Fiordland National Park – Thomson and Doubtful Sounds

Fiordland National Park is simply huge!  It’s unbelievable how large this place is, and you really can’t even begin to understand its size without looking at a map.  Jeff used Google Maps as we cruised thru this magnificent place on this day.  

We really lucked out in terms of our stateroom location on the port (left) side of the ship.  We were able to have our own private view station on our balcony as we sailed from Milford Sound to the next area we’d be exploring, Thomson and Doubtful Sounds.  Again, I just marveled at the size of the fiords, and then found them dwarfed by the mountains behind them!

One of the small sounds that we sailed by, but didn’t explore was Nancy Sound.  Jeff and I got a kick out of a part of this huge piece of New Zealand cost having a part named after his sister, Nancy!  Ok, not really, but it makes for a good story!

You’ll notice that the weather appears to keep changing throughout this day.  First, blue skies, then grey and now blue are breaking thru again.  It’s not the weather that’s changing – we’re just sailing thru different weather fronts!  At this point, we’re in Thomson Sound.  This portion of the day consisted of sailing into one sound, and then around some island fiords until we reached another sound and sailed thru it and out into the open ocean again.

When we were sailing thru Doubtful Sound, this was one of our views, and notice how the cloud cover increased again.  I thought this view was truly mysterious.  What lay ahead, if one traveled down this part of the national park fiord maze?  Stay tuned for Part III of this part of our adventure!

Enjoy!