High above Fiordland's Dusky Sound in a shaded tangle of Southern beech trees and primeval ferns, an intriguingly precise array of stumpy mounds covered with moss and lichen is all that remains of a significant event in New Zealand's European history.
After spending three months at sea, including a perilous period avoiding icebergs south of the Antarctic Circle, in March 1773, Captain James Cook and the HMS Resolution entered Dusky Sound and anchored in a sheltered cove south of the forested island of Mamaku.
Initially making their way ashore along the horizontal bough of a rimu, Cook's scientific team climbed high above the bay, set up a super-accurate H4 chronometer on wooden posts – now reduced to a circle of mossy stumps – and calculated New Zealand's longitude for the first time.
Waterfalls are an integral part of the Fiordland scenery. Photo by Fiordland Discovery.
Compared to the Resolution squeezing 118 sailors onto a sturdy 34m-long barque, our own visit almost 250 years later onboard Fiordland Discovery's Fiordland Jewel – comprising just 18 passengers and six crew members on a 24m luxury catamaran – is far more comfortable.
Walking on well-maintained boardwalks to experience the hilltop knoll now known as Astronomer's Point, contemporary visitors can avoid the forested scramble undertaken by Cook's crew.
Meals on the Jewel regularly team Fiordland kaimoana – including crayfish, pāua and scallops – with Kiwi craft beers and Central Otago wines. There's also an onboard hot tub to ease into after bushwalking, kayaking, or journeys on theboat's tender to learn more about Fiordland's early Māori and European history.
Exploring Cook's legacy in the most remote of New Zealand wilderness features halfway into Fiordland Discovery's six-night Southern Fiordland itinerary, a bucket list experience kickstarted by the thrill of landing on the boat's upper deck after a 45-minute helicopter flight from Te Anau.
Local crayfish is a menu feature onboard the Fiordland Jewel. Photo by Carol Atkinson.
Skippering the Fiordland Jewel on its journey north from Preservation Inlet to Doubtful Sound is Fiordland Discovery's co-owner Rob Swale, hugely experienced after growing up in New Zealand's southernmost region and with an adventurous CV including stints as a crayfisherman. While training as a multi-sport athlete, he also used to steer his sea kayak around the region's rugged and serrated coastline.
Rob's also a man with a laconic sense of understated Kiwi humour. “We're in Useless Bay now. It's named after my kids,” he deadpans as we cruise through Preservation Inlet.
Apparently, Cook wasn't a fan of the arcing cove at the southern tip of Te Awaroa (Long Sound). When we encounter a pod of bottlenose dolphins surfing on the Jewel's bow wave, the British mariner's prosaic epithet seems wildly inaccurate.
The intriguing coastline and islets to be discovered onboard the Fiordland Jewel. Photo by Fiordland Discovery.
Cruising life aboard the Fiordland Jewel evolves to a relaxed routine. Rob's versatile crew of deckhands, nature guides and chefs work hard on a variety of tasks; mid-morning and mid-afternoon, baking fresh from the galley fuels regular excursions off the boat. Below decks, picture windows in the Jewel's cabins showcase a cinematic scroll of the same untouched scenery experienced by Cook and his crew on the Resolution.
We journey by tender across Preservation Inlet to Kisbee Bay, once the location of the 1890s coal-mining settlement of Cromarty. A kekeno New Zealand fur seal is patrolling a sandy spot on the beach, but our destination is Preservation Lodge, a privately-owned hunting and fishing retreat. It's a sprawling and rustic spot, made distinctive with garish kaleidoscopic carpet and mismatched 1970s furniture. Framing the walls of the lodge's high-ceilinged dining room, facsimiles of old maps – including Cook's famous rendering of New Zealand following his earlier 1770 voyage on HMS Endeavour – reinforce the fact we're not the first to visit here, but Kisbee Bay feels wonderfully quiet and remote.
Before heading out of Preservation Inlet to tackle the open waters of the southern Tasman, we embark on a six-kilometre return walk to the compact lighthouse at Puysegur Point, installed in 1943 after the 1879 original was destroyed by arson. From the point's elevated location, the ocean swell rolling in from the southern latitudes of the Roaring Forties is benign.
The following morning it's time to exit Preservation Inlet and head north. Rob anchors the Jewel just past the white cliffs of Chalky Island, another of Cook's Yorkshire everyman matter-of-fact descriptors.
Cobalt waters descend to depths of 150m, but the telltale zip of electric reels makes it easy for everyone on the boat – even fishing newbies – to secure hapuka, groper and blue cod.
Argentinean chef Fermin Perez Nanni lands one of the biggest fish and is soon back in the Jewel's galley transforming the bounty into dinner. Some smaller fish are thrown back and are quickly seized upon by a squabbling squadron of gulls, mollymawks and albatrosses.
Continuing north past West Cape, another uninspired moniker bequeathed by Cook, the Jewel swings northeast to enter Dusky Sound. Supporting the Resolution's astronomical calculations high above Pickersgill Harbour, Cook's vessel stayed in Dusky Sound for five weeks, the crew recharging and reprovisioning after sub-Antarctic sailing, and exploring more narrow channels by longboat. Our own Dusky Sound adventures include a bush walk on the predator-free kākāpō sanctuary of Anchor Island and kayaking through indigo waters around the sheltered arc at Sportsman's Cove. For the crew of the Resolution, Sportsman's forested arena was an opportunity to race longboats; our late afternoon action is far more relaxed.
Wildlife, including kekeno New Zealand fur seals, abound in Fiordland. Photo by Carol Atkinson.
Exiting Dusky Sound via the slender Acheron Passage, Doubtful Sound is reached following another shorter spell in the open ocean. Still blessed with glowing blue-sky weather, Rob steers the Jewel north on a careful path a few hundred metres off the coast, and we anchor amid the calm waters of the Shelter Islands at the entrance to the sound.
The Resolution never actually entered Doubtful Sound in 1773. Cook named the waterway Doubtful Harbour, as he was uncertain that a sailing ship could navigate out again on winds made precipitous by the sound's soaring cliffs.
On our last day on the Fiordland Jewel we see what the crew of the Resolution missed out on.
Squally showers sweep into Doubtful Sound from the Tasman Sea, shape-shifting banks of mist cling to granite peaks and by mid-morning, the quicksilver waterfalls tumbling down cliffs and forested hillsides have fired up amid the spectacular meeting of land and sea known to Māori as Patea – place of silence.
Story by Brett Atkinson for the Spring 2024 issue of AA Directions Magazine. Brett Atkinson is a freelance writer who regularly contributes to AA Directions magazine.
Explore more from AA Directions magazine while you're here:
- Is congestion charging the best solution to New Zealand's traffic woes?
- Moananui, an ocean-focused initiative is making waves in Nelson.
- Visit a lighthouse-inspired crib at remote Jacks Bay in The Catlins.
