Page 5 - A Walk from Wellington to New Plymouth

(THOM’S WHALING STATION PORERUA S C. Brees 1849
“Porerua is about twelve miles north of Port Nicholson, in the route to Manawatu and Wanganui….Mr. Thomas has
a whaling station and a house of accommodation here for travellers….”)
Correct spelling today, for “Porerua”, is Porirua.. GK

“After breakfast we proceeded along the main road for 6 miles which brought us to another ferry
opposite Porirua, a military station of some importance, dined there off goat mutton (very good)
and went on to Pakakarike to tea 16 miles further. Had goats flesh again, bacon and eggs, butter,
bread, potatoes etc. but it had such a name and not without cause for mosquitos and sandflies,
that it would have been of no use attempting to sleep there, so we moved on.
The road so far was very good, as good as the generality of roads in England but hills being all
the way. Over and between the hills covered with trees of immense height and thickness with
occasionally a clearing of small extent, the country here being too hilly and heavily timbered to
pay for clearing. We descend a steep hill for about two miles along a winding road before
arriving at Pakakarika and pass through some hundreds of very large goats which feed on the
sides of the road and supply the Inn with milk and occasionally with meat. (This is Paekakariki
GK)
From Pakakariki the road is on the sand by the sea shore and beyond a bank runs parallel to the
sea consisting of sandhills and in general stretches a mile or two inland and then you come to
fern, flax etc. for from 1 to 4 or 5 miles and then hills covered with wood and this was the
general character of our route as far as Wanganui (halfway to New Plymouth) and consequently
as we walked on the beach and could see but rarely anything but sandhills on our right and the
sea on our left, our view was not very interesting. This evening we walked about 4 miles when
we fell in with a party of natives who were landing in a canoe and who ran after us to hear the
news and I suppose were surprised to see two white men alone at that time of night, however
they were very civil and one went about half a mile with us to show us the road. We had to cross
many streams on the sea shore which emptied themselves into the sea and where about ankle
deep and about 3 miles further came to a small river which Mr Smith attempted to cross but the