Doubtful Sound Trip - Part Two

When we got into the visitor's centre at West Arm after taking the boat across Lake Manapouri, I didn't get much chance to look around because Len found out that I am a Christian and doing a youth ministry program, and started talking to me about his church and the youth there. He's a Baptist and is highly involved with youth in the sense that he has them over to his place to hang out and stuff (kinda funny for an older man, but it's cute). So I didn't get to see a single thing because he's so chatty and he just stopped me while I started looking around and just talked and talked...it was nice, but I was kind of hoping to check out the information and pictures on the walls. I was only slightly annoyed because I spend all my time here in Te Anau meeting new people and forcing myself to make small talk when I'm not good at it...and I just wanted a day out alone with just me and God's creation and a boat ride and a picnic lunch. But anyways...it was still a great day. Let's move on.

Anyways, we could choose between two buses, and I went into the one that Len and Mary went into because they wanted me to stick with them for the day. Our bus driver's name was Bruce and he was quite the humourous guy. We were driving up a mountain in a bus on a narrow winding road and then back down, and he was going to talk to us the whole way, telling us about the history and scenery of West Arm. The whole area has a permanent population of...ready for this...ONE. He is the guy who runs the hostel down by Deep Cove (which is where ethe bus would be stopping and we would get on the boat to take us out into Doubtful Sound). The rest of the people who come through are trampers, tourists and workers. Because it's an isolated area and has limited access, the scenery is absolutely gorgeous...almost unscathed and uncorrupted by human interference. We stopped at a few places along the way and took pictures, and everytime we took a tight corner or had to pass an oncoming bus on this narrow road very carefully, he would say "Right well I'll just close my eyes and hope for the best here..." He must get so tired of making all the same jokes and still getting the same amount of laughter for it.

When we came to the very top of the mountain road, Bruce said "for those of you who work in high rise buildings...here is the view from MY office" and that is when everyone in the bus gasped. We pulled over to the side of the road to just look at the majesty of creation. I will definitely post the picture I took here - though my photography does the view itself no justice. It was gorgeous - we were standing on top of the world looking down on Doubtful Sound. Wow. Words can't describe it, so let's move on.

We then started driving down the mountain, and stopped at a small river where I took another one of my favourite pictures, and then the ride was more or less uneventful until we got to Deep Cove.

At Deep Cove, we got on the cruise ship and found our seats at tables. Once again, Len and Mary called me over to their table even when I made a point to sit by myself. Oh well - I didn't plan on sitting down once my lunch was eaten. So I sat down with them, opened up my picnic lunch to see what these people planned to feed me. I was kinda scared because I'm a fairly picky eater (this is where mom says "FAIRLY?! Ha!") and I didn't make the choice to have a picnic lunch - but Rae booked it for me and I wasn't going to complain. Anyways, I opened it up and there was a smorgasbord (yes I had to look up that spelling on www.dictionary.com) of goodness awaiting me inside that little box. I could almost dedicate an entire journal entry to what I found in that lunch box:

A cheese croissant with bacon (here, bacon is just like a thick slice of ham...but I think it's the part of the pig that we would call peameal bacon...it doesn't really taste like bacon), tomato, pickle, lettuce and cheese, an individual packet of wheat crackers, a little tiny individually wrapped piece of cheese, an apple, a trail mix bake bar and a little peppermint chocolate thing to finish. It was B-E-A-Utiful!