Doubtful Sound

I got up at the crack of down this morning, much to the dismay of my roommates who were just crawling into bed, so that I could meet up with my tour coach for the three hour drive to Lake Manapouri. Our group took a leisurely one-hour cruise across the lake to the hiking area on the other side where we were picked up by another coach and driven up and down the mountains to reach Doubtful Sound, one of New Zealand’s many fjords.

I’ve read so much about fjords in Scandinavia that when I started planning this trip to New Zealand, I knew I would need to visit one. Milford Sound is the bigger tourist spot around here, but I discovered Doubtful Sound, which is supposed to be more peaceful than Milford. I was pleasantly surprised that we saw only one other boat on our entire cruise around the sound. We spotted penguins, dolphins, and seals in their natural habitats and the captain even turned off the engine and requested silence from all passengers for a few moments on the sound so that we could hear how peaceful it is out there.

The sea was a little choppy as we got closer to the opening of the sound into the Tasman Sea, but it was beautiful and I’m glad our boat went all the way out to the barrier islands. Even though it made for a very long day, considering I left at 7am and didn’t get back until nearly 8:30, I think it was well worth it. Even after having to put up with a group of annoying Asian tourists and a family from Minnesota that kept trying to adopt me (seriously, the mom came over and asked if I wanted to hang out with them because her daughter was in college too! Gasp!). It seemed like older women flocked to me all day asking me if they could take my picture for me… it was a little weird.

I woke up from my nap on the bus back hungry, so I headed to a cute little diner called Cranky Franky’s that is down the street from my hostel. I ordered the macaroni and cheese and it was like no diner food that I’ve ever seen. It looked gourmet. However, the surroundings were complete fifties diner and they specialized in milkshakes. It’s funny how when I’m on the other side of the world little places like this make me feel at home because they play Grease Lighting and have cheesy décor. The food was fantastic though, albeit rather pricey. But I guess I’m getting used to the cost of eating out down under.