The incessant rain dripped from my sunhat. My jeans were clinging clammily to my legs. My surroundings lay lost in the cloud banks that enveloped the little boat, creating an aura of mystery and suspense. Alone on the upper deck I braced myself on the rail as we cut across the mouth of Doubtful Sound, roiling and bucking with the waves.

Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Site is comprised of four contiguous national parks running up the southern west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. From south to north these are Fiordland National Park, Mt Aspiring National Park, Westland National Park and Aoraki / Mt Cook National Park. Our trip to New Zealand had been scheduled to take in the first three of these. As it was, due to being ripped off by a campervan hire company and being left stranded in Queenstown with no transport, no accommodation and no money to pay for either, our once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand ended up starting and ending with a single day trip to Doubtful Sound in Fiordland before we had to fly home early (New Zealand remains the only place I’ve visited where I was glad to pay more to leave the country sooner than planned).

Doubtful Sound, the less visited southern sister to the more famous Milford Sound, requires a full day – though it depends on where you start from. Tours – you can search for them yourselves - leave from the town of Manapouri at 10am sharp, so if you are an early riser you potentially could leave the tourist hub of Queenstown before the crack of dawn, drive flat out and get there in time, before doing the same in reverse at the end of the day. I think organised tours by coach also permit a day trip. We didn’t fancy our chances and so we booked accommodation for two nights in Manapouri. I would certainly recommend that as an option if you have time and money and your own set of wheels. But book ahead – on our tour 43 of the 45 available spaces were taken.

The journey to the sound is itself a bit of an adventure. It has three stages:

1. A crossing of Lake Manapouri by catamaran, gliding past steep forested islets as you head towards the soaring Southern Alps. The catamaran docks in West Arm where a hydroelectric power station perches on the bare rock like a Bond villain’s lair; at this point you have entered both the national park and the world heritage site
2. Transfer to a 1981 vintage coach with bench seats and a temperamental heating system. This redoubtable old workhorse pulls out onto the only section of road in New Zealand not connected to the rest of the road network and shuttles you up and over the Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove. Though the word ‘shuttle’ implies speed, which is quite at odds with the nervy journey as the coach ground its way up to the pass, gears protesting, and the even nervier drop back down again as a heavy foot was needed on the brakes as the road wound between a steep rockface to the right and a sheer drop into a valley to the left. The journey does, however, provide a first glimpse of what makes this area so wild and valuable. This is a proper rainforest, primeval and untamed, tangled beeches larded with moss, trunks green, beards hanging from branches, clouds pressing close, drizzle falling from leaves, rushing and tumbling along the roadway.
3. Arrival at Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound where the cliff plunges down into water the colour of iced tea.

Doubtful Sound is meant to be a connoisseur’s choice. Milford Sound offers competing tour companies, a range of adventure activities and the end of the famous Milford Track. Doubtful is far less visited. The selling points, as explained to me, were that it was larger than Milford Sound and also quieter. Without having visited Milford I don’t feel equipped to make a full comparison. However, I would comment that I was in no place to judge the size of Doubtful because we spent the entire journey swaddled in cloud. Other than when we nosed up to the cliffs to wonder at the cascades of crystal-clear rain- and melt-water the surrounding landforms were only dark shapes in the mist. And I could not judge the silence either because the engines of the boat thrummed constantly underfoot to keep us from being driven into the rocks. I did have some joy at spotting wildlife though, with three New Zealand fur seals and four rare Fiordland penguins being spotted.

Would I visit Doubtful Sound again? Well, my experience of New Zealand was rather soured by the treatment we received there and I did vow in anger to never return. But the reasons I wanted to visit in the first place remain valid, I suppose, so my opinions have mellowed slightly over the intervening two years. I would still like to properly have my once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand, and exploring more of ‘the place of greenstone’ would form a decent chunk of that. But next time I might take the easier option and opt for Milford Sound instead. Purely for comparative purposes, you understand.

World Heritage-iness: 4.5

My Experience: 2

(Visited Nov 2016)