SLG Lunch, and checking out a Camp Site

Mid week we drove down to meet up with our Super Leisure Group friends for lunch.  Although the weather was a little damp when we left home, it cleared up as we drove further south.  Ground Up Café in Pauatahanui was our lunch stop, and the gas brazier certainly kept us nice and cozy while we ate and chatted away.  What to eat?  Robin and I both chose French Toast served with banana, berries, maple syrup and whipped cream.  It was a while since I last had something like this, and it was delicious!

Mmmm, so nice

I got my camera out and we took a snap of the men and then Robin took one of us ladies.  The waiter saw us fiddling around with the camera and offered to take one of the whole group, that was nice of him.  The café had been so busy with customers I didn’t really want to disturb him.

Here we all are, Helen, Calvin, Robin, Ashley, Jenny and Trish

After our meal and coffee, it was time to say our goodbyes and all head off to our respective homes.  We had a job to do first, to check out a prospective camp site for the caravan club.  Battle Hill Forest Park was a 6km drive from Pauatahanui on the Paekakariki Hill Road.  We found the camping area, and although it was a little boggy at this time of year, I’m sure it will be great during the summer months.  Certainly could be well worth a visit in the future.

Battle Hill Forest Park

We took the more scenic coastal road back home, stopping along the way at a rest area to admire Kapiti Island, which was a little hazy that afternoon.

Kapiti Island in the distance

There was an information board telling of the building of this coastal road, Centennial Highway.  Opened in November 1939, the new highway was to replace the Paekakariki Hill Road as the main route between Wellington and Paekakariki. The Road largely followed the route of a military road built on the line of a Māori track in the 1840s and was not suitable for "modern" motorized traffic.  It offered many significant challenges for engineers and builders alike, constructed on a wide variety of land forms – sand dunes through Paremata, swamp land through Plimmerton, carved-out hillsides at Pukerua Bay and required extensive sea-walling along the coastal strip between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki.  Now overshadowed by the new Transmission Gully Highway, Centennial Highway offers a quieter scenic route with lovely coastal views,  in my view, still a road worth traveling if you are not in too much of a hurry.

Telling the story of Centennial Highway