Travel - 4 min read
A walk around Mount Vic
By Holly Pereira - 19 April 2026 - 1 views
Photo: Tobias Keller on Unsplash
A short, lazy Sunday loop with the best free view in Wellington and an excellent excuse to eat a pie at the end.
Mount Victoria is the kind of hill that looks worse from the bottom than it is in the middle. From Oriental Bay the climb looks unreasonable. Up at the lookout, you cannot believe it took you twenty minutes.
The trail through the pines is properly shaded. There is birdsong in the morning and dog walkers all afternoon. The summit gives you the harbour, the city and - on a good day - the South Island, in that order of impressiveness.
The walk down through Roseneath is the bit nobody tells you about. The streets are steep, the houses are loud, and the cafe at the bottom does an excellent mince and cheese pie.
I have done this loop maybe forty times in ten years. It has yet to disappoint.
The trail through the pines is properly shaded. There is birdsong in the morning and dog walkers all afternoon. The summit gives you the harbour, the city and - on a good day - the South Island, in that order of impressiveness.
The walk down through Roseneath is the bit nobody tells you about. The streets are steep, the houses are loud, and the cafe at the bottom does an excellent mince and cheese pie.
I have done this loop maybe forty times in ten years. It has yet to disappoint.
