{"id":1125,"date":"2015-11-06T01:17:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T08:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2015-11-06T01:17:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T08:17:29","slug":"its-doubtful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=1125","title":{"rendered":"It’s Doubtful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last August, we had much debate about whether we should visit Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound from Queenstown.\u00a0\u00a0 Milford Sound is much busier and requires\u00a010 hours of riding on a tour bus or taking a small plane\u00a0on the return\u00a0and cutting the trip time in half.\u00a0 We were going to opt for the bus\/plane tour; but, we were concerned that if the weather was not in our favor for the plane ride back to Queenstown, we would be in for a very\u00a0long bus journey.\u00a0 We opted for\u00a0the Doubtful Sound tour; as it is only a 5- hour++ round trip bus ride.\u00a0 \u00a0Today, was our\u00a0Doubtful Sound Tour and\u00a0we\u00a0woke up to rain,\u00a035 degree temperatures and high winds-yuk!\u00a0 (At this point, we were quite happy that we did not select the Milford Tour).\u00a0 Being right on a lake, the dampness makes it feel substantially colder.\u00a0 Lesley piled on 6 layers of clothes\u00a0which included 3 long sleeve shirts, two Lululemon jackets and a Patagonia puffer.\u00a0 She was still chilled to the bone most of the day!<\/p>\n

The tour bus, with\u00a0about 19 other\u00a0tourists,\u00a0picked us up at 7:15 a.m. at our hotel.\u00a0 We were off and running with terrific commentary from the bus driver about the New Zealand topography and some fascinating New Zealand\u00a0legends.\u00a0 It actually started snowing on our way to Doubtful Sound and we had snow covering the mountains by the time we\u00a0arrived back\u00a0in Queenstown.\u00a0 Keep in mind, that November is New\u00a0Zealand’s late springtime.\u00a0 The initial drive was through farmlands, including farms raising deer, sheep & wapiti (elk).\u00a0 Many of the sheep farms have converted to dairy production because of basic economics.<\/p>\n

The normal tour was bus, boat across a lake, bus, then boat in Doubtful Sound.\u00a0 Because of recent rains,\u00a0 a bridge on the second bus ride was washed out –\u00a0 it became bus, boat, bus, walk, bus, boat.\u00a0 It was quite the journey!\u00a0 Doubtful Sound is beautiful and the rain that morning resulted in numerous temporary waterfalls.\u00a0 The road after the lake is the only NZ road that is not connected to any other road in NZ.\u00a0 Thus, the only way to visit Doubtful Sound is by boat.\u00a0 The\u00a0Doubtful Sound area\u00a0is a national park\u00a0and the \u00a0area reaches to the “high tide” mark.\u00a0 A number of years ago, a cray fishermen realized the opportunity and built a “hotel” just below that high water mark.\u00a0 It is the\u00a0ONLY building in the Doubtful Sound area.\u00a0 After his “hotel” was built, the government quickly changed the laws outlawing such a structure.\u00a0\u00a0Today,\u00a0ended up being a very long day (about 13 hours)\u00a0but totally worth it.\u00a0 We will sign off for a few days due to travel.\u00a0 Tomorrow, we are\u00a0flying\u00a0off to Auckland overnight and then on to Sydney the\u00a0following day.<\/p>\n

\"Washed<\/a>
Washed out bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One of many waterfalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Moss<\/a>
Moss grows on everything<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Doubtful<\/a>
Doubtful Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hairlines<\/a>
Comb-overs don’t work in a headwind!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Doubtful<\/a>
Doubtful Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cray<\/a>
Cray fisherman “hotel” built below high tide line<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Doubtful<\/a>
Doubtful Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Doubtful<\/a>
Doubtful Sound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last August, we had much debate about whether we should visit Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound from Queenstown.\u00a0\u00a0 Milford Sound is much busier and requires\u00a010 hours of riding on a tour bus or taking a small plane\u00a0on the return\u00a0and cutting the trip time in half.\u00a0 We were going to opt for the bus\/plane tour; but, … Continue reading It’s Doubtful<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-i9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1186,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}