Picton is a town in New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds. It is the South Island port for the Cook Strait Interisland ferries. It is a pleasant place to spend a few days as it serves as a convenient hub for exploring the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. Nearby activities include sailing, SCUBA diving to the wreck of the Soviet passenger cruise ship Mikhail Lermontov, fishing, biking and hiking.
Get In
By Boat
Take a ferry from Wellington. The main services are available are the
Interislander and Straits shipping Straits shipping the journey takes approx. 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
By bus
There are daily bus services that connect with the ferry sailings.
By car
Follow State Highway 1 from Blenheim. The state highway leads right up into the ferry terminal.
By train
The Coastal Pacific service operates daily from and to Christchurch, connecting with the 1 PM ferry sailing.
By air
SoundsAir operates frequent, daily, scenic flights between Wellington and Picton. As of December 2005 a one-way fare was NZ69, which is very close to the price of the ferry (which takes over 3 hours), making the 25 minute flight an affordable and convenient alternative. You may find booking online to be the cheapest choice.
See
Do
Drink
Seumus's pub on Wellington St is run by a man from Co. Derry in Ireland and has one of the best pints of Guinness in the southern hemisphere. 05:01, 23 February 2007 (EST)
Get Out
Water taxi services travel around the Marlborough Sounds as many properties have a waterfront access but no road. Tourists can tour the Sounds on these boats. There are a number of lodges and guesthouses in the Sounds.
Picton is a town in the Marlborough region of New Zealand. It is near the head of Queen Charlotte Sound near the north-east corner of the South Island. The population in 2001 was 3,990. The town is named after Sir Thomas Picton, the military associate of the Duke of Wellington, who was killed at the Battle of Waterloo.
Inter-island ferries to and from Wellington arrive and depart here by way of the Marlborough Sounds. Most of the sheltered part of the route is through Tory Channel, south of Arapawa Island. The township of Waikawa is a couple of minutes' drive from Picton, practically part of the same town. Waikawa hosts a marina, one of the largest in New Zealand.
As of 2001, the unemployment rate in Picton was 4.3%, compared with 7.5% for all of New Zealand.
Transport
The Main North railway line and State Highway 1 link Picton southwards to Blenheim, Christchurch and beyond, while scenic Queen Charlotte Drive (shorter in distance but usually slower than State Highway 1/State Highway 6 via Blenheim) winds westward to Havelock.
The daily TranzCoastal long-distance passenger train to Christchurch begins and terminates in Picton.
Picton Airport at nearby Koromiko has regular services to Wellington and charter flights around the Marlborough sounds.
Nearby settlements are at Anakiwa, Waikawa, and Shakespeare Bay.
The Edwin Fox Maritime Centre features the Edwin Fox, the only surviving ship that transported convicts to Australia, which is undergoing preservation and restoration.
Notable people born in Picton
Miscellaneous
The famous author Katherine Mansfield spent some time in Picton where her grandparents, Arthur and Mary Beauchamp, and her father Harold, lived for some time when they came from Australia. She included a reference to the port in her short story "The Voyage" (in the collection The Garden Party), which is "an account of a trip to Picton from Wellington on the Cook Strait ferry" .
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