The Kapiti Coast, Ice-cream and laundry

Wednesday 11 March Cold, windy and showery. Drove 167km

After another good night's sleep, this time in a different room that wasn't en-suite, and a quick breakfast we left Anndion's Motel. The Motel is highly recommended and has accommodation to suit all pockets. The plan today is to drive south to Paraparaumu to book a boat to get to Kapiti Island.

Heading south from Wangenui on the coast road, the countryside is fairly flat and clearly a dairy and sheep farming area. Most of the towns looked fairly uninspiring, but a nature reserve at Levin took our fancy. The Papaitonga scenic reserve is a few kilometres south of the town and is centred on a small lake and wetlands. We followed the trail through the undergrowth seeing several birds as we went. The Tui being the loudest and largest! At the first overlook, we could see Paradise ducks and black swans in the distance along with a few other unidentified blobs. After a further 20 minute walk to the second lookout we were no closer to the wildlife, it was a good walk though.

Back on the road we headed down to Paraparaumu Beach, a couple of kilometres from Paraparamui. A kindly community policeman sent us to the Boat Club where trips to Kapiti Island leave from, but the area was deserted. Further enquires at the YHA revealed that we needed to phone and book. The YHA kiindly let us use the phone and a booking was duly made. With that done, lunch was the next priority and we had read that the Lindale Centre was famous for its cheese and ice-cream, so that seemed like a good place for food. The Centre had a cafe and we had a reasonable lunch and then wandered around the shops. The cheese shop very handily also sold ice-cream, so whilst ice-cream was ordered, free samples of cheese were being consumed! Some of the ice-cream flavours were unique, orange and cardomom or honey and kiwi fruit.

Back at Paraparaumu beach, we found accommodation at Wrights by the seaside, a pleasant motel. Clearly it had seen better days, but extensive work was ongoing and it will look really good after renovation. The room was enormous and was excellent value for money. In addition, we managed to catch up with laundry.

Fish and Chips is hugely popular in New Zealand, so to get a full cultural experience we went to an Oriental Fish and Chip shop and cafe for food. The fish was fresh from the sea and very tasty and best of all very cheap.