Down from the 8th floor of EDS Tower and our partial views of Oriental Bay, hanging onto Mt Wellington and holding back the Tasman. Enter the Whitcouls building at the 6th floor and down to sea level, Lambton Quay, shoppers and shopping, vibrant!
A brisk 10 minutes and the strides have one down the single block to Featherstone Street, a further 5 or 6 blocks and entering Wellington Central Railway Station. Stately old thing, much like Central’s in many European cities, though given Wellington’s modest population, when compared with those of it’s conquerors home towns, it’s footprint is understandably understated. All the better for a city that has, as yet, not burst at it’s seems.
The stone facaded building houses the usual public transportation fare; glass-paneled ticket-purchasing pigeon-holes, pie-chips-and-gravy styled eatery serving beer and cheap wine and kiosks dishing up reading and snacking materials.
The trains are efficient and comfortable, these blue clad outer coaches with olive and blue / green interiors, carpeted and presented with padded seating in surprisingly fine fettle.
Departing Wellington sees Westpac Stadium immediately on the right, netsled between the tracks and the harbour cranes. A big, bright, modern looking ellipse, clad in aluminum or some similar adornment. On we go, speeding up along the bay, ocean views to the right, just past the tarmac of State Highway1, the cars jostling each other, the train hurtling, oblivious of those frustrations.
Into tunnel one and the artificial light in the carriage seems ill placed, longing for the sea views so recently departed. Out into the sunlight, amid the trees, tarmac of State Highway1 and the gorge. The cars not tiring of their jostling, crawl up the ascent toward Johnsonville, we hurtle, back into the midriff of the mountains, the artificial light encroaching yet again on natural freedoms. Out we pop, like the 7th child born to an experienced mother, (OK! I know, but I enjoyed that one)
Tawa ahead, nestled in the valley, Porirua to come, the busy metropolis of the northern suburbs. A city in its own right, the Bellville of Cape Town.
On we rumble, having purged or ranks of those mere mortals, saddled with life in Porirua, life in the bay, within arms reach of Mana and Paremata, Whitby and Plimmerton. Oh how unfortunate to be so close, but not on Natures Coast, Kapiti.
We, the lucky few, climb out of the valley that is Porirua and up over the saddle, leaving behind the rat race, the trudgers, waiting, longing for the first glimpses of the Tasman from the heights of Pukerua Bay, winding down the hillside, through Muri and along the unspoiled, uninhabited stretch of “Oude Kraal’esque” seaside to Paekakeriki. 10 Km of pristine coastline with Kapiti Island showing the way in the distance.
Through Paekok and away from the Coast, across State Highway 1, they never learn those users of convenience, those motoring addicts.
Along Queen Elizabeth Park with its rolling hills, green, white-dotted with nature's lawn mowers.
Home. Paraparaumu. What to do with the sunshine time ………………
