Cook Strait connects eN-Zed’s South and North Islands. There are planes of course, but you can’t put your car on an Air eN-Zed plane and landing at Welly airport can be a bit dodgy. Air eN-Zed has gone weirdo with inflight safety videos and snacks, so it’s the Picton-Wellington ferry. There have always been rumoured alternatives… a Lyttleton-Wellington ferry, one from Ward to Wellington, fast catamarans to Kapiti…, but they’re just long-lived rumours.
The only real and reliable way to get from South to North is on eN-Zed Rail’s Picton-Wellington ferry and of course I’m talking about the Aramoana because all the others are and were mere pretenders to the throne.
The Cook Strait crossing isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s stressful – beginning with the ticket. Sometimes the ferry’s full up and you have to wait in Picton for the next one and sometimes this happens because the weather has caused cancellations… and sometimes it happens because you didn’t read your ticket properly and you arrive a day early or…, um…, a day late. In the good old days a simple phone call and a sorry usually sorted out such problems. Then it’s, ‘will the car’s hand brake hold when stopped on the ramp?’ And then it’s, ‘will there be any hot pies left for me?’ A cold pie will always do but hot is better. These days of course there are paninis and quiches and bacon, egg and avocado croissants, but that’s just change and everyone from Picton downwards knows that, like an angry Angus bull, if you just ignore change, it’ll leave you alone.
Being on the upper deck while sailing out the Sounds is essential. Mostly because the wind blows the little pieces of pie-pastry away and dries the I’m-leaving-the-South-Island-tears away, but also because the Sounds are one of eN-Zed’s most exquisite landscapes, right up there with the MacKenzie Country, almost, and if the sun was beaming and the mince pie was hot and the handbrake held, the whole day will have been brilliant.
There’s just one question though…, why would anyone want to go from the South Island to the North Island?
eN-Zed 