There are no roads into New Zealand’s Doubtful Sound or Dusky Sound, which is precisely why Heritage Expeditions built a five-day expedition cruise around them.
The mountains at Deep Cove drop down to the shoreline, their flanks draped in dense rainforest, peaks swallowed by low cloud. We are drenched before we step aboard Heritage Explorer. In a good way. The helicopter transfer that typically forms half of the arrival or departure experience was grounded by weather. In its place is a bus winding over the Wilmot Pass and a wet run by tender through the fiord. Steady rain has an unexpected windfall. The landscape is awash with waterfalls sheeting down ridges and gullies. It is not surprising, given that Fiordland’s annual rainfall is measured in metres not millimetres. Waterfalls are part of the attraction of this remote region in New Zealand’s South Island.
Heritage Explorer carries a maximum of 18 passengers and a crew of six. The ship is small enough to get deep into the fiords yet large enough to comfortably traverse the Southern Ocean passage between the sounds. Communal areas – a living room at the stern and a dining space at the bow – are lined with large windows that frame views of forest-clad mountains and cascading waterfalls.
The dining experience is a highlight, with chef Joe dishing up three courses at dinner, an à la carte breakfast and hearty lunches for walks ashore. All shore excursions and transfers from Te Anau are included in the voyage, as are waterproof gumboots for beach landings and experienced guides who share knowledge and insights about the area. Expedition leader Lyn Wade has co-edited a book on Little Barrier Island (Hauturu), and it sits on the ship’s bookshelf. Lyn proves to be an exceptional guide whose enthusiasm for the area is infectious.
Conservation is at the heart of Fiordland
Conservation and an awareness of this delicate ecosystem is what separates a Heritage Expeditions voyage from other cruise products. Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound are among the most significant conservation landscapes in the country, and the itinerary is built around these pristine waterways.
At Anchor Island in Dusky Sound, we go ashore to learn about kiwi relocation programmes. Expedition guide Jen points out the mutton bird scrub, whose leaves were historically written on and posted as genuine mail through the New Zealand postal system until NZ Post banned the practice. I pluck a leaf and stash it in my pocket. On Resolution Island, small traps line the walking tracks as part of a Department of Conservation programme to eradicate stoats, rats, mice and deer from this near-pristine wilderness.
On Pigeon Island, Richard Henry, New Zealand’s first conservationist, spent decades here in the late 1800s carrying native birds to offshore islands ahead of introduced predators. He called them his Old New Zealanders. The remains of his bird enclosures and a mostly intact fireplace are all that survive of a life devoted to them. Jen mentions a boat reputedly concealed somewhere on the shoreline, its bones buried under decades of moss. We searched for it but found nothing. Fiordland keeps its own counsel concealed on the forest floor.
Dusky Sound is known as the Sound of Silence. It wasn’t always so. Captain Cook visited in the 1770s and wrote that he could not hear himself speak for the birdsong, describing it as “the most melodious music, like small tuned bells.” On our voyage, it’s mostly silence that greets us as we voyage through the sounds. There is little twittering in the canopy. A New Zealand passenger with a long-held interest in conservation said quietly one afternoon as we stood on deck, “there are no birds.”
With the introduction of pests through human activity, melodious birdsong has mostly disappeared from Fiordland. The Department of Conservation is addressing the issue, though clearing the region of stoats, rats, mice and deer is a long game. The silence of Fiordland, once you understand the back story to the absence of birdlife, is disturbing.
What to expect from a Heritage Expeditions cruise
The shore landings are as varied as the landscape. A three-hour amble to Moose Lake in Dusky Sound passes through what I imagine a fairy forest looks like: deep fields of ferns, lichen and moss covering every tree root and rock, the canopy opening and closing where fallen trees have let in the light. The lake, when we reach it, is almost secondary to the stunning forest walk. Another time, Heritage Explorer navigates close to Cooper Island for mist-laden views of a waterfall, the bow nudging in close as a rainbow hovers in the mist.
At sea as we move between Doubtful and Dusky Sounds, the Southern Ocean passage brings albatross gliding low into the wave gullies and rising easily above the swell. The sea is wild and boisterous, and the ship moves through the swell with ease. Entering the narrow passage to the Basin in Dusky Sound, a large pod of bottlenose dolphins arrives like a welcoming party, leaping and spinning with circus-like precision.
Heritage Expeditions’ five-day Fiordland voyage offers a tantalising taster of both Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound. This is a conservation-led expedition suited to nature and wildlife travellers, photographers and those seeking to explore genuinely remote places. With no roads in, Heritage Explorer is the only way to see it.
