The owners of the Lake Ferry Hotel are hatching a plan to reopen the historic ferry route over Lake Onoke in Wairarapa.
Shoreline at Lake Ferry with fishing party circa 1940s by Sydney Charles Smith Alexander Turnbull Library.
The Lake Ferry settlement, on the shore of Cook Strait south of Martinborough, was so named in 1851 because the first publican, William Ardley, was licensed on condition he also row travellers from Wellington across the mouth of nearby Lake Onoke. The ferry service continued into the 1960s, and there's no sign the condition for the publican to provide a ferry service was ever revoked.
Co-publican Mary Tipoki has been in the hotel for twenty years, and tells Simon Mercep about the history of the area, and her hopes for there to be a ferry at Lake Ferry once more.
