Day Cruise to Doubtful Sound

Over the river and through the woods, to Doubtful Sound we go! To get to Doubtful Sound, you have to take a bus (literally, a school bus) to a boat, to another bus, to a boat. The boat in the middle was Boat #1.

Bus #2.

We pulled over and saw some lovely sights along the way.

The fog makes everything look a little supernatural, right?

After the transport, this is what most of the final leg looked like.

Our trip to New Zealand was early in the spring, when rain is abundant. and we had amazing weather the whole way. Sure, it rained a couple days in Wellington, no big deal. It rained right when we arrived at Aoraki, but we had two gorgeous days there when the forecast said it was going to rain the whole time. We'd hit the weather jackpot, and were grateful.

The weather had to give out at some point, and our day cruise to Doubtful Sound happened to be that day. But, still...

You can't make a waterfall without a little rain! The upside of rain is that the waterfalls are fast and furious.

Our tour guide gave us a little pep talk. She said, "Well, it's raining. And it's cold. We have a stove on the boat, we'll keep it warm. The day is what you make of it. So get out there and have fun." We took her advice.

I'm sure Doubtful Sound is spectacular. I can't say that I really saw it, at least, not the way it's meant to be seen. The clouds/fog/rain were so thick, it was hard to see anything past the cliff we were right next to. But the waterfalls were incredible, and we still had fun. And the day made us appreciate our immaculate Milford Sound overnight cruise even more.