My first day in town started with some eggs and toast at my hotel. Stomach full, I felt ready to start on my meal plan for the first part of the South Island, which was quite the feat. There are three suggested places for all TA walkers to send themselves food parcels (because options are limited or a good hitch away). I chose to do 4 parcels because the 4th spot won’t have any bulk food options. I could have done more boxes because I think there are 1-2 towns that likely won’t have much in the way of bulk food, but planning a month of food was already a lot and enough to figure out. I decided that I’ll just have to limit myself to things that aren’t individually wrapped when I do my resupplies in those towns. I set off for a bulk food store called GoodFor Wholefoods Refillery, since there aren’t any BinInns in the centre of Wellington and the one in Porirua didn’t have much selection. This store had a great selection and a few treats that I hadn’t seen before like powdered coconut milk (to add to my curries), ramen noodles (I can finally eat like a normal hiker!) and veggie chips. They even had bulk cookies, which I didn’t get since I didn’t think that they’d pack very well. I was only disappointed not to find a nut butter machine. I called a few other bulk food stores, but none had a nut butter machine so in the end I bought some in glass jars that I ended up transferring to my reusable pouches. I also got some of the dehydrated Bolognaise and black bean chili again from New World, as well as a good supply of cookies and chocolate. I spent the good part of two end of afternoons and evenings divying everything up into the right amounts for each box (bought some compostable bags for this since I didn’t have near enough reusable bags). I had to remove a bag of chips from my fullest box (9-10 days worth of food), but managed to fit everything else in all the boxes, including a new pair of shoes in the second box.

I also spent one morning doing the last 12.8 km of the North Island trail. It goes along the waterfront in Wellington before turning off onto a path that climbs up Mt Victoria and then Mt Albert to some view points of the city and surrounds.

It was then down to the coast and short section along the coast to the terminus at Island Bay Beach.

As I approached the little monument, I saw another hiker there playing a violin. I hadn’t come across him before, but we high fived and also commiserated that it was a somewhat anticlimactic finish. Although it was nice for me to finish with some live music. There was a bus that left from right next to the monument and that was a half hour ride back to downtown.

I also spent one morning at the Te Papa museum visiting the very well done exhibits on the natural history of NZ and the contribution of NZ to WWI (quite sad as war always is, but especially since they eventually had to give up the ground they gained in Turkey).

I’ve also been doing my best to check out some well known cafés; one Mediterranean, one Vietnamese, one Maori, a Napolitano pizza place and a pasta place. I also tried three different ice cream places, one for each day.

I’ve had fantastic weather while I’ve been here and it seems like a nice city, not too big with just under a quarter of a million inhabitants, but big enough to have a variety of things to do and see. There’s even a city beach that looks great for swimming since it’s very protected.