Category: Adventures
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Fairy Walk: Aotea, Porirua
Having walked every inch of Pukerua Bay, I was desperate to find a new place to take the dog, preferably one that didn’t include a series of vertical inclines. So I did some research online and found a lesser-known path in Aotea (pronounced awa-taya) called Fairy Walk. Aotea is a suburb just outside Porirua. I…
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Top of the Chocs
It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. At least that’s what I told myself when I saw that, as part of Porirua City Council’s Choctober celebrations, 16 local cafes would be offering up a signature hot chocolate for the general public to try and then rate online. I’d left it a little…
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Red Rocks
This Labour Day weekend, I was determined to do something other that sit around at home so I decided that we were going to go for a walk. But where? My walking buddy Karen (who has done practically every single trail in New Zealand and then some) had suggested Red Rocks as a good one…
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The Escarpment Track
Following our recent move to Pukerua Bay, I’ve been on the lookout for more walks, regular ones that I can do multiple times in one week. I walked to Plimmerton one day which is the next town over and about 6km away but although the path was wide and not at all taxing, it was…
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Rotorua: Redwoods Tree Walk
In an attempt to cram as much sightseeing into our holiday as was humanely possible, I had decided that we would spend Saturday evening up a tree. Well, not just one tree but actually a whole bunch of them; in Whakarewarewa Forest. The terrible Indian restaurant in which we had eaten earlier that evening had…
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Rotorua: The 3D Trick Art Gallery
On Saturday afternoon, we went to Velocity Valley. This adventure park on the outskirts of Rotorua was advertised online as ‘NZ’s most exciting adventure activities in one location.’ They offered The Swoop (a giant bungee swing where you accelerate from 0 to 130km in 1 second), the Acroboat (where you apparently ‘fly like a Ferrari…
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Rotorua: Whakarewarewa
Ever since purchasing The Penguin History of New Zealand from Audible (that’s Penguin the publisher, not a history of New Zealand penguins as I first thought it to be!) I was desperate to know more about Māori culture and customs. Written by Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand is an epic tome full of…
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Hemi Matenga
“We should do that walk Mum was talking about,” my husband said to me one Saturday morning. “Hemi Matenga?” I asked. “Yeah, that one,” he replied. And that was it. Without any research or in fact no real idea of how to get to it, we set off in the car with my daughter in…
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Adrenalin Forest
As my nieces were up visiting Grandma in Waikanae Beach, I thought it would be a nice idea to find something exciting to do with them. Cue Adrenalin Forest. Adrenalin Forest is an ariel obstacle course set in a small patch of woodland just outside Porirua. Like the UK’s Go Ape, it has several sites…