Newsletter - 5th October 2025
Last week's walks
With the second week of the school holidays, Wednesday’s walks were “away walks” again – this time heading out in various directions from Melling station in Lower Hutt. A total of 42 walkers braved the traffic – which was quite light – to enjoy walks in different territory. There were 4 PPs who walked a 5.4km loop; 20 SSs across two groups who walked different routes of 5.7 and 5.9km; and 18 FFs who walked 6.8km The weather held up well until those walkers who enjoyed coffee at Columbus at Mitre 10 Petone went to exit. The southerly had arrived and, with it, the rain!! Our walks could not have been timed better.
Thursday walkers headed out on a loop around Johnsonville, Paparangi and Newlands. There were 5 walkers (+ Red) who travelled 6.1km.
Friday’s intrepid group were led by Jane Gaudie up the steep climb through bush on the Te Au walkway in Waikanae. This is a walk that is much feared amongst this group! Its mediocre 8.4km distance does not reflect its difficulty!
To finish the week, a group of around 25 people enjoyed the chance to socialise over a drink (or 2) and food at the Johnsonville Club.
A reminder: our Christmas lunch will be held on Wednesday December 3rd so ensure your diary is marked. A more detailed notice will be included in an upcoming newsletter.
Walk details for Wednesday October 8th
This Week’s Walks: Newlands is the location for this week’s Wednesday walks. All three walks are ones we have done before – probably two years ago. (Ed: our industrious drafter of Wednesday walks is out of town at present; as usual, he goes above and beyond on our behalf.). The walks will start at 9:20am from the designated starting point.
PPs: A 3.16km loop. A reasonably short walk. but it is undulating and it will feel a bit further. Half of the walk is on a walking track with the return on a fairly long road. You can see the walk here.
SSs: A 4.46km loop walk with over half on walking tracks. The undulating tracks make up for the slightly shorter walk. (Walkers could improvise if they wanted a km or so more.). You can see the walk here.
FFs: A 7.28 km loop walk mainly on undulating walking tracks. You can see the walk on Mapometer here and on Plotaroute here.
Parking: Parking is in our usual Newlands parking area near the start of Ladbrooke Drive. Turn off Horokiwi Road West at Ladbrooke Drive.
Coffee: We will tell Simmer that some of us will be heading there after our walk for a coffee and, perhaps, a snack. There is also Thyme on our way home.
Happy walking.
Russell Paterson
Walk Schedules: You can look at the walk schedule for October 2025 here.
Reminder: Please ensure that you inform your group’s leader if you leave a walk partway through.
Cancellations: If the walks are cancelled an email will be sent out as early as possible but definitely before 8:00am.
We have several sponsors which we list on our Home Page and in our Newsletter. In recognition of the generosity of our sponsors, the committee wish to highlight a sponsor each week in our newsletter.
This week we have chosen Light House Cinema as our featured sponsor:
Light House Cinema is an independent and locally run Wellington business providing a great movie experience at three venues across the Greater Wellington region. A range of the latest movie offerings are presented together with opera, ballet, theatre, arts and film festival movies. All this in cinemas providing comfortable “lounge-like” seating with high quality audiovisual gear and the opportunity to partake of quality food and beverages from their cafés. Light House Cinema are generous supporters of CPCW and we appreciate their continuing support of our group.
Light House Cinema:
Petone 52 Beach Street, Petone 04 939 2061
Pauatahanui 3 Paekakariki Hill Road 04 234 6770
Cuba 29 Wigan Street, Te Aro 04 385 3337
Calendar of Events
CPCW Photos
Wednesday Walkers
Wednesday’s walkers headed out from Melling station – some went up the hill, others explored flatter parts of Lower Hutt.
PPs: The photo of the PPs was taken by Bill Gaudie.
SSs: The photo of the SSs en masse was taken by Bill Gaudie. The photo of the SS group who headed up the hill is courtesy of Jennie Thompson.
FFs: The group split in two this week. Wendy Bentley provided the photo of the first group and Bill Gaudie took the photo of the second group. Given the location of their photo, perhaps the earlier group should also go walking on Thursdays (see below).
Thursday Walkers
Thursday’s walkers were captured by Gillian Mills on their walk. There is nothing quite like a sign in the background to identify a selfie – as you will see they walked in a suburb called SDNALWEN!! Often Thursday walkers’ photo depicts the group in a playground – is this the central focus when their walks are planned???
Friday Walkers
Numbers were down a little on Friday’s walk when 11 walkers, split into two groups, headed up Te Au walkway in Waikanae on a walk plotted by Jane Gaudie. Thanks to Hue Ng for the first two photos and to Clint Davis for the second photo. Hue’s “selfie” is particularly impressive! Clint commented “that the smiles belie the pain going up!”. With that group of 4 there would have been no let up!
Quite a number of CPCW members are travelling at present – including two of the committee. This cartoon seems particularly appropriate…
