Doubtful, but Remarkable

Manapouri, Thursday 5 March

By rights I should be out in the middle of nowhere tonight, camping in Hall Arm in Doubtful Sound. Unfortunately I'm back in last night's backpackers after the kayaking trip got cancelled due to bad weather. There's a convergence of fronts from the Tasman creating storm warnings – today the sound was choppy and swelly, and it's supposed to get worse so they made a safety call and cancelled our trip. Annoyingly they cancelled once we were all togged up in wetsuits with kayaks packed, rather than any earlier. So we got the dawn boat ride across Manapouri – gorgeous – and bus drive over Wilmot Pass, and all the pre-kayak stuff and it was all looking quite positive for a while. Deep Cove, where you launch, is really sheltered so we couldn't see conditions out in the sound and our guide was relying on radio from a more senior guide who was out in the sound with a group. We were all ready to go when she radioed through cancelling our trip, at which point it was action stations to unpack kayaks and change into normal clothes in order to catch the cruise up the sound.

So we cruised instead of kayaking along with a huge number of other people, mostly aged grockles, on a big boat. Some of our group sulked. I tried not to sulk but wished I'd had my decent camera with me as my pictures aren't totally brilliant (and the battery died on me despite me charging it last night). Doubtful Sound is beautiful, but it would have been nicer to see it from a kayak and not a cruise boat. I also think we'd have had fun as a group, everyone was nice and we seemed to be getting along.

The meeting with the guide who'd made the cancellation decision was fractious, with a couple of the guys demanding more than the $100 refund (or kayaking Milford tomorrow) offered. Apparently their demands paid off later as I've now got $150 refunded. I would still go with the company again, and if I've got time when I'm back for World Champs next year I'm going to try and fit in the trip.

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Queenstown, Friday 6 March

I decided to camp tonight instead of hunting for a backpackers here, which would have been tricky because it's Queenstown and always busy. Luckily it wasn't raining when I arrived so I set up my tent in the dry - then I rented a bike, and it started raining while I was out. It's still going. I haven't yet dared check the inside of the tent, but it should be waterproof if I set it up right, and I think I did for once! Hopefully the rain will stop later, anyway. It's kind of brighter now than it was ...

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow, I think it may depend on the weather a bit. As I start the Routeburn on Sunday (forecast is okay) it'll probably be a chilled-out kind of day.