The Complete Wellington Experience

1 April
Air Bnb in Khandallah to Porirua
KM 1668, 2km off trail
Distance: 24.7km 
Elevation: ascent 683m, descent 828m
Steps: 38,600
Time: 7:15am - 1:30pm

Remember yesterday's weather? Apart from the morning fog, it was a stunning blue sky day when we had coffee on Oriental Parade, took panorama photos of the expansive Wellington harbour views and lunched next to the water before coating ourselves in sunscreen. The images below show how today we experienced the other face of Wellington's Janus-like weather. Firstly, the forecast for the day. Showers from 11am, and wind over 30km/h, gusting to nearly 60 km/h.

This was the view from the summit of Colonial Knob, our highest point of the day. It's all bare grass hill tops with no trees for shelter.

Still images don't quite capture the ferocity of the wind so here's a short video (sound on). There's supposed to be commentary but it's drowned out by the wind.

Compare the two photos below which are of the same coastline, the first from today, the second from yesterday.
After a couple of hours out on the exposed tops, the track finally entered native bush where there was no wind or horizontal precipitation.
From here it was a short walk to Porirua city where we went straight to the first cafe we could find. It was called The Little Goat and run by a friendly Cypriot woman named Crystalia. She even let us eat our own lunch at a cafe table. Their date scones are amazing!

Our plan was to then organise accommodation for that night in Plimmerton, a further 10 km which we were confident we could walk to despite the weather. But after trying two motels and two Air BnBs we still had nowhere to stay. Apparently they were all fully booked, or were Covid-isolating. We were rescued by our good friends (and now official Trail Angels) Lauren, Justin and Nacho the cat, who live a short distance away in Porirua. We were pretty wet and cold (and a little dejected) when we turned up at their place. They really looked after us and we are incredibly grateful to them. After a hot shower and curry for dinner we're feeling a lot better about tomorrow's walk.

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