New Zealand Woman’s Weekly

TRAVEL

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Pamela Wade skips the tourist mecca of Mitre Peak for quieter thrills in Fiordland.

There’s a select group of people who raise a sardonic eyebrow when others rave about the spectacula­r scenery of Milford Sound. Yes, they’ll concede, Mitre Peak is hard to beat – but for the rest of it, the sheer rock walls, the plunging waterfalls, the towering mountains? Meh. They’ve seen better.

Well, experience­d it all better, anyway. Instead of crawling in a line of cars and coaches all the way from Te Anau, queuing up to get on board one of a dozen or so boats chugging off to take turns nosing into the waterfalls, and jostling for the views along the Sound, these are the clever people who head off in the opposite direction.

They go to Manapouri, where Real Journeys takes them across this pristine lake and into the secret depths of Fiordland.

An hour-long coach ride through a steep-sided, bush-clad valley, pausing at the spectacula­r lookout of Wilmot Pass, delivers them finally to Doubtful Sound.

This is the deepest of all the fiords and much bigger than Milford. Here, at Deep Cove, they board the Fiordland Navigator, a modern vessel masqueradi­ng as a traditiona­l three-masted scow.

This is where the journey really begins – gliding out across the water to luxuriate in having a fiord all to themselves. The peaks may be a bit lower than Milford’s, but they still soar overhead, streaked with rainbow-hung waterfalls and wispy clouds draping their lower slopes.

Along the rocky shores and on bare islets, fur seals sprawl and snooze. Dolphins come to ride the bow-wave, albatrosse­s fly over and mollymawks settle on the water to frown sternly at visitors’ cameras. There might even be a whale or a crested penguin or two.

Getting even closer, expertly guided by enthusiast­ic and knowledgea­ble crew members in the Navigator’s tender (or better yet a kayak), the seclusion and the serenity become truly personal.

Some passengers take that to the extreme, leaping into the water. After all, the sea temperatur­e here rarely drops below 11°C and in summer can reach a sizzling 16°C!

With scarcely another boat to be seen in the whole of the fiord, it’s easy to identify with the early Maori and European explorers who first laid eyes on this magnificen­t place.

In fact, when the skipper stops the engines and the silence spreads and deepens, broken only by bird calls, waterfalls and the sea, it feels as though the modern world has never existed.

But then it’s time for a hot shower, pre-dinner drinks and a delicious home-cooked buffet dinner, enjoyed in congenial company. The surroundin­gs may be as far from civilisati­on as most on board have ever been – and that night sky up above, undimmed by light pollution, is literally dazzling – but the Navigator is a haven of comfort. Being gently rocked to sleep is the perfect end to the day.

The next morning brings a sumptuous breakfast before cruising back to Deep Cove, and the return to hustle and bustle. But everyone leaves fortified by both the spectacula­r scenery and having been able to experience it in peaceful serenity. So not at all like visitors to Milford Sound, then.

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