erin, etc.

Day 4- Doubtful Sound Kayak Trip Day 2

Eve ‘knocked’ on our tents early again and this time we awoke only to the sound of the stream nearby- no raindrops! Most of the swamp we had stayed in had dried up and we were able to make breakfast and enjoy the sun streaming over the clouds through the Fiords. We were moving slow, getting our tents down and our stuff loaded back into the boats when Eve yelled at us to get our gear on, yep. Most of Eve’s sentences ended with ‘yep’. To us, this meant the task we had least looked forward to…taking off all our nice warm dry clothes, exposing our naked skins to biting sand flies (these little guys take bug bites to a whole new level of pain and misery) and worse of all, peeling on our wet cold wet suits. With an optomistic round of “It’s getting hot in here…” and some serious visualization of the Sahara Desert we managed to get those suits on with only a minimum of girlish screaming.Then it was back in the boats for a beautiful exploration of Hall Arm. It was amazing to see how many of the waterfalls had dried up- what was hundreds the day before was reduced to a few dozen without the rain. The Sound was like glass and we glided over to a warm beach for another gourmet meal. I think Eve was pretty impressed with our food! Our group does not take eating lightly   We headed back into the main channel of the Sound and picked up some wind. We strapped our boats together, forming a raft, and put up the sails! Jeremy, the sailor in the group, led us as our boat picked up speed down the Sound. This unfortunately did not last long and we were back to paddling. We broke off into groups of four and got the sails up again, this time really picking up speed over to Penguin Island. We quietly paddled around Penguin Island in the hopes of seeing one of the small Fiordland Crested Penguins with their funny  yellow eyebrows but they were too shy to come out and play. We rafted together again and sailed right up onto our landing shore. Then it was out of the gear, pack up, cross over to the Power Station, back onto the ferry and a quick van ride home to showers and a night out at the local pizza joint, where we proceeded to have far to many toasts with far too much wine! What a trip!