11 of us met at Wellington Railway Station after catching trains into town. It was a glorious day as we set off along the waterfront. There were a couple of distractions along the way which included a snack from the market, coffee a bit further along and a couple of our group meeting up with an old sailing acquaintance. But we made it out onto Oriental Parade and admired the newly laid out beach courtesy of sand from Golden Bay. People were making good use of the wonderful day and were out in force. It was a nice flat walk for the first 8kms following the newly widened shared pathway nearly all the way to Kilbirnie. We had a quick stop at Balena Bay and another at Greta Point before heading past Kilbirnie Park and up to Wellington Road. Here we sprinted across the road which is always so busy, and climbed up onto the Southern Walkway located along the Town Belt. We found a spot under the pines to have lunch and a well-earned break. The temperature by now was around 20 degrees – such an awesome day!

Then it was all gradually uphill, some of it on the road and the rest along the Southern Walkway until we left it for the Mt Victoria Lookout. Most decided to go straight up the steep hill and the rest walked double the distance up the less steep roadway. We all converged at the lookout and a very kind man took a photo of our whole group. After drinking in the amazing view, we retraced our steps back down the hill to meet the Southern Walkway again. This time we took the track down to Majoribanks St, which was quite a steep descent. Once down to Courtenay Place, we looked around for somewhere to have a cuppa. We ended up back on the waterfront at Shed 22 where some of us had a beer, some had a late lunch and coffees. Then it was back to the Railway Station to catch our respective trains back home. In all, we had walked 17kms. Just the training run some of us wanted for our walk on the Queen Charlotte Track coming up later in the week.

Lead - Judith O’Leary

Walkers: Denise, Sharon, Lorraine, Natalie, Mark & Helen, Rob & Sue, Jeannine, and Lynn.