Doubtful Sound (2 of 2): morning.

As alleged in related post, Doubtful Sound was even more glorious, the next morn.  Photos copyright Doug Spencer, all taken April 15, 2015.

No living human – not even the most hallucinatory/Fundamentalist – has experienced “the morning of the world”.

The nearest a sane, rational human can get is to overnight on a fiord in New Zealand, and get up before the sun does!

 

 

 

 

 

For an explanation of New Zealand fiords’ “layered” waters ( tannin-stained, colder, fresh on top.. warmer, salt water below) and their “magical” consequences, click here.

 

 

 

 

New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park includes some of the world’s wetter places, including its two most famous fiords.

(as previously explained, both Milford Sound, and the much larger Doubtful Sound are in fact fiords/fjords)

Doubtful Sound abounds in trees which grow at “impossible” angles on nigh-sheer slopes.

Obviously, there is “insufficient” soil depth to cater for the roots that such trees “require”.

 

 

This “catastrophe forest” is in part made possible by the combination of so very much rain, plus a lot of sunshine.

The other key is the trees’ co-operative endeavour;  once mosses etc have established themselves, trees follow…entwining their roots into a mat, holding on together, their roots exploiting breadth where depth is simply unavailable.

Inevitably, their success is precarious, and the “catastrophes” are very evident…as are the foundations for multiple future, precarious successes.

 

 

To casual visitors, Doubtful Sound’s dolphins appear abundant, oft-visible, and apparently fearless, but in fact this fiord’s resident (as opposed to transient) dolphin population is in decline.