Taking
the Ferry between NZ's Islands
Part 1 : History and Route
Information
|
|
Taking a ferry between
the North and South Island of New Zealand sees you cruising
through areas of outstanding natural beauty.
Part of a three part series
on New Zealand's Interisland ferries - see also :
1. History and Route Information
2. Vessels,
Journeys, Bookings
3. Fares, Weather,
Misc
Part
of a series on travel to and in New Zealand -
click the links on the right hand side for more articles.
|
You'll almost certainly want to
see both the North and South Islands of New Zealand during your
visit.
To do so, you either need to
fly or alternatively take the ferry that travels between
Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island.
If you are taking a ferry, you
can either bring your rental car with you, or 'swap' cars at
either end. You can also enjoy convenient connections
to/from the daily train between Christchurch and Picton as
another way of continuing your journey.
A History of the Inter-island
Ferries in New Zealand
The gap between New
Zealand's two main islands has been an inconvenience and major
divide since early settlement, and at times, the country has
seemed more like two countries, with quite distinctly different
social and economic circumstances in the two islands.
Originally ships traveled
between various ports in the South Island - primarily Dunedin
(which at one time was the country's capital) and Christchurch
(which for a long time, but no longer, had a greater population
than Wellington - Auckland is NZ's largest city), and going up
to primarily Wellington in the North Island.
There have been four major
enhancements to the connectivity between the two islands.
Rail service between
Christchurch and Picton
The first was the extension
of the railway line from Christchurch to Picton in 1945.
This meant that freight could efficiently travel up to Picton
(or down from Picton) and only needed to be transshipped between
there and Wellington. It also made for a faster travel
experience for passengers, being able to travel up from
Christchurch to Picton by train before completing their journey
by sea (instead of having to take a ship all the way from
Christchurch's Lyttleton port and Wellington).
Passenger and freight service
between Picton and Wellington was served for many years by a
single ship, the Tamahine, operated by the Union Steam
Ship Co.
Tamahine was a
typical freighter of its day (it started service in 1925).
Cars and freight were loaded onto its deck via cranes and
slings. It also carried up to 400 passengers.
Eventually, its owners
announced in 1956 that Tamahine would be withdrawn from
service in 1962 (Wow - six years notice! Things happened
more slowly back then, didn't they) and said they had no plans
to replace the vessel.
Roll-on Roll-off 'Rail
Ferries'
The NZ government decided
it would buy a ship itself and operate it under the aegis
of the (government owned) NZ Railways. This became the
second major enhancement when the ship - Aramoana -
arrived and started service in 1962. It was a major
enhancement for two reasons. First, it offered 'roll on,
roll off' service - you could drive your car onto the ship, take
the crossing, then drive it off again at the other end.
This was a massive enhancement over the Tamahine's
service.
Secondly, its main vehicle
deck had three rail lines on it. Goods wagons could be shunted on to the ship at one end and then shunted off the
ship at the other end, meaning that freight could travel from
anywhere (with rail service) on either island to anywhere on the
other island with no need to be unloaded or reloaded or transhipped. The Aramoana could carry 800
passengers and up to 90 cars (depending on how many rail wagons
were also being transported).
These innovations, plus a
generally nice ship in all respects, brought about a boom in
inter-island travel for both passengers and freight. As a
result,
Aramoana was supplemented with a second very similar vessel,
Aranui, three years later (1965). A third,
all-freight, vessel was added in 1972 (Arahanga) and a
fourth (Aratika) in 1974. For the ten years that
followed, all four vessels were in daily service.
These were known as the
'rail ferries' and while it is some time since they were
owned/operated/branded by NZ Railways, many people still refer
to them as the rail ferries.
Air as an alternate for
passengers and freight
The third major travel enhancement
was the gradual rise of air travel as an alternate means of
connectivity between the two islands - first primarily for
passengers, and with the advent of 737s in 1968, increasingly
for freight too.
During the period when there
was essentially only one airline in New Zealand - first known as
NAC (National Airways Corporation) and subsequently conjoined
with NZ's international airline and renamed as Air New Zealand,
air fares were considerably higher than the cost to take the
ferry and either bus or train or drive a car the rest of the way
from Picton to wherever it was you were wishing to go (Picton is
not a destination in itself, but merely a logical place for the
ferry to terminate).
But with air competition and
more economical types of plane, air travel can now sometimes be
the cheapest means of travel (in July 2010 I bought an airline
ticket for travel between Wellington and Christchurch for NZ$40
- less than a ferry ticket between Wellington and Picton alone;
in August 2010 my brother bought a roundtrip ticket from
Auckland to Christchurch for a trivial NZ$130).
The Fall and Rise of
Competition - Bluebridge Ferries
Initially the relatively
short ferry service between Picton and Wellington had as a mild
competitor an eleven hour overnight ferry service between
Wellington and Lyttleton (the port that serves Christchurch).
This service started in 1895, and latterly was available nightly
in each direction, but in 1968 was reduced to every other night with a
single daylight sailing added on Saturdays as well (the ship ran
at a faster speed for the daylight sailing to fit two journeys
into the day) so as to allow four sailings each way each week.
The service was sadly
discontinued completely in 1976 when the graceful and nearly new
ship, Rangatira,
ended service.
From 1976 until 2003, the
rail ferries in their various incarnations had the run to
themselves, competing only and seasonally with the faster Lynx
catamarans.
In 2003, the eleven year old
company Strait Shipping added passenger ferry service to the
already existing freight service it was operating across Cook
Strait.
This seems to have been
successful, and these days it operates two ships, providing 30
weekly crossings. The two ships - Santa Regina and
Monte Stello - are very slightly slower than the
Interislander ferries, with a journey time of 3 hrs 18 minutes
instead of 3 hrs 10 minutes. They carry up to about 150
cars and 370 passengers.
The Route of the Interisland
Ferries

(Note - we talk about
'interisland' ferries, which means either ferry company and
their ships/route, and we also talk about 'The Interislander
ferries' which refers to the three ships specifically operated
by the company now known as The Interislander).
The ferries run from New
Zealand's capital city of Wellington at the bottom of the North
Island, travel across Cook Strait (surprisingly, to go to the
South Island, they travel in a northerly direction), and then go through the
Marlborough Sounds to arrive in Picton on the South Island (and,
of course, vice versa too).
Wellington is a sensible
point of departure for all reasons, but Picton is a tiny town of
only 3,000 people. Its main reason for existence is the
ferry terminal and the proclivity of ferry passengers to stop in town for
an hour or two, a meal or drink, and possibly even an overnight
stay, plus some additional tourist type businesses, all fed from
the ferries.
It is a nice little town,
for sure, but there's nothing much to see or do there that can't
be seen and done in an hour or two.
There are occasional
proposals to move the South Island's ferry terminal from Picton
to somewhere close to Blenheim. This would represent a
similar journey in terms of distance and travel time, and would
get people closer to where they were most likely to want to go -
ie, places further south and/or west in the South Island.
There is also a fairly vocal
group of ardent environmentalists who complain about having
large ferries traveling through the Marlborough Sounds, saying
the vessel wakes harm the banks of the sounds. They would
love to see the ferries removed from there, and when they're not
lobbying to have the ferries move away entirely, they're arguing
to have the ferries slow down even more the already reduced
speed they travel at through the sounds.
On the other hand, losing
the ferries would pretty much doom Picton entirely.
Without the ferries, Picton would lose almost all reason for its
existence. The rail line would surely be discontinued, and
the main road already bypasses Picton on the way from places
south and over to Nelson.
This certain municipal death
generally seems to be the trump card that keeps the ferries in Picton.
There have also been
attempts to offer service from somewhere on the west coast of
the North Island north of Wellington (ie Mana, just north of
Porirua) but this concept seems to currently also be in
abeyance.
Part of a three part series
on New Zealand's Interisland ferries - see also :
1. History and Route Information
2. Vessels, Journeys,
Bookings
3. Fares, Weather,
Misc
Related Articles, etc
|
If so, please donate to keep the website free and fund the addition of more articles like this. Any help is most appreciated - simply click below to securely send a contribution through a credit card and Paypal.
|
Originally published
20 Aug 2010, last update
30 May 2021
|