Cruising through our fiords had been lingering on my travel wish-list as uncharted territory, for quite some time.  I revere Fiordland and its formidable terrain, which produces its own weather pattern, with an annual rainfall index measured in metres.  6.8 metres, to be precise. Recently, I boarded Princess Cruises’ latest liner to potter around our coastline, Emerald Princess, which is the largest vessel in the five-strong Princess ship fleet that’s based in Australasia for the summer season.

It is a remarkably novel way to appreciate the beauty and character of your own country, as underscored by its global pulling power.  There were no fewer than 58 nationalities represented within the 3000-strong passenger contingent sharing the cruise with me. Departing Port Chalmers, the slanting sun gilded Otago Peninsula in a warm glow as we sailed right past Taiaroa Head, virtually within touching distance of the albatross colony on the windswept cliffs.

Overnight, we sailed through churning Foveaux Strait before veering north for the much-awaited exploratory of Fiordland’s fabled watery canyons. I awoke early to grizzled skies, mist and drizzle as we entered the remote, untouched reaches of our biggest fiord, Dusky Sound.  Fortified with freshly brewed coffee, I ventured out on the promenade deck, as we glided by cinematic mountain ranges, garlanded in wispy long white clouds. Fleetingly, a flash of frolicking Dusky dolphins was lapped up with palpable passenger delight.

In stark contrast to the heavy swells rounding the South Otago Coast, the inky waters of Dusky Sound were millpond-smooth, as if the ship was skating on an ice rink. To marvel at this masterpiece of grand-scale nature from the vantage point of a cruise ship really is quite breath-taking. Immersed in the dawn silence, as we drifted further into the fiord I was shaken from my wilderness reverie by the enlightening on-board commentary that made sense of this reverential world.

Retired Department of Conservation (DOC) senior ranger, Ian Thorne, was our expert guide with a treasure-chest of nuggets to share with us, after clocking up 35 years of conservation work in Fiordland. Ian spent many of those years specialising in biodiversity work with endangered bird species and leading pest eradication programmes. It was a thrill to see Fiordland’s offshore islands up-close, which are veritable arks for our most endangered species.

Richard Henry was one of pioneering conservationists, transferring kakapo and kiwi to islands in Dusky Sound, over a century ago. Many of the kakapo call Anchor Island home, which is predator free. Ian has worked extensively on its neighbour, Resolution Island, eradicating stoats in pursuit of predator-free status, too. As the shipping names would suggest, it was Captain Cook who not only named the islands, but many of the sounds including Dusky.

Strictly speaking, they are not sounds but fiords, which are long, deep narrow inlets of the sea, hemmed in by steep-sided mountains and glacially-carved.  Cook and his crew were the first Europeans to visit Fiordland and they spend five weeks in Dusky Sound, where apparently his crew brewed the first beer in New Zealand!  Passing by Wet Jacket Arm, Ian remarked that this is where 10 Canadian moose were let loose in the hoose, back in 1910. Despite persistent rumours of moose sightings, no evidence has surfaced that they’ve survived, for decades.

As we exited Dusky, we drifted by another DOC sanctuary, Breaksea Island, which clocked up a world-first for its successful rat eradication programme. Fiordland boasts 14 fiords and after Dusky, our next assignment was the exalted grandeur of Doubtful Sound.  Entering its snout, this sky-piercing cathedral of sheer granite walls felt positively Jurassic, otherworldly and all-consuming.  

The live soundtrack of lofty waterfalls cascading down the sheep granite slopes serenaded our arrival, while lumbering fur seals wallowed on rocks by the entrance to the fiord, hollering like drunken members of an old boys’ club. For 40 remarkable kilometres, Dusky Sound meanders from its ocean snout, deep into the heart of Fiordland. The sheer, rugged landscape of towering mountains, clad in primeval rainforest had me half-expecting a brachiosaurus to shuffle into view. Or Sir David Attenborough.

Like the other sounds, Dusky’s dark fresh water blocks sunlight and boasts an abundance of sea-life, allowing corals and undersea life to thrive in waters much shallower than normal. This inky layer is the result of the astonishing rainfall count and darkly coloured by the tannins of the forest . Keep an eye out for the Fiordland Crested Penguin which breeds at Doubtful Sound or passing whales, which are a regular sight.

But it’s the raw power of nature, the heroic dimensions and the untouched beauty of the fiord that makes Doubtful such a profound encounter. After returning to the Tasman Sea via Thompson Sound, the clouds cleared and spectacular sunshine bathed us in warmth, just as we entered Fiordland’s most famous poster-child, Milford Sound. The recent precipitation turned on a giant waterworks spectacle, with a vast curtain of waterfalls thundering down the rock faces to the sea. 

I spied the vein-like patterning of Bowen Falls turning on a splashy show, beyond the ship’s stern.  On starboard side, the backside of Mitre Peak, thrust its majestic presence 5000 feet towards the heavens – the world’s tallest mountain to rise directly from sea level. Another pod of dolphins playfully entertained on que, seemingly shadowing the ship’s course into the sound, while playing hide and seek with the clicking cameras.

The thick, vertiginious forests that carpeted the mountains took on an emerald hue in the golden autumn sun. But for all its wraparound photogenic splendour, it’s your relative sense of insignificance that comes into sharp relief, when thrust into the bosom of such ravishing, grand-scale glory. I felt like a speck of life in a landscape carved for giants. And the 113,000 tonnes  of the 15-storeyed Emerald Princess was similarly rendered comically small, when gripped in the clutches of such granite-walled grandeur. 

Princess Cruises operates a series of Australasian and South Pacific cruises, with five ships currently homeported Down Under.  In April, Emerald Princess will reposition across the Pacific to commence her season of Alaska cruises from Seattle. An extensive schedule of sailings into Fiordland will resume later in the year, in the 2017/18 summer season. For more information and cruise bookings, see your travel agent or visit www.princess.com

Mike Yardley is our Travel Correspondent on Jack Tame Saturday Mornings.