Dingo's log 2011 - part 3

3. Dingo in New Zealand: Fjorland

This is why we do it, why we put up with the seasickness and the bad weather and the lack of fresh vegies and showers: we have been in Fjorland for a month now, and it is just fantastic!

So we went to Port William (Stewart Island) to wait for good conditions to cross Foveaux Strait to Fjorland. While there, we met a group of fishermen/hunters who gave us some of the famous Stewart Island oysters fresh off the bottom. These oysters, apparently the best in the world, sell for $2 each on the local market!

It took a cold and uncomfortable overnight passage, motoring in light head winds in a two meter swell, to get us out round Puysegur point and into Preservation Sound, the southernmost of the 15 fjords of Fjordland. We entered at dawn with an epic blood red sunrise painting the light house and the perpetual surf breaking on the cliffs either side of the steep narrow entrance. Always a relief to slide into calm sheltered waters. We motored to the very head of the inlet some 14 miles up the longest fjord, to Cascade Basin. After three nights in Cascade Cove, we visited Cuttle Bay (the scene of much sealing and whaling), Isthmus Cove and Weka Island Cove where we tied up alongside Takapu, a 60-ft motorboat in his 14th season bringing groups into the sounds, which was tied up alongside Southern Quest, which was tied up to a huge barge, if you get my drift. Takapu had two gutted deer hung from its helipad, quite a sight for us vegetarians.

It was in Preservation Inlet we heard snatches of news on our hf radio about the tsunami in Japan, what a shock. This was followed by a alert to mariners should the tsunami produce freak waves here (which it didn’t).

Out to sea and round the cape into Chalky Inlet, up the longest arm to Lake Basin anchoring in deep fresh water next to a steep underwater bank. The head of the fjord is surrounded by steep rugged hills with a fair bit of decent rock showing through the ever present thick temperate rain forest peculiar to these parts. This forest has maybe 7 to 9 species of tree including antarctic beech and  rimu. The canopy is complete and underneath the introduced deer have cleared out the undergrowth making it reasonably easy to move around compared with say the west coast of Tasmania which is virtually impenetrable. Beneath the canopy all is given over to ferns large and small and various mosses of the deepest luxuriant growth speaking of monumental rainfall (Fjordland gets an average of 200 raindays a year). If you have seen the film Avatar then you get an inkling of what it’s like to walk through this forest, espcially on a sunny day when the everything is backlit and pristine.

Keen to get up to Dusky Sound, we took a weather window and six hours of rocking in a big SW swell and little wind to slide into Dusky, making our way to Pickersgill Harbour, our last anchorage in the sounds 21 years ago. After a false start where anchored and tied up in the wrong cleft (!), we finally secured ourselves with anchor and two stern lines ashore in the correct rocky inlet. This was  exactly one week before the 237^th anniversary of Captain Cook tying up his ship Endeavour for a two week stay for water, wood, smithying, cooperage and astronomical observations, after 124 days at sea from Tahiti via the southern ocean having sighted Antarctica. There was a group of Cook enthusiasts on the charter boat Pembroke who were going round the next week firing a small cannon at all the significant places Captain Cook visited.

The weather was brilliant and we had a 5-day spell of high pressure, warm sunny and windless days. Rejane went diving for abalones and brought up 10 big ones. The same day Derek, Pembroke’s skipper, gave us a freshly caught crayfish so we feasted that night on abalone and crayfish!

We went to Luncheon Cove (where Captain Cook ate crayfish), Earshell Cove (so named when Captain Cook remarked on the shell strewn beach), Cascade Cove, Fanny Bay (a popular ladies name in Captain Cook's days!) and finally Supper Cove (you guessed it).

Supper Cove is as far as Dusky goes inland, 24 nm from the sea with epic mountains all around. We did a bit of the Dusky tramping track, tough going even without a pack. Makes you realize why the Kiwis are such fit bastards in the hills!

From the depths of Dusky Sound we came out as far as Acheron Passage, a six nm fjord that connects Dusky to Breaksea Sounds and half way up that passage Wet Jacket Arm runs inland. We spent the night in Stick Harbour, a tiny cove right on the entrance to Wet Jacket, perfectly sheltered while anchored and tied off astern with two lines. Up and down Wet Jacket Arm, into Broughton Arm which turned out to be something very special with 2000m mountains dropping steeply into the black, perfectly reflecting water. Twisting and turning we finished up at the very head of the valley making use of fixed stern lines. We stayed two nights and the second day it rained hard (snowing on the summits) and the waterfalls open up on all sides in spectacular fashion, the force builds up very quickly in heavy rain and drains away with equal rapidity when it stops. The other aspect of these steep heavily rain forested hillsides are the tree avalanches which scar every them. Huges narrow slices of hillside, some a thousand meters or more high, are swept clear to bare rock when the weight of water in the moss and scant soil overcomes the root’s hold and the whole mass crashes into the water.

Leaving Broughton Arm we went to the head of Vancouver Arm where we stayed three nights, waiting for the rain to stop. There is an extensive beach, where Rejane picked up some cockles for dinner, with lots of deer track and a huge glacier carved valley curving round to the north. While this sounds idyllic we have to tell of the sandflies which are ever present and make us go out only fully dressed with headnet and gloves (Rejane’s dear sister Flo suggested that only freshly killed bear grease will keep them away). Then there is the condensation there is inside this steel boat as the winter temperatures start to drop. Rejane has improved some doubleglazing on the windows with plastic and there is newspaper everywhere to catch the drips. Ageing bodies feel the damp cold and the fronts cause aching joints, but it’s worth it and more.

We took the last weather window to make our way out into the Tasman Sea again for the 20 nautical miles up the coast to Doubtful Sound with 4m swells running in our direction. Now far inland at Deep Sound which is a metropolis with four buildings, Rejane is off in an hour to make a trip by coach and ferry to Te Anau for provisions and to email big items like this update that cannot go via our HF radio.

We hope you are all well and happy.

Rejane and Jim