Doubtful Sound

We took a little adventure out into Doubtful Sound in Fiordland. Fiordland is a fairly large region covering pretty much all of the south-western corner of the South Island. It is a mountainous region carved up by fiords, lakes, rivers, etc., but almost wholly without access by roads. So you either have to hop on a boat or hike for several days to check it out - we hopped on a boat :)

Not sure if the pics do it justice, but Doubtful Sound is a fairly narrow body of water - it looks kindof like a smallish lake back in the US - except that it is basically in a mountain range so the banks of the fiord are steep-sided mountain tops. {Now, for your history lesson, fiords are usually long, narrow bodies of water with steep sides carved out by glaciers and they are usually connected to the sea, although they mostly contain fresh water.}

Needless to say, the place is really, really cool. The name Doubtful Sound was given by Captain Cook because, as he was sailing in the Tasman Sea around NZ, the entrance to Doubtful Sound looked so narrow that he did not think he could navigate his ship inland through it. It is an almost untouched rain forest-type area with endangered animals (see the Fiordland Yellow-Crested Penguin in pic).

Also, pretty sure we found Treebeard out there in the forest and I swear he winked at me :) - you can see some of his smaller brothers in the pics. The scene for Fangorn Forest was shot nearby as all the old trees have all sorts of moss and plants growing on them - would be a pretty erie forest at night. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, my apologies. For those of you who do, welcome to the cool club.

In short, any of you guys planning to come over here to visit need to check out this place.

Take care,

Lana & Charles

PS - GO HEELS!