Wellington Walks: Whitireia Park

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Another weekend, another walk. This time we decided to check out Whitireia Park located in Porirua, a 30 minute drive from Wellington city. Daniel must have picked this walk with me in mind because it was pretty damn short and easy. There were hardly any hills to walk up.

The beginning of the walk at Whitireia Park.

Although you would hardly notice, the path is shared with cyclists, pedestrians, and four-legged friends. One thing I love is that the trails in Wellington never seem to be filled with people. There is the occasional mountain biker zooming around the corner, but that’s usually it. Nice and quiet.

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Wellington Walks: City to Sea Walkway

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With a week off work, I decided to do a few walks by myself. So on a hot, calm day I headed out to walk Wellington’s City to Sea Walkway.

The walk is appropriately named starting off near Wellington’s downtown area and twisting through various city parks, then over hills for 12km to the sea.

Despite traveling through plenty of them, this trail was no walk in the park. Constantly climbing up and down Wellington’s many hills for its duration – leaving me sweaty and dehydrated.

The first climb went through the Botanical Gardens ending at this typical view from Wellington’s cable car.

The Wellington, New Zealand cable car.
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Wellington Walks: Kapiti Island

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Kapiti Island seen from the mainland of New Zealand.

Since it was Jamie’s birthday and the weather was starting to get a little nicer, we got up early one Sunday for a trip to Kapiti Island.

The island is around an hour north of Wellington by car and only accessible by boat.  Thankfully it’s only about 5km from the shore, so the boat crossing takes just 10 minutes. Consequently it’s so close that it’s hard to take a good photo of. I imagine the island is most well known in New Zealand for the ice cream bearing its name and its very distinctive outline!

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Wellington Walks: Red Rocks Walkway

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“There will be seals,” Daniel said.

If he can’t bribe me with food to come along on the walks, animals in the wild are the next best thing. (Except if it’s a gang of cows, of course.) The Red Rocks Reserve is a walk that goes along the rugged Wellington coast from Owhiro Bay, which is located in the southern part of Wellington.
Rugged coastline at the Red Rocks Reserve walkway.

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Wellington Walks: Skyline Track to Mount Kaukau

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I’m not going to lie: I’m out of shape. The twenty-six set of stairs it takes to get from the car parked onto the street to our flat, and I’m out of breath. Needless to say, this walk didn’t start out too well for me. The first 15 minutes of it, and I was instantly reminded to how I felt climbing : I was ready to quit. Though it wasn’t as grueling as that hike in British Columbia, the initial climb started out with stairs.

And plenty of them.

Hiking to the radio tower on Mount Kaukau.

I’m bringing back the tie-your-sweatshirt-around-your-waist-look.

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Wellington Walks: Makara Walkway

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Something we really love about Wellington is that within a 10 minute drive of the city, you can be in the countryside. This was a walk we did at Makara Beach. Around a 25 minute drive from the city hidden over the hills.

The coast along the Makara Walkway.

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Wellington Walks: Queen Elizabeth Park

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When Jamie and I started this blog, one of our goals was to create a document of our travels, so we have a reminder of the best and worst moments.

Recently I feel like we’ve been failing at this goal. We’re guilty of writing lots of serious, long posts about travel and anxiety and we’ve kind of forgotten to document the fun we’ve been having. To try and counteract that we’ve decided to start a series of posts called Wellington Walks.

When it’s a nice weekend here in Wellington, we find the best thing to do is to go for a walk! One of the things I love about the city is that it’s so close to the country. Within 10 minutes you can feel like you’re really out there in nature. Jamie – admittedly – isn’t the biggest fan of walking, but I manage to drag her along and force her to enjoy it, usually by packing a picnic.

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