When I saw a for round-trip ferry tickets to Somes Island, I immediately bought it for Daniel and me. It has been on our list of places to visit since moving to Wellington.
Somes Island, also known as Matiu Island, sits in the Wellington Harbor. In fact, it’s so close to the city that I still had 3G on my phone. (This wasn’t the case for Kapiti Island.) But still far enough away to escape the sounds of the city.
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!
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.
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.
I’m bringing back the tie-your-sweatshirt-around-your-waist-look.