When I cycled from Picton to Kaikōura, it was on a different road. In 2016, an extremely powerful earthquake struck the area, damaging the road and railway.
The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake was a 7.8 earthquake in the South Island of New Zealand that occurred two minutes after midnight on 14 November 2016 NZDT. Ruptures occurred on multiple faults and the earthquake has been described as the “most complex earthquake ever studied”.
Both the road and rails had to be relocated all along the coast. The new route was frequently on land raised from the sea by the quake. You can see the new and old routes in the photo below.
After about 100 miles, we arrived at the ferry terminal for the three-plus hour trip to Wellington.
When I lived in New Zealand, only NZ Rail ran ferries between the Islands. Now there’s a second choice run by a private company called Bluebridge. Both arrive and depart from Picton. The photo below is of their smaller ferry. We travelled on a larger one.
The best part of the journey is the bit through the Marlborough Sound on the South Island. It’s a little like marine travel in Puget Sound. Here are some photos I took as we approached the transition from the Sound into Cook Strait.
We’ll pick up the story again in the next blog post when we reach Wellington.