The next highlight was the bus trip which ventured down a 1 in 10 slope, 220 metres deep (equivalent to 70 story building) into the mountain to the powerhouse of Lake Manapouri power station, to marvel at one of NZ’s top engineering feats, where water is piped through turbines using the height difference between the lake and the sea at Deep Cove at the inland tip of Doubtful Sound.

Next it was the bus trip through the lush dense rainforest over Wilmot Pass to get the first spectacular view of Deep Cove on Doubtful Sound, glistening far below. 

The coup de grace was the 3 hour boat trip from Deep Cove, down the 40 km ancient glacier carved fiord (Doubtful Sound), right out to the open sea (Tasman Sea), surrounded by rugged peaks; cascading waterfalls; intensely green lush rain forest complete with its earthquake fault lines. Some of the southern beech trees are estimated to be over 800 years old.

Near the seaward end of the fiord, a pod of nearby bottlenose dolphins frolicked and entertained us for almost 30 minutes and then paced our moving boat on the return trip to Deep Cove.

But one of the most memorable parts of the trip was when the boat was stopped and the engine swtched off. There was complete silence, only broken by the occasional birdsong or the murmurs of a distant waterfall. 

The return trip was made in beautiful dramatic late afternoon light, then ending with dusk descending just as the boat berthed back at Manapouri jetty.