What to do in Wellington with a motorhome

This post is sponsored by Wil­der­ness Motorhomes

We love telling people what to do. Espe­cially telling people what to do in Wel­ling­ton. That’s why we exist. So when we were offered this sponsored post we were happy to take up the chal­lenge of what to do in Wel­ling­ton if you’re an out-of-town­er vis­it­ing in a motorhome. Most of our advice in the play and eat sec­tions will still be use­ful to any out-of-town­ers, of course.

Sleep

First of all, you’re going to want some­where to stay, and while there is no longer a down­town motorhome park on the water­front, the Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil has the down­low on leg­al camp grounds. It’s import­ant to note that camp­ing is not per­mit­ted in Wel­ling­ton’s reserves, includ­ing the Town Belt and Reserves around the Coast.

There are a num­ber of free­dom camp­ing spots around Wel­ling­ton like Te Kopa­hau Reserve car­park (not the reserve itself), but please make sure you pick up after your­self, because read­ing neg­at­ive art­icles about free­dom campers is really bor­ing.

If, like us, you don’t ever want to be too far from the good cof­fee, as long as you’re self con­tained, there’s a powered park­ing site just a block or two from Cuba Street. Chances are that your motorhome might be big­ger than some inner city apart­ments any­way!

Play

So what to do while you’re in Wel­ling­ton? We’ve got a couple of ideas for you.

Firstly, we sent our intrep­id Kris out in a van to get a feel for the roads. She reports back

“I went for a drive along Wel­ling­ton’s slim twisty roads on Sunday in the wind and rain. I think any camper­vans big­ger than van size would be able to drive the roads (if the bus can they should be able to) but hon­estly they should just park up some­where and take the free shuttle bus out to Zeal­and­ia and the Botan­ic Gar­dens (Zeal­and­ia tell people in camper­vans to con­tact them if their vehicle is over 3m). Some of those roads are pretty steep and windy!”

We do recom­mend a drive up to see the view from the top of Mount Vic­tor­ia if you’re con­fid­ent in your driv­ing, but sug­gest going via Newtown/Alexandra Road instead of the more dir­ect route. Plus that way you could stop in at the Wel­ling­ton SPCA too!

Otari-Wilton, Makara Peak Moun­tain Bike Park, and Wright’s Hill Fort­ress, all have car­parks suit­able for van-sizes but the turn­ing would be a bit tight for any­thing big­ger. There is enough space to park big­ger vehicles fur­ther away from the car­parks and that usu­ally hap­pens before the roads nar­row and/or get twisty. Bonus for driv­ing to Otari-Wilton is Ian Gal­lo­way park which includes a skate ramp and an off-lead dog area.

And here are some oth­er ideas…

City Creatures

Make sure you take a stroll around our water­front (and do look up from your devices, even if there is free wi-fi avail­able). There’s a sculp­ture tour to be done, and many things to be pho­to­graphed! We par­tic­u­larly recom­mend Sundays, so you can also go to the City Mar­kets at Wait­angi Park, where you can try all kinds of deli­cious loc­al pro­duce. You will be able to park in the Te Papa car­park (and while you’re there, why not check our nation­al museum as well), but it will cost you.

Coffee

Wel­ling­ton is well known for its cof­fee cul­ture. Most cafés in the inner city, and many in the sub­urbs, know how to pour good espresso, latte, or that Aus­tralasi­an spe­ci­al­ity, the flat white. Loc­al chains and roas­t­er­ies whose out­posts are gen­er­ally reli­able include Peoples (sic), Supreme, Flight and Mojo.

There are also a sev­er­al places that stretch the bound­ar­ies a little and may be worth a spe­cial vis­it: among these are Cus­toms Brew Bar on Ghuznee Street, Mem­ph­is Belle on Dix­on, and Lama­son, Wel­ling­ton’s first siphon bar; all three of which make fine espresso as well as single ori­gin beans brewed in a num­ber of inter­est­ing ways.

Inner city park­ing isn’t easy at the best of times, so once you have your motorhome parked in one place, we recom­mend get­ting around on foot, bus or taxi.

Eva Street / Leeds Street

This little lane­way gets a spe­cial men­tion because it’s packed with Wel­ling­ton food­ie des­tin­a­tions — Six Bar­rel Soda Co, Fix & Fogg Pea­nut But­ter Com­pany, Leeds Street Bakery (try the salted chocol­ate chip cook­ies) and the Wel­ling­ton Chocol­ate Fact­ory, as well as a pizza joint and two bars. Oh, and a strip club on the corner.

While you’re there, you might want to pop into one of our favour­ite bars, Hanging Ditch. This bar is pretty new but it’s rap­idly become one of our favour­ites. It offers exquis­ite cock­tails, decent wine list and a beer selec­tion that’s all craft but lim­ited out of defer­ence to Golding’s next door. You’ll be enter­tained by all the bottles hanging from the ceil­ing and there’s plenty of space to sit and chat.

Markets

Need to buy presents? The Frank Kitts Under­ground Craft Mar­ket on Sat­urdays is a good bet. If you’re look­ing to fill your face­hole, the Har­bourside Mar­ket right next to each oth­er on Sundays in Wait­angi Park is the place to be. Fri­day nights has the night mar­ket in Left­bank off Cuba Street, and Sat­urday night has a food mar­ket in Lower Cuba Street.

Movie fans

You’ll want to head out to Miramar (but if you’re driv­ing your motorhome, be care­ful dur­ing heavy winds cos it gets real gusty going past the air­port). There you’ll find the Weta Cave, as well as the Roxy Cinema, which is co-owned by Weta guy Sir Richard Taylor. The Roxy has recently reopened, restored to its former glory with bonus amaz­ing mur­als by Greg Broad­more — it has to be seen to be believed. While you’re there, get great Mex­ic­an food at La Boca Loca — we love them not just because they’re deli­cious but also because they pay their staff a Liv­ing Wage.

Shopping

You can walk around Wel­ling­ton so eas­ily that no doubt you’ll be brows­ing freely, but here are the Wellingtonista’s nom­in­ees for the best shops in town:

• Wanda Har­land (Petone): Owned by one of the Wel­ling­tonis­tas, we‘d still pimp this quirky design/gift shop even if we didn‘t get drunk with its own­er.
• Hol­land Road Yarn Com­pany (Wil­lis Street): You might not real­ise it but Web­stock Spe­cial Agent Tash 2.0 is not just a girl with an earpiece – she also makes fant­ast­ic yarn and runs her own shop. Hol­land Road is burst­ing with knit­ting sup­plies and accessor­ies, as well as books and oth­er asso­ci­ated good­ness.
• Unity Books (57 Wil­lis St): It’s an inde­pend­ent book­shop that is a pleas­ure to browse, with know­ledge­able staff who are more than happy to guide you in the dir­ec­tion of a book you’ll love. They fre­quently host launches and oth­er events too.
• Slow Boat Records (183 Cuba St): In this mod­ern digit­al age, where the loc­al record shop is a dying breed, Slow Boat is still around and still thriv­ing with their bins full of lovely lovely vinyl. Wheth­er you’re after some­thing spe­cif­ic or just want­ing to browse for inspir­a­tion, Slow Boat is a jew­el of Cuba Street.
• Moore Wilson’s Fresh: Recently redeveloped to open it up to the “gentri­fied” Col­lege Street, Moore Wilson will over­power you with its glor­i­ous smell when you walk past — a mix­ture of fresh pro­duce, cut flowers, fresh baked bread and the anti­cip­a­tion of all the glor­i­ous cheese and chocol­ate inside. Although we‘re secretly a little sad you no longer need a club card to shop there, it‘s a great place to load up on food, or to just pop into for a few things.

Wi-fi

Free wi-fi is avail­able out­side around the water­front thanks to Trade Me, and in the CBD thanks to @cbdfree. Many cafes and bars — espe­cially the craft beer bars — also offer free wi-fi.

Eat

If you’re want­ing to save money by cater­ing your­self, hit up the super­mar­kets. We’ve seen plenty of camper­vans parked at Chaf­fers New World at 227 Wake­field Street, so we know they fit into that car park, but Thorndon New World has a height lim­it. Try­ing to park near New World Metro at 68 Wil­lis Street or Count­down Metro on Cable Car Lane off Lamb­ton Quay is not recom­men­ded but they are on bus routes.

If you want to buy wine or beer, you’ll be able to find it at most dair­ies in the Cuba Street area and the New Worlds. There is also a very nice wine shop called Wine Seeker on Vic­tor­ia Street. If spir­its are your thing, there’s Glen­garry on Cour­tenay Place, Liquor King at 29 Kent Ter­race, or the stu­denty Liquor­land at 233 Vic­tor­ia Street. Please remem­ber that there is a liquor ban in all of cent­ral Wel­ling­ton, which means you can’t drink on the street or along the water­front. Unless you’re very very dis­creet (not recom­men­ded).

Beer

Wel­ling­ton is over­flow­ing with craft brew­ers right now. Keep an eye out for Funk Estate, Par­rot Dog, Gar­age Pro­ject (makers of the Web­stock IPA and oth­ers, which you’ll find served up in craft beer bars like Hashigoza­ke, Gold­ings Free Dive, the Malt­house and Tuatara’s Third Eye.

Burgers

Bur­gers are So Hot Right Now, unlike that phrase. Grill Meats Beer or Bur­ger Liquor have both got what you need and stay in one place. Oth­er­wise, try and track down Nanny’s Food Truck for a jerk take. Please note: we will END you if you refer to bur­gers as “dude food”.

Food trucks

Food trucks are every­where in Wel­ling­ton now, par­tic­u­larly along the water­front, at Moore Wilson’s, and scattered around Cour­tenay Place. Some even say there are too many! Your best bets, though, are at the mar­kets men­tioned in the sec­tion above, where you’ll find many of the most pop­u­lar food trucks amongst a huge range of oth­er stalls.

Vegetarians, Vegans, Gluten-Free and Others who are Dietarily Challenged

Almost every res­taur­ant & cafe in Wel­ling­ton will offer you a veget­ari­an option, but find­ing vegan is harder to do. Some sug­ges­tions:

• Deluxe Cafe (10 Kent Ter­race): This tiny cafe has a big range of food, offer­ing veget­ari­an, vegan and glu­ten-free salads, sand­wiches, pizza, filos and baked good­ness. Everything is clearly labeled too, so you’ll know what you’re get­ting into.
• Mid­night Espresso (178 Cuba Street): Open until 3amish, this cafe is the per­fect des­tin­a­tion not just for vegans but also for any­one want­ing cof­fee, cake, hot food or the per­fect place to watch people in one of Wellington’s most inter­est­ing streets.
• Aunty Mena’s Veget­ari­an Cafe (167 Cuba Street): It may look run­down, but you don’t go to Aunty Mena’s for the decor, luck­ily, you go for a wide range of Asi­any food with fake meats.

Your turn now. What else should out-of-town­ers check out?

This post was sponsored by Wil­der­ness Motorhomes