And, for yet another, it is a fantastic place for wildlife.
Earlier, travelling up the fiord on the Wanderer we spied the rare fiordland crested penguin porpoising through the tea-stained water in pursuit of prey.
While paddling a kayak happily through the rain I sat entranced for several minutes watching a young seal frolicking a couple of metres away.
A couple of sharp-eyed hunters on the Wanderer spotted several red deer watching from the peaks.
And now we were on the trail of moose.
Moose were originally released near Hokitika in 1900 and then again at Supper Cove, on Dusky Sound, in 1910.
A few were seen, shot or photographed between 1929 and 1952, but since then there have been no recorded sightings.
Rumours persisted, however, of a few animals surviving in the deepest fiords.
So in 1972 Tustin, a hunter and deer culler turned scientist, working for the then Forest Service, was appointed to lead a study on whether the species had survived, after all.
The report, after months of work, said all the evidence - from feeding signs, droppings, prints and cast antlers - suggested that, yes, there was a small moose population but the research team hadn't been able to produce a moose.
Tustin should, perhaps, have been prepared for the inevitable mockery which resulted, but he admits he wasn't.
"It stung me," he says, "and made me determined to prove the critics wrong."
But an even more defining moment came in 1991 when he took his wife Marg to his old camp at Herrick Creek for the first time and found fresh moose signs.
"I think that was the moment when we decided to make this our personal quest."
The quest has yet to be realised, but it is obvious from the way both of them bound around Herrick Creek, pointing to moose signs, that for them the thrill is in the journey - and the excuse to spend time in the bush - rather than the destination.
But is it, as Ken's 1998 book implied in its title, A Wild Moose Chase?
The challenge posed by those who dismiss the idea, is that if animals that big were really wandering round the bush someone would have seen one.
Sound reasonable?
Well, I know nothing about moose, but I have met one in the wild.
I was walking along a track in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, keeping a very, very sharp lookout for bears, when I stopped for a swig from my water bottle.
I had been sipping and staring at the view for a couple of minutes when I realised that just three or four metres away was a huge moose.
If a moose is that hard to spot in the open, I'm not surprised they're impossible to find in the thick Fiordland bush, not to mention the fact that their hearing is so acute that they would pick you up several kilometres away.
And the indications Tustin pointed out, including hoofprints and droppings much larger than those of red deer, and, in particular, the feeding signs, with branches broken off well above the height of a browsing red deer and stripped in classic moose fashion, were enough to convince me that something very like a moose had been there.
Sadly, we didn't see one that day.
But the possibility of solving the mystery of the Dusky Sound moose is another good reason to go back.
CHECKLIST
If you want to go moose-spotting then Southern Lakes Helicopters run special moose flights from Te Anau. The 65-minute flight takes in several sites where moose were sighted in the past, including Seaforth Valley, Supper Cove and Herrick Creek. And if a moose is found there is no charge.
Contact: Southern Lakes Helicopters on 0508 249 7167.
On foot Alternatively you can walk the Dusky Sound track from Lake Manapouri to a hut at Supper Cove.
Further details Ken Tustin runs the Fiordland Moose Project for the New Zealand Wildlife Research Trust which he helped to set up. Copies of his book are available from him for $25. He can be contacted at: tustin@maxnet.co.nz or on 03 688 1093.
