lift doorsToday’s guest post comes from Heather of Food­ie Gems of Wellie. Yay, we love guest posts!

We all love a secret. Espe­cial­ly one that deliv­ers plea­sure.

A jaunt around the recent­ly launched Secret Art Walk uncov­ered all sorts of Welling­ton trea­sures. From the mag­nif­i­cent rata cone archi­tec­ture of the Supreme Court to the holo­graph­ic dis­play of Maui sto­ries on the top floor of the City and Sea Muse­um, and the Arc de Tri­om­phe foy­er in the Domin­ion Build­ing, there is a wealth of infor­ma­tion and clev­er­ness on dis­play.

The Secret Art Walk is a self-guid­ed expe­ri­ence of between two and four hours (we could have tak­en much longer), with the start cur­rent­ly at the Reserve Bank and the fin­ish at the Muse­um Hotel. From Feb­ru­ary 2013 the start reverts to the new­ly restored Back­bencher.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly Chris Parkin (of the Muse­um Hotel) is one of the brains behind the ven­ture, along with the Prop­er­ty Coun­cil of New Zealand and sup­port­ed by Beca.

Because many of the trea­sures are in cor­po­rate build­ings, it’s best to do this walk on a week­day. And with com­fort­able shoes, giv­en it wends its way through 30 stops from one end of town to the oth­er, criss-cross­ing back and forth between Lambton, the water­front, Willis and Manners/Courtenay areas.

Of course there are many love­ly water­ing holes along the way to rest one’s feet and eyes (we con­ve­nient­ly felt in need of reju­ve­na­tion by the deli­cious Ti Kou­ka), so you should def­i­nite­ly make it at least a half-day adven­ture.

By the end of the walk you’ll have absorbed more of Wellington’s fas­ci­nat­ing his­to­ry and cul­ture than you ever knew exist­ed.

Maps are avail­able from iSite.