Waikanae Beach

My holiday in Africa was so exhausting (getting up at 5 am daily) that I needed another holiday to recover from it! I’ve been up at Waikanae Beach with my whanau and friends. We’ve got a great place for 10 days. It has five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and the sloped roof has windows so pretty much all day sun.

This is the view from the back lawn. At high tide, you are around 10 metres from the water. A great view of Kapiti Island. There’s something very relaxing about being able to hear and see the sea from your living room.

I was a bit surprised initially to see a sail whizz past at high speed, until I investigated and saw they were on land, not sea.

The water here is seriously nice. Great waves and warm water. I’ve gone in a few times. Kapiti is only an hour north of Wellington but by not being Cook Strait, the water is heaps warmer. The temperature is a few degrees higher also, often.

We’ve dined outside pretty much every day, and even had the BBQ fired up. Did fish and chips one night which was great – something “right” about fish and chips by the beach.

Waikanae Beach is very long, so good for long walks to burn off lunch. One day we decided to walk to the cafe down the road, along the beach. We over-shot it by around 1.5 kms which was very funny. Not so funny was walking back along the road (we didn’t want to miss it again). Bare feet on hot melting tar is a painful mixture.

Sadly it has not been all relaxation, as have had quite a lot of work to do and reports to write for various clients. But working on the laptop up here with a view of Kapiti, sure beats being in an office in Wellington.

A great place to have a week off for Wellingtonians, so to speak. And usefully if for some reason you do have to head home, you can be there in just 45 minutes (30 minutes if doing a Lundy).