I have never kayaked before. I have never seen a fjord before. However, I’ve looked at kayaks and maybe touched one, and I’ve seen fjords on maps. Therefore, I am qualified for a 13km (8 miles, for those of you who don’t know how to metric) kayaking adventure through Doubtful Sound (it’s actually a fjord) (no, I don’t know the difference between a sound and a fjord).
We had to report to the main office at 7:20am, woohoo! I’m proud to report that I murdered zero native wildlife on the road to Manapouri, unlike yesterday, when I murdered a bird. I double-parked the Sunny like a boss, but I’m american and I don’t really know how to drive on the left, so we’re good.
Our kayaking tourguide was an Irishman by the name of Cloudi Rainbow. He. Was. Awesome. He loved our matching bucky hats, but all americans look alike to him, so we became USA 1 and USA 2. After a crash course in kayaking with no literal crashing or sinking, we got in our kayaks and paddled away!
Doubtful Sound was really amazing. The Sounds in Fiordland national park are actually some of the wettest locations in the world, and it rained on us at least 15 times on and off throughout the course of the day. There was a lot of moss and thick trees growing up the steep slopes of the mountains, and it’s prone to landslides (I think the term is treeslides) frequently.
Doubtful Sound and Fiordland national park are also home to a crazy amount of birds, but it’s nowhere near the amount that used to be present before European settlers introduced stoats, ferrets, rabbits, and deer to the island. They’re focused on restoring the country to its natural state, so there’s a lot of deer culling, and they’ve set aside islands as protected areas for the natural birds and other wildlife to begin recovery. We saw some crested fiordland penguins on our tour, and one baby seal!
After six hours of kayaking, our arms are dead. We survived the bus ride back, showered, and then feebly did some grocery shopping and got some Japanese food for dinner. Sarah’s hands are covered in blisters, so I have to open her beers for her. We’re also unable to get things off of high shelves easily…and I can’t really scratch my back. Ahh, I’m so paying for this tomorrow. But it was worth it!
