Transit to the North Island - February 2 to 3, 2007

The ferry trip between the South Island and the North Island is quite interesting. We left Nelson in the late morning of February 2nd and arrived in Wellington in the mid-afternoon. On the entire New Zealand trip we'd made it a point to avoid the cities, so rather than staying overnight in Wellington, we drove to a town called Paraparaumu which is a bit further north. In retrospect, it wasn't far enough north because we heard the traffic and motorcycles all night long. After the tranquility of the South Island, this was a rude awakening to being back in "civilization".

The trip across the Cook Straight was on the InterIslander Ferry at a cost of nearly $300 NZ. We took our rental car with us because we had all of our luggage, our golf clubs and all of the stuff we had bought and accumulated for living in New Zealand. It's possible to leave a rental car on one side and pick up another when you land, but that didn't work for us. Fortunately the weather was pleasant and the scenery quite attractive on the crossing.

The pictures below include the Ferry Terminal in Picton (near Nelson), various shots along Queen Charlotte Sound, in the Cook Straight, around Wellington, and a few we took as we travelled up the North Island towards Napier.

Next stop: Napier