Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound

Our cruise was originally published as being in a different order, but obviously, the Australian authorities gave the Macquarie Island permit for a time five days earlier than the cruise company originally planned. So they needed to change the itinerary, and put the New Zealand Sounds last rather than first. Possibly as a result, other cruise ships were also visiting Milford Sound at the same time, so we visited Milford Sound from 5:30am to 8am. Sunrise was at 6:04am, so we entered Milford Sound in darkness. It was also raining, so there wasn’t much visibility. And the time period didn’t allow us to get into the zodiacs and go closer.

We were due to leave Milford Sound earlier than we did, since we hadn’t exited at 7:59am when I saw another cruise ship already in the sound. We had slowed down because there were dolphins around us. 

By 8:10am the dolphins transferred over to the other cruise ship and you can see them porpoising in their bow wake as it passed us. It was awesome to watch! We left Milford Sound at 8:39am.

The original itinerary had us visiting Dusky and Doubtful Sound the next day, but possibly since we had to be out of Milford Sound so early, we also visited the other sounds today. This meant that we didn’t get into the zodiacs at any of the sounds. Doubtful Sound had less rain, and the visibility was better. It’s also possible that there were other ships visiting both sounds, so we had to fit in around them.

At Dusky Sound it had stopped raining and the cloud had lifted so we had very good visibility!

We saw some of the smallest dolphin in the world, which aren’t often seen, but I didn’t take a photo.

We then set off towards Dunedin. Slowly. We had an extra day at sea.