Travel Destination » Travel to Fiordland National Park

FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK NEWZEALAND
He stood frowning at us from a green wedge in the forest. The Fiordland crested penguin’s beetling yellow brows made him look like a fuming senator. Behind us, bottlenose dolphins rode the wake of our catamaran and on all sides rose cliffs that were very verdant and very, very vertical. A narrow sandy beach pearled with frothy surf, and braided waterfalls coursed down the lush rain forest-draped mountains. I thought my heart was going to stop right there from the sheer beauty of it all.

One chilly September morning, we found ourselves at Doubtful Sound in the heart of Fiordland National Park in New Zealand’s South Island. The sky was heaven-high and as blue as it gets and the sun had stretched its rays across the world. We had arrived at this mysterious eden from Queenstown, New Zealand’s adventure capital. (We were guests of Pan Pacific Travel Corporation Ltd. and Mumbai-based Mosaic Holidays who had organized our visit in conjunction with Air New Zealand.)

Our journey to Doubtful Sound began with a cruise across the crystal-clear waters of the island-studded lake Manapouri (the second deepest lake in the country). We boarded our catamaran armed with preordered picnic lunches, for we had been warned that there were no restaurants beyond that point.

As we cruised around the four arms of the lake, hewn during the Ice Age, we learnt that the name Manapouri is a corruption of Manawapouri which means Lake of the Sorrowing Heart. For it was here, according to Maori legend, that the two daughters of a Maori chief died in the forest when one of the sisters went in search of her lost sibling. She found her in the forest but subsequently the duo could not find their way home.
The rugged contours of the southern opened around us and unspooled a world of mystery and unsurpassed beauty. A hard wind blew sounding like whispers from the distant past, for this is the place for voices from beyond. According to another Maori legend, God carved present-day Fiordland using his ko to dig out the steep-sided valleys and fjords. Following the footsteps of the Maori, European travelers eked out an existence here amidst this grand tapestry of mountains and forests.

Barring the sound of the wind, carrying the whispers of the ancients, and the occasional raucous call of a bird, all was still and silent. Soon we disembarked on the west arm of the lake and boarded a coach for the next stage of our journey over the Wilmot Pass. New Zealand’s steepest highway was carved in a glacier-scooped valley, revealed our nature guide and coach driver, Peter Burdett. It took workers two years to hack through the wilderness to build the highway.

In this pollution-free, cool temperate rain forest area, the rays of the sun are so strong that plants produce rich colors to act as a sun block, particularly moss and lichens which were a carnival of electric-blues, shocking pinks and blood-reds. The wild fecundity of a rain forest has its downside. Tree avalanches are common, said Burdett. “Once a tree falls it strips all the trees in its path, pulling them out of their shallow roots.” The noise of a tree avalanche can be deafening, akin to a million sticks of dynamite! All that’s left are ugly scars which take 75 years to heal.

The coach braked to a stop and we had our first glimpse of Doubtful Sound in the distance, the second largest and deepest of the 14 fjords in the region. Luminous, awesome. The fjord glistened and wound its way amidst range upon range of rain forest clad mountains.

Soon we had arrived at Deep Cove and were back on the water for our three-hour 40 km cruise. The 75-person multi-deck catamaran was virtually empty as there were only 17 of us in the group. The vessel nosed into a passage with liana-hung trees drooping overhead and the scene scrolling by was luxuriant, as though a Hollywood set decorator had been given the simple instruction “jungle paradise” and had gone overboard and over-budget.

Glacier-ground ridges led the eye down to the sinuous fjords hemmed in by dark bush-covered precipices. The whole luscious package was tied with ribbon-like waterfalls that coursed down the mountains like the. veins on an ancient hand. There were hundreds of them dancing, gushing, misty the spray occasionally cooled our hot-with-excitement bodies. What we didn’t see was the astonishing abundance of ants and termites living in underground chambers and arboreal nests which are the vital components of the rain forest’s machine of life.

As we headed towards Malaspina Beach and Crooked Arm, we spoke to Captain Kim Cormack. “On a good day, one sees dolphins, penguins and seals. Yesterday, it was raining all day and we saw nothing but waterfalls. Whatever the weather, Doubtful Sound is majestic.”

On longer trips to Doubtful Sound, one could hike, walk, wade, gaze and sit amidst the gravity-defying gorges. A person could just spend a healthy chunk of time studying the way the greens, grays and different shades of blue intersect here. Birds fluttered above as we steamed past verdant hills drooping with feathery rimu trees, the familiar beech trees and fat-leafed ones which we had not been formally introduced to.

A massive tree rose straight ahead of us—tall as a totem from some rain forest pantheon. “In the jungle, life is a competition. All the trees and plants vie for light—the normal trees fight for height and spread and parasite plants drip from every trunk and limb,” revealed the captain.

A pearly mist muted the rainbow colors of an unknown bird and as we turned, a huge blue butterfly appeared astern, fluttered awhile and left us behind in its bouncing, flitting flight. I had never seen a butterfly Swing by so fast or glow so brightly. Nor had I seen such a startlingly blue bird which resembled a piece of torn sky.

When we went on the bow of the catamaran to join some of our co-passengers, a dorsal fin broke the surface of the water. We all pointed, shouting with delight. The captain stopped for us to observe a couple of bottle nose dolphins, who arched out of the water and then crashed back into the fjord.

Doubtful Sound is at the extreme edge of their ecological limits.