Home to Dolphins
It exists on the lower edge of the least inhabited continents before reaching the bottom of the world, Australia. Browne Falls is in the middle of a serene and unusual land filled with strange creatures and high mountain lakes some of which are barely visited by humans. It is the tallest waterfall in Australia coming in at 2,744 feet and spills into the Doubtful Sound. A fjord carved out by glacial movements between the mountains. Doubtful Sound is the deepest of the fjords in Fjordland National Park and perhaps the most unique.
From above Browne Falls is fed by a tarn, which is a mountain lake or pool. Sometimes when the high tarn becomes overfull from the seven meter annual rainfall it will spill over the side of the mountain like an overfull sink.
Doubtful Sound is unique because it contains two separate and distinct layers of water. This is because it is fed by both access to the ocean and from freshwater flowing down from waterfalls such as Browne Falls. The underlying layer is the cold heavy ocean water and the top layer is the warmer lighter freshwater. Because of its unique formation there are a number of different creatures in the area.
There are about sixty Bottle Nose Dolphins that make their home in the Fjord at the base of Browne Falls. There are also Crested Penguins, and New Zealand Fur Seals, which are incredibly cute when seen sunning themselves on the rocks and beaches. And a species of normally deep sea coral called Black Coral grows in the relatively shallow depths.
Browne falls can be a little difficult to get too. Access to the National Park is limited to a highway running east to the Anau. South of the The Anau there is a smaller road that links to the Lake Manapouri and from there is another road that heads out to Doubtful Sound. It is also possible to catch a ride on one of the ‘hunting’ helicopters or a light airplane. And there is a marina in Milford Sound where its possible to catch a boat over to Doubtful Sound. Visitors can count themselves lucky if the dolphin pod in Doubtful Sound comes up to interact with their boat as they have been known to do.
The two other notable waterfalls in Doubtful Sound are Helena Falls and Lady Alice, although as mentioned before there are several large waterfalls in the Fjord.
When looking at Browne Falls visitors will notice that they tend to cascade down a mountain slope with several drops, the longest of them being about 800 feet, though there are in total six drops as the waterfall performs a gentle zig zag down the mountain side. The waterfall is little more than a stream in width at 40 feet compared to the wide panorama landscape but it is still striking against the lush rainforest vegetation growing throughout the area.