Poor Ted.
What I really wanted to do today was go up to the Mount Victoria Lookout to “see it all” – all of Wellington, at least.
We began from our hotel on a hill, down to street level on Lambton Quay via the Plimmer Steps, which span an elevation of about 24m (equivalent to a 7-8 storey building) by a combination of steps and brick ramps, despite a nagging premonition that we’d have enough elevation to navigate today.
Our starting elevation was basically at sea level; our goal at 196m/693ft.
The climb began gently, along sloping sidewalks.
We wound our way up Majoribanks Street through turn-of-the-century Mount Victoria villas, and past St. Gerard’s church and monastery, where we stopped to admire the view below.
A chart we saw later at the lookout explained Wellington’s winds.
Just past the architecturally stunning home below was the trail entrance on Lawson Place.
From there it was advertised as a “meander” through historic pines to reach a lookout with panoramic city views. Meander sounds gentle. The slopes were anything but. In fact, it was a strenuous enough “meander” to preclude taking any pictures until we finally made it to the top of the trail -from which point we still needed to climb 3 flights up to,the lookout itself!
It was definitely – hopefully – worth it for the view at the top, although I can’t say I disagree with Ted’s expression.
We quite quickly decided that we were not walking back down the trail, so grabbed the #20 bus back downtown, where we rewarded ourselves with large flat whites in a café located in the Old Bank Arcade. It’s a gorgeous Edwardian Baroque heritage building to which we’ll have to return for photos when we’re less exhausted.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 