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Story: Shipping

The Aramoana in heavy seas

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The <em>Aramoana</em> in heavy seas

Cook Strait is one of the roughest stretches of water in the world. The cafeteria’s dreaded savoury mince was probably coming up the day the Aramoana punched her way through these wild seas. However, most of the time the rail–road ferries ran very reliably, for the first time linking the two main islands’ rail and road systems in an ‘iron bridge’.

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Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand Railways (Publicity Branch)

Reference: PAColl-8725-1

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Gavin McLean, Shipping – Post-war boom, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/5772/the-aramoana-in-heavy-seas (accessed 5 June 2026).

Story by Gavin McLean, published 2 March 2009, updated 1 January 2016.