| 8/227 |
4/18/03 6:40 PM |
Lake Manapouri
|
|
Lake Manapouri, where we started the all-day bus trip / cruise to Doubtful
Sound.
Doubtful Sound was named that because Captain Cook thought it doubtful
he could get out of it if he entered (the winds blew into it from the ocean
and the sailing ship may never have been able to get a wind outward). Strictly
speaking, it's a Fiord. A Fiord is an inlet from the sea carved by
glaciers. It has a distinctive "cell" which is a shallow ending where the
tip of the glacier melted into the sea. The glaciers were typically
a mile high, so these lakes have steep shores and a "U" shaped base - the
water at the center is about 400 feet deep. It is difficult to appreciate
the scale - it looks a lot like Lake George, but these mountains are often
a mile high.
Travel path to Doubtful Sound is shown below. Note it's inaccessible by
land. A large power plant takes the drain from Manapouri and Te Anau and
sends it out Doubtful Sound. The access road for the power plant is
used to drive tourists to the Sound. So it's car to Manapouri, boat
to the power plant, bus to the Sound, boat out on the sound. The road
used between the sound and the power plant was built to support 300,000 pound
traffic for parts for the power plant. It was built at tremendous cost and
despite being in a rain forest.
JAlbum
3.2
