Doubtful Sound

It's difficult to do justice to Doubtful Sound in a photograph, as it's really a full experience rather than just a visual treat. At one point in our 3-hour voyage on the Sound the captain turned off all the engines of the catamaran for about 5 minutes so that we could experience the silence: all that could be heard was the occasional lapping of water against the ship and a few bird calls. (We were told strictly not to produce any sounds with cameras - there was no phone signal there so that wasn't a problem!) It was quite a spiritual moment.
 
Fortunately we had very little rain, but very little sun either. Apparently last week's rain had caused some flash flooding but that had all subsided. The mountains tended to loom out of the clouds in a way which was quite dramatic but tricky to capture accurately on camera (or am I just making excuses...?!).
 
Anyway I rather liked the few moments of sunbeams when the sun tried to get through, so I've used that shot as my main blip.
 
In case you don't know, getting to Doubtful Sound requires a boat trip across Lake Manapouri and a coach ride over Wilmot Pass to the western side of the mountain range before the boat trip on the Sound. The weather was a lot brighter as we returned to the east side of the mountains so I've included a rather nice shot over Lake Manapouri taken on our return trip.