The first part of our honeymoon involved getting back from our wedding venue in the Marlborough Sounds, to Wellington to catch an international flight.

The Marlborough Sounds are ’sounds’ in their true meaning. Unlike the Milford Sounds further south which are actually fjords created by glaciers carving through the landscape, or the Sound (of northern European usage) which would more properly be termed a Strait, the Marlborough Sounds were originally hills and river valleys, which through rising sea levels and subsidence have been drowned and covered by the sea, forming the characteristic long arms and small coves.

The ‘normal’ way between Wellington and the Sounds, and more generally between the North and South Islands, is on an ‘Interisland’ ferry. Two companies run regular passenger services on five different boats, a journey that takes around three hours – roughly evenly one third each in Wellington harbour, crossing the Straits, and through the Sounds. The journey itself is picturesque and a great tourist attraction – but it gets a bit boring when it is almost like a commuter route. Additionally, the venue for our wedding is half an hour from Picton by water taxi, making the round trip from the Cove to home the better part of six hours.

To make the start of our honeymoon special, we decided to do it slightly differently. We chartered a float plane to pick us up from the Bay of Many Coves and do a scenic flight over the Sounds on our way home. The one disappointment is that due to air and sea traffic in Wellington, the plane could not land in the harbour – instead, they fly to the Porirua inlet, half an hours drive north of Wellington.

The weather was again amazing, completely calm with thin wisps of cloud hanging in the valleys, slowly being burnt off by the sun like snow drifts melting into the water below. We banked out of the bay into the main arm of the Queen Charlotte sounds, before climbing up over Portage and down into Kenepuru Sound. Flying in a light plane is so different to a commercial liner, and we never climbed higher than the peaks of the surrounding hills. The many bays and coves take on a dreamlike aspect as you pass slowly overhead, the ripples and waves in the water merge into one seamless mirror as you gain height, until they themselves crack into splinters, the reflected sun refracted into thousands of sparkling shards where different currents meet.

The azure water of the deep sounds slowly bled into the lighter colours of the Cook Strait as we headed out towards Mana Island and started to descend into Porirua harbour. The flight is certainly not the way to travel to the Sounds on every trip, but as a once off I found it amazing, yet again seeing this piece of paradise on our doorstep in a new light, yet again falling in love with the hills and valleys, the streams running down to the sea, this beautiful picturesque country which is our home.