Wellington to Picton Ferry Ride

---

The ferry from Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand to Picton in the South Island (or vice versa) is noted as being one of the most scenic ferry rides in the world. Hence, I was quite interested in checking it out. This blog entry covers that short journey.

It is a three hour ride. The first hour takes you from Wellington out into Cook Strait (the body of water that separates the two islands), its an hour to cross Cook Strait, then its another hour once in the channel through the Marlborough Sounds into Picton.

You can see one island from the other, as they are really not that far apart : some 14 nautical miles separates the two islands at their closest point.

There wasn't much sun for a majority of this ferry ride, and that made for some poor photo quality, but hopefully these will give you a sense of the scenery along the ride.

I pretty much stayed up on the Sun Deck, deck 10 for the entirety of the trip. That day it would have been more aptly termed the Wind Deck as it was really windy up there for a majority of the journey across Cook Strait and even some of the time in the fairly sheltered Marlborough Sounds. At one point, I was worried that if I turned my head, the wind might rip my glasses off my face. There were plenty of places up on that deck to get out of the wind though.

---

Photos

Kaitaki
That's my ferry.

Biggest Ship I have ever been on
From the side.

Interesting retractable Bow
This is how vehicles get on board the ship when the ship is parked in Wellington. In Picton, they use the opposite end of the ship for vehicle [un]loading.

No one allowed past that point
You can also see the helicopter landing pad in the yellow painted area.

Six Decks
I stayed mostly up on the Sun Deck, deck 10. Probably better named the Wind Deck.

Cows On Board
These guys were looking pretty thin. Don't know why, but I hope they were being transported over to the South Island for some fattening up.
These guys were pretty funny in that they tried to arrange themselves to see what the humans were doing.

Eatery On Board
This is a big ship after all.

Loaded up with Vehicles
That's right, the ship was supposed to depart Wellington at 8:25am, but was 75 minutes late in departing. They kept allowing vehicles on board. At this point, departure was going to be fairly soon.

Under Way
With the mooring lines retracted, the ship very quietly backed away from the dock and we were off.

Wellington Waterfront
That is Westpac stadium on the right there. Where they appearantly play Cricket/Bowling as well as Rugby.

Looking East of Downtown Wellington
The airport is roughly on the other side of that mountain there.

Wellington Waterfront
From a little further away.

First look into Cook Strait
Through that opening ...

Passing Ferry
The first of three that we would encounter on the three hour ride.

Western side of opening to Cook Strait
Won't be long now until we are in open water.

Eastern side of opening to Cook Strait
Going to be getting quite windy up on top soon.

Eastern side of opening to Cook Strait
A little further South.

First sighting of the South Island
Just left of the land you can clearly see on the right, which is the Southern edge of the North Island.

Southern Edge of the North Island
Pretty rugged.

Southern Island Straight Ahead
The channel we are looking for is somewhere along that stretch.

Southern Edge of the North Island
A little further West and South.