Leaving for South Island

Despite the rain and Friday Wellington traffic, I made it to the ship exactly on time. I queued on the dock side, fully loaded up, vying with the usual holiday makers loaded to the roof racks. Surfers, bungy jumpers, German tourists. There was only one other biker on the ferry. I teetered up the slippery on-ramp and parked next to his rare Laverda SFC 1000. I had grave concerns about the fastening of the bike to the deck. His was professionally tethered with new shiny load-straps. Fantastic. None of the dodgy, oily ratchets usual on the Portsmouth-LeHarve route. I pulled in next to the Italian classic. The on-ramp staff seemed to ignore me. I could see no more ratchets amongst the ragged collection of ropes and rubber chock blocks on the wall rack. It was quickly apparent that I was supposed to secure the bike myself. Mr Laverda must have brought his own straps. What does he know that I do not? After looking helpless for a few minutes (not entirely feigned) I was assisted by Mick, who was evidently some kind of deck manager, or at least someone who thought he deserved the title of Assistant (to the) Deck Manager. He was English, south east London to be precise. A bit of a geezer. He quickly delegated the oily rope tying to another deck-hand and receded from view. Lots of deck to survey, lots of other deck hands to oversee.
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The bike was tethered in a slightly Neanderthal manner and left fully laden to brave the unpredictably tumultuous seas of the Cook Strait. The previous day had seen 75mph winds as part of the coldest, wettest October/November seen here since 1967. Luckily for me and the Africa Twin, the crossing was flat and easy.
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This whole experience evoked memories of the recent bike trip to France accompanying my brother and my dad, only this trip was missing the caravans, the kid’s magician, the arcade machines, the Banyuels Dauré and the croquet-monsieur. And the French. Despite this, I accidentally tried to order deux café au lait et une bouteille de l’eau. The staff member replied in English. So, exactly like in France then. Except the on-board prices are fair and so is the service. The servery attendant even agreed to charge my camera battery.

I found a comfy seat in a corner with a table. All the best spots had gone. Mostly because of sleeping middle aged men with caps over their eyes. There are always tired people on a ferry, whatever time of day. Surely it is a tactic to obtain for themselves more personal space, or perhaps a way of avoiding the awkward chit-chat of over-talkative locals; the sort that see your baggage and your tired face and say “So, you’re on a journey, then?”

The ferry had likely been in service in the English Channel, given that some of the signage was still in French. The safety announcer came on over the tannoy: English, London accent, sounded a lot like Robert Brindley. The announcer’s tone of voice expressed a slightly inebriated boredom mixed with mild condescension. I expect he’d had enough of the Plymouth-Roscoff route and thought he would come to the antipodes for a change of scenery, only to end up on a Euro boat shipping mostly Euro passengers across an equally squalid channel of water. Somewhat unprofessionally he announced that the driver of a Renault Espace had left an interior light on… and if said driver didn’t “return to the hold before departure he’d be pushing the damn thing for the rest of the holiday”. The attempt at comedy might have been appropriate, even expected on a FirstTrains express from Bristol to Swansea, but I expected more of the crew of this magnificent liner.
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I exchanged greetings with the guy next to me, who was towing a glider, the longest vehicle on the ferry, for a friend in the south for whom he was doing a favour.

Then suddenly, the familiar wideboy voice continued in front of me. The announcer turned out to be Mick, who swaggered out from behind the café servery, East End panache oozing from him like Del Boy on a pina colada booze cruise. Speaking loudly to all the foreigners (to help them understand him) he eyed the German backpackers and somehow managed to sound provocatively inquisitive by simply asking “Where are you from?” A tone of voice which turned to resigned indifference when it wasn’t followed by a request for his phone number or an enquiry as to when he knocked off after work. Masterful.

I was quickly spotted by Laverda man who sat with me to talk bikes, despite the fact I was clearly in the middle of a quite taxing crossword in the Wellington Dominion Post. In his sixties already, he was riding a newly imported addition to his personal museum of magnificent motorcycle mementos from Italy. At the talk of routes and mountain tracks we were swiftly joined by Glider man who, did you know, was towing a glider for a friend of his in the south. After hearing about a few routes, and a bit more about the glider, the conversation dried up and I returned my attention to 14 down.
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The islands are only 20km apart but the journey is three hours, taking a donkey leg route out from Wellington and up the Cook Strait and round into the Marlborough Sounds. The magnificent deep blue sea glistened, the islands and the headlands of the Sounds loomed beautifully on either side of the ship. Private boats buzzed past, one sitting in the flattened wake of the huge ferry, the marine equivalent to slipstreaming due to the decreased resistance of the flattened waves, which proved hugely important to photograph for the tourists on the observation deck.

It was slightly odd to exit a ferry and still be in the same country. No passport control, no threat of Customs looking for large consignments of Polish made bayonets. Judging by the weather, it was as if I had left Cardiff harbour in the rain and landed on the Spanish Riviera. I rolled off into blazing sunshine. I’d had a good time in the north island, had met some great people through some mind blowing small-world contacts, but as we’d coasted into Picton harbour I had a real sense that the south island would bring a new slant, a fresh start, a new potential for work and for adventure.