Paekaka-wha?

Paekakariki, a town on the Kapiti Coast 40kms or so north of Wellington, is not exactly a huge tourist destination, being only 1700 people strong. Curious about its name, I looked it up on my return to Welly, it means "perching place of the green parrot (kakariki)". I knew that the town was off the beaten path when I chose to go there for the day from Wellington—it just seemed kind of interesting. I wasn't disappointed.The only time I had ever heard of Paekakariki before I reached Wellington was in reading about adventure sports in New Zealand. Another totally out there Kiwi idea was the idea that hey, maybe if we string up a little rocket on a wire, and then let it go and fly out over a canyon at speeds up to 75 miles per hour, we'd have so much fun! This little ride, the fly-by-wire, called the fastest adventure flight in the world, offers full control of the ride so you can swing anywhere in the canyon, rather than simply going straight down on a bungee cord. At for a 5 minute ride, I had decided before I arrived in the town that I just didn't have the money for it.It would have been interesting, had I wanted to ride it, since there was absolutely no signage in town, or any sign that the fly-by-wire ever existed. I'm sure that had I been curious enough I would have found out, but after doing research on my return to Wellington, I found out that a huge flood in 2003 had totally destroyed the site of the ride, and that "geological instability" would stop it from ever opening again. This seemed to be the only adventure activity in the Wellington area; but no fear, one still exists, in Queenstown.One main attraction I found in the actual town was the railroad museum. Apparently they are very proud of the railroad in this area, as it was their main link to places like Wellington. Sadly, this museum, located at the train station, was closed on the day I was there. The other main attraction, and the one I quite enjoyed, was doing lots of walking. You can stroll along the beach, or walk through Queen Elizabeth Park, or hike along the inland track.

Quick Tips:

This little town on the coast tends to get overlooked, and if you don't have a chance to do its many walks, I'm sure it would at least be a nice little pitstop on the drive to Welly!I arrived in Paekakariki on a rather dismal day; it didn't actually rain on me, but it certainly came close. The strolls, especially along the beach, would have been much better had the sun been shining—even though I know it's difficult to pick a good day in New Zealand, since the weather can turn foggy at the drop of a hat.

Paekakariki is on the Kapiti Coast, so named for the island that sits off its coast, Kapiti Island. Kapiti is a huge nature reserve, complete with Kiwi that are safe from the predators of the mainland. If you would like to go to Kapiti, you MUST book in Wellington before your trip. There are only a certain number of people allowed on the island each day (I can't remember the exact number, but I know it was less than 100), and you have to apply for a special permit to be one of these people. This can only be done in Wellington.Something I wanted to try on the Kapiti was night rafting. Apparently a company called River Rock rafting offers this—fun rides on the Otaki River under the stars. However, I couldn't find any place in Wellington that could book these tours, and the only place that even found their number said it was disconnected. I took this to mean the company had gone out of business—but if you can find it, I'm sure it would be very enjoyable!

Best Way To Get Around:

Paekakariki is the second to last stop on the line from Wellington to Paraparaumu. It took about 1 hour to get there. The trains run on a timetable and at least every 30 minutes, so it is very easy to get here from Welly. This also means it's very easy to stop in Paekakariki on your way to Kapiti Island or Paraparaumu as well. Paekakariki also lies on the main road between Auckland and Wellington—State Hwy 1. However, I do not believe that the main bus lines stop here, so I think the best bet for getting here on public transport would be as a day trip from Welly, as I did.Once in town, the only option is to walk, which was my main motivation in coming here in the first place.

I arrived in Paekakariki in the morning, and proceeded to hike on the paths surrounding the town; I didn't arrive back to the little main street until 3:30 in the afternoon. I hadn't even remembered about lunch until I walked past the Paekakariki Cafe and smelled the wonderful food!

While I was on a budget, and it was tempting to just grab a bag of chips from the one corner store and keep moving, there was too much allure to the Paekakariki Cafe to pass it up. It had the highest density of people I saw in the entire town; this still wasn't a huge number of people, but it had a great atmosphere. It felt like a place that I could sit down and read a book in all day.

The food was absolutely delicious. I had a difficult time choosing between all the pastries and the like on display; I finally decided on a focaccia pizza (I don't remember the exact price, but it was probably around $7NZ—it seemed that everything in the cafe was reasonably priced, with actual meals coming in around $10 to 15NZ). that was incredibly tasty and better than most other concoctions I had ever tried on a slice of focaccia bread. I was tempted to take another one for the road, but decided it might not transport back to Welly so well.

The only bad thing I could find about this cafe was the fact that it was in Paekakariki rather than Wellington itself, so I couldn't come back to it again; then again, one of the good things about it was the fact that it was the cafe of Paekakariki, rather than just another cafe on a strip of Wellington street.

When I arrived in Paekakariki, I wanted to see the beach and Kapiti Island, lying just off the coast. I really didn't have a clue about the layout of Paekakariki, so I just winged it. I walked directly down the first street that intersected the train line, which seemed to be the main street in town, until I found the beach and some stairs onto it. To the south, the beach became more rocky and eventually trailed off, so I used this as a guide to go north.Just off the coast of the beach was Kapiti Island, a nature reserve that only a few people are allowed on every day. At least, I was fairly certain Kapiti was out there, but I could really only see its silhouette every now and then when peeked out of the clouds surrounding it.I walked down the coast for at least a couple kilometers. The beach wasn't nice for a swimming beach—but then, in these temperatures, what crazy person would be swimming anyways? I thought it was a good walking beach—you could see for miles ahead of you, all the way up to Paraparaumu, and this view was what inspired me to keep walking a little further rather than turning around. At one point I was convinced I was going to walk all the way to Paraparaumu, but that didn't quite happen.One thing I really quite enjoyed about this beach was the seashells. The beach was absolutely strewn with them. I felt like a little kid on Galveston Beach again, walking slowly between the shells, picking them up and inspecting them. This is when I made an amazing find, there were paua shells on the beach! For those that don't know, paua is a shell that is only seen in the cold waters of New Zealand, and is a brilliant purple, blue, green, and pink shell that is used in a lot of Maori artwork and a lot more jewelry. There were not many of these shells—I only found two intact ones and one shattered one. It really was quite an exciting find, especially judging by the amount of paua jewelry I was wearing at the time!I didn't see many other touristy looking people at all on the beach—mostly locals out for a morning walk with their dogs, or chasing after their children. I finally arrived at an area where a large stream crossed the beach and there were a few more children around, and a lot more tree debris—it looked like there had been a bad storm recently, because limbs were scattered everywhere from the trees at the edge of the beach. There was a bridge leading to a little trail in between the trees, so I took one last look at Kapiti Island—which was of course coming out of the clouds now that I was leaving the beach—and took the trail, which happened to lead into Queen Elizabeth Park.

When I looked at what to do in Paekakariki, Queen Elizabeth Park seemed rather interesting, although I wasn't sure if I would make it there because its a couple kilometers outside the town itself. However, walking on the beach made those few kms simple, and I found myself in QE Park without even realizing that was where I was going.

This park has a few interesting things about it. It is the last area of natural dunes on the Kapiti coastline, which makes for some interesting walks. I also saw signs for horseriding in the park as well, and there is fishing in the stream that runs through it, although I'm not sure about swimming, but there is always the beach (rather cold but at least free of any threat of sharks!). I saw plenty of people doing the typical park activities as well—children playing on the playgrounds and having picnics with their families.

Something interesting in the history of Queen Elizabeth Park: during World War II, New Zealand hosted foreign troops for the first time because of the Japanese threat. QE Park was the largest camp for these troops, and it held approximately 20,000 men! There are some commemorations of this event and its impact on the area in the park itself.

I did not come in the main entrance to the park, since I instead walked up a path from the beach, but the park still had rather a grand entrance from this direction. All of a sudden, the trees opened up to reveal paths leading in every direction, one of which was canopied with giant trees itself. This park really is quite massive and had so many different directions to go in that I had a hard time choosing; as it was, I only saw a very tiny portion of the park itself. I walked around the meandering paths for quite some time, just enjoying the day (which luckily still hadn't avoided rain). The scenery was really quite nice, like a mini botanic gardens on the beach. On a clear day, the views across to Kapiti would have been amazing and perhaps the sea would have been a slightly more inviting shade of blue!

After taking a few detours and wandering along a stream for a while, I found my way to the actual entrance to the park, on Wellington Road. Here, there were huge maps and signs describing the park and its history; the maps would have been useful to have seen before setting off in the park, but I still enjoyed my trip there. I definitely think its worth a stop into, especially if you are looking for a place to picnic on a long road trip.

Since I walked into Queen Elizabeth park through a back entrance, I did not get to see the maps that were posted at the entrance. Because of this, I wasn't totally sure where I was going when I saw a sign that pointed to the "Inland track," but I took it because I had found my way on my previous walks thus far, so why wouldn't this one be the same?

The walk out of QE Park was really nice and kind of reminded me of a toned-down last mile or so of the Tongariro Crossing in that I was walking along a trickling stream. The sound of it in the background just made the walk much more relaxing, as though I needed more relaxation—that was all I had done all day!

Then the forested area opened up and I was in grassy dunes. The path continued leading to what seemed like nowhere, and at one point, forked. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong fork, because I was totally turned around by this time and only knew where the town was by the hills behind it, and had decided that I might as well take any direction that might get me back to the main highway. Unfortunately, after a bit longer walking, I realized that I was going around some sort of field and up what seemed to be someone's driveway. Although it was a quiet little town and I'm sure the people would be very understanding, I didn't particularly feel like seeing where the path continued on to for fear of being yelled at for being on other people's land, so I turned around. Fortunately, I managed to retrace my steps and take the correct fork into QE Park, partly because I actually read the signpost this time, which was pointing toward the Inland Track in one direction and QE Park in the other.

By this point, my legs were getting slightly weary and I knew I should head back to Wellington before too long, so I did not actually get to see the Inland Track. This was rather sad, since apparently it goes over dunes and through a fair stretch of the park (it really is quite a large park, of which I only saw a very tiny piece of). So really, this review is just to warn people: Paekakariki offers quite a lot in the way of hiking, so make sure that you have your bearings and a map to keep you on the right track before you take off, because you'll hit yourself, like I did, if you miss some of it!