A Trip to Australia and New Zealand
Fjordland National Park
In 1770, then Lieutenant James Cook cruised the area and identified an opening from the sea as being a "Doubtful Harbor." In later years sealer and whalers renamed it Doubtful Sound. There are a number of geographic features in Doubtful Sound that have Spanish names that were given to them by Alessandro Malaspina in 1793. The waters of the sound are unique in that there are two distinct layers of water in them. At the top is a layer of about six feet of fresh water and below that the heavier and colder saline water of the open ocean. The lighter and warmer fresh water is from the heavy runoff from the cliffs above (average annual rainfall exceeds twenty feet) and contains major amounts of dark tannin. As a result of this phenomenon, the flora and fauna of the sound are also unique.
Lieutenant Cook used Dusky Sound as a camp site in 1770 and it is believed that his crew brewed the first beer ever made in New Zealand during that stay. He also explored and charted the region and made numerous celestial observations. Subsequently, the sound was frequently used as a base of operations for European sealers and whalers. By 1792, a few rude structures were built there to support these operations. Sporadic use of the sound continued until about 1820 when sealing went into decline.
