What would be a nice little town to live in commuting distance to Victoria University, Wellington?

Question

I may be moving to Wellington soon, and would be working at Victoria University. I like small seaside towns, or anything near a body of water.

Can you think of any nice little sleepy town with scenery within, say 50kms of Wellington?

Having a school and possibly even a hospital would also be a plus.

Answer 1

Petone 10km out, Pilmmerton 20km , Paremata 20km are all seaside

the south coast is ok but the wind is an issue - Lyall Bay 5km out

if you have some cash Eastbourne, Days Bay, both 20km out

paraparaumu is 50km out and really do you want to commute 2 hours plus a day? the other places are 20-30minutes from Kelburn

a

Answer 2

First place I thought of was the suburbs/areas of Porirua  such as Pukerua Bay and Plimmerton.

Takes about 25 mins on the train from there. If you are working at the pipitea campus this will be really convenient for you. Even if you are at the main Kelburn campus it is still a really quick bus ride (or cable car ride) up.

One problem is that 50km from Wellington is a long commute if you are driving and stuck on SH1. If getting the train then it would be absolutely fine.  Also, public transport runs quite late (2am Friday night/Saturday morning).

The hospitals all fall under Capital and Coast Health so you have Keneperu (in Porirua), Hutt Hospital in Lower Hutt and obviously the revamped one in Wellington.

Schools – lovely little primary schools in Pukerua Bay, Papakowhai and Plimmerton.  Secondary Schooling is a bit more problematic as they would either have to head up the coast to Kapiti or Paraparumu Colleges, head into Porirua (probably Aotea College, unless they went private at the new school which is part of Samuel Marsden Collegiate based in Whitby), or head to Tawa College (good school and has a lot of plimmerton/pukerua bay people) or into Wellington for the many schools there.

If you are not wanting to get public transport I personally wouldn’t go any further north than Pukerua Bay as, like I said, getting stuck along the coast road can be the pits :)

Actually, there is also Paekakariki which is lovely. As long as there are no landslips. And if that happens you are stuck in Paekakariki until it clears :)

Within Wellington there are also places you may like. Island Bay and Miramar both sprung to mind as quite villagey – the one advantage or disadvantage is that they are in Wellington (ok slightly outer suburban wellington, but wellington still) so the price of property rented or purchased is higher.

Answer 3

Yes! Paraparaumu on the Kapiti Coast it what you may be looking for. It's about 40-50km from Wellington city. OH, East bourne is another option for you. Some parts of Porirua are alright too, but there are lots of Maoris, not that there's anything wrong with that