October 12, 2023
We boarded the Strait Feronia soon after lunch on Tuesday. Both the Tangaroa and the Ikaroa (NIWA ships) were just along the wharf, and it gave me a buzz to see them. Both are ships I have been to sea on. However, these are yesteryear memories.
Cook Strait ferry trips never disappoint. And I have done a lot. Thinking back, though, one of the most memorable of all ferry trips was one from France to Spain (from the south-west corner of one country to the north-west corner of the other). The ferry itself was maybe 50 feet long and the trip, from go to whoa, was just on ten minutes. The contrast between the countries, though, was chalk and cheese. J and I were bamboozled by the cacophony, the colours, the architecture; in fact the whole nine yards of this Spanish town just across the border. I wondered how two civilizations could be so adjacent yet so apart. In contrast, New Zealand is such a tiny isolated scrap.
Speaking of which, the day after our three and a half hours of calm, we were on the Queen Charlotte Drive route to Nelson (back in the day it was the Queen Charlotte Track and no one ever took it). It is a slow windy trundle alongside the bays of the inner sound, linking to Highway 6 at Havelock.
Nelson, our destination for day two, was my home town, though it has never had an emotional pull. After an afternoon of walking, the pull has nothing to do with my younger years — it is the pull of the public art works, the occasional concrete brutalist architecture, and the compactness of the centre. To boot, the parking meters give you the first hour free and there is no charge after four o’clock. Remarkable.
Today, we will go to Wharariki beach. And back.
Off Highway One 