But our distance from Picton and Wellington should not equate to disregard for the news yesterday that a long-planned and increasingly expensive upgrade of the KiwiRail Interislander fleet has now effectively been put in dry dock.
The Kaiarahi, Kaitaki and Aratere combine to transport nearly 800,000 passengers and 250,000 cars a year between the North and South Islands.
Of course, not all of those passengers hail from down this way, and nor are the inbound passengers all heading to the deep South.
But for many the ferry represents a relatively affordable way to traverse New Zealand - yesterday an adult driving a car could catch the ferry for as little as $239, while an air ticket from Dunedin to Wellington would have cost upwards of $400.
That figure represents food and medical supplies landing in the South, and it represents southern-grown produce and southern-made consumer goods heading to market.
Those things will be being carried on trucks and trains, but those means of transport roll to a grinding halt when confronted by the impassable barrier of Cook Strait - well, unless a ferry is sitting at port waiting for them.
Coastal shipping and air travel can only deliver so much: the ferry, and its associated rail service, is an absolutely vital economic lifeline for the South. If anyone had forgotten that, they would have been firmly reminded of it last year when a series of breakdowns gravely hampered the Interislander service.
Naturally, the government knew all this, which was why some years ago it asked state-owned enterprise and Interislander operator KiwiRail to consider upgrading the service.
That work, dubbed Project iReX, began in 2018 when KiwiRail submitted an indicative business case in advance of Budget 2019. The estimated cost of the upgrade then was $775 million.
On Wednesday Finance Minister Nicola Willis sent a shudder through the freight and transport sectors when she announced that the government had declined a KiwiRail request for an additional $1.47 billion - some of which had been agreed to in principle by the former government - to meet cost overruns on the project.
Of the estimated cost of the project, about a fifth is for new vessels: the rest is for the facilities required on land to make a ferry service function.
Ms Willis said that ministers did not have confidence that there would not be further increases, were concerned about the continued significant cost blow-outs, and also the changing nature of the investment of tax payer’s money that they were being asked to make.
Which are all valid concerns, but New Zealand does need a resilient, safe and reliable Cook Strait connection and like it or not, such infrastructure does not come cheap.
It is all very well, and commendable, that Ms Willis is carefully watching the country’s pennies, but she runs the real risk that the cost at some future date will add up to a considerable sum.
Economy is fine but is this a false economy?
Shipbuilder Hyundai Mipo Dockyard had already been awarded a contract to build two rail-enabled ferries for KiwiRail: yesterday KiwiRail’s chief executive floated the faintly ridiculous sounding possibility of taxpayers going ahead with buying the vessels, but then selling them as soon as they were finished.
Ms Willis, with great rhetorical flourish, said that the vessels were a Ferrari option when there might be a Corolla available. That is as may be, but what the country cannot afford is for the present model New Zealand owns to be sitting up on cinder blocks while the government is off kicking tyres elsewhere.
Transporting New Zealand said on Wednesday said that substantial improvements to ferry services were essential. We agree.
As it pointed out, freight is predicted to grow 1.4% annually, meaning that this is an issue that cannot be put off.
In the meantime the South Island has yet another reason to grumble that the North Island is ignoring its needs.
