The journey from Wellington to Nelson

The following section is completely taken from the "Encyclopedia of New Zealand, 1966.". I thought that it gave a very good explanation of the Cook Strait and the waters between the North and South land masses.

Cook Strait is the stretch of water separating the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It connects the South Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea through the centre of the New Zealand land mass, and is 14 miles at its narrowest, between Cape Terawhiti on the south-east coast of Wellington, and Wellington Head near Tory Channel. Much of the shore of Cook Strait on both sides is composed of steep cliffs. The beaches of Cloudy Bay, Clifford Bay, and Palliser Bay are composed of boulders with steep and high storm beaches. Although these bays shoal gently down to 70 fathoms, where there is a more or less extensive submarine plateau, the bottom topography of the strait is complex. The major features of this bottom topography are, however, an eastern Cook Strait Canyon with steep, and in some places, precipitous walls descending eastwards into the bathyal depths of the Hikurangi Trench which lies off the east coast of the North Island. The upper part of the canyon divides into three arms: the South Arm, lying near the centre of the strait with its head south-west of Wellington; the Middle Arm with its head south of Tongue Point on the South Wellington Coast; and the Wairarapa Arm with its head at the 20-fathom contour near the western side of Palliser Bay.

I will now translate. It was beyond the comprehension of anything I had ever sailed through. The fact that these ferry captains do this type of navigation on daily basis is amazing. It seemed as if we sailed through an endless maze of green mountains and enormous craggy rock formations that just rose up out of the waters. At times you would pass a mountainous bay with several houses or buildings at the base and one couldn't help wonder "How do then get to the local shops?"

As we finally turned in to Picton harbor I could hear people making audible gasps out of the window. all around were dolphins, escorting the ferry in to the harbor. If I didn't know any better I would have thought I was on the Cook Strait ride at the some new Disney theme park, except this was reality and we weren't herded in to some gift shop after the ride.

After grabbing my gear I found my way to the inter-city bus and headed off to Nelson. The ride to Nelson was unbelievable. Stunning views the entire way. Past low land planes of beautiful vineyards, green mountains and massive Forests that seem to go on forever. Finally we Looped around in to Nelson on the Southern shores of the Tasman Bay.