureau. They had their own actors for close up photos on board. Our crew put up the sails. Photos of our boat with us tourists roaming on deck were shot from a drone aircraft circling our vessel. We will be trying to find the film in early 2017 on the internet!
