Naked Wanderings
patreon
Review: Wellington Naturist Club in Wellington, New Zealand
🕑 Added 2024-03-18 07:00:05 +0000 UTC
When we started planning this New Zealand trip and more and more naturist clubs found their way onto our itinerary, we wondered whether we weren't overfilling our bucket. We would literally hop from one naturist club to another, all within just a few hours driving distance. How different could they really be? Will we not end up seeing the same things over and over? Will it not all become a blurry mix of memories that could have happened anywhere?
Already after visiting our second club, we realised that although every naturist club in New Zealand maintains the same values, they still manage to be unique in many different ways and each have their own highlights. Sometimes it's spectacular nature like in Rotota club. Other times the pleasures are more internal, like the Hawkes Bay club in the center of a wine region.
Sometimes, uniqueness can be in something really small. Like being the only naturist club in the country that has two hot tubs, one with and one without bubbles. The latter we found in the world's cosiest little capital: Wellington.
How to get to Wellington Naturist Club
Just like its neighbour Australia, New Zealand is one of these countries where the capital city is not the biggest, the best known, or the one with the largest transport hub. The airport of Wellington only has a handful of international connections, mostly to the east coast of Australia and some of the surrounding Pacific Islands. If you're arriving from further away, it's best to fly to Auckland or Christchurch and make a connection from there.
Wellington Naturist Club is just a 45-minute drive away from the airport, where you hop on Highway One and move on to Highway 2 in Ngauranga. Follow this highway to Te Marua, where you'll find the club. If you're arriving from the north, you're taking Highway 1 south and use Highway 58 to get to Highway 2. Coming from the east, you just take Highway 2 south until you get to Te Marua.
Coming by public transport is a bit complicated but still doable. From the airport, you take the bus to Wellington Station, from there you take the HVL train to Upper Hut where you can switch to bus 112 which will drop you off at Te Marua. The bus stop is just a couple of minutes walk from the club, but the whole journey is likely to take around two hours.
As you probably want to see more of New Zealand than just the inside of a naturist club, and as the options to buy food and drinks at the club are limited, having your own transportation is recommended.
➡️ Check out our Travel Resources Page to find the best deals for flights and car rentals.
Where to stay at Wellington Naturist Club
Most visitors to Wellington Naturist Club arrive with their own accommodation, for which they have a choice of powered and unpowered sites. For tourists like ourselves or other guests who prefer to not bring a tent or camper, there are 4 rental cabins available.
We stayed in Cabin 4, which obviously had a bed but also a small sitting area and a kitchenette with cutlery, cups, glasses, plates, a mini fridge, and a microwave. One thing we really enjoyed about naturist clubs in New Zealand (and Australia) is that they all have guest kitchens with fridges, stoves, ovens, anything you may need to make your favourite meals. Just a couple of steps away from our cabin were the toilet and shower facilities.
What to do at Wellington Naturist Club
Only a couple of months earlier in Florida, we had first come in contact with pickleball. A sport that through our ignorant eyes looked like a weird combination between tennis and ping pong. Yet it was taking over American naturist clubs by the speed of light as the most popular sport, pushing petanque in a dark corner. In New Zealand, we learned that the pickleball hype was now also expanding beyond the American borders. We still have to try it, and Wellington Naturist Club would have been the perfect place to do so if we didn't have our hands full with socialising.
From what we've seen during our brief visit, socialising still beats pickleball as the favourite activity at Wellington Naturist Club. Around the swimming pool, at the clubhouse, during happy hour or on Fish&Chips Fridays, there are always plenty of people to chat with.
If you prefer some time on your own, there's a nice natural trail following the creek on the domain. Along the way, you'll certainly spot some eels. Or rather, they will spot you as they are quite accustomed to getting food from the visitors. If you prefer a hike over a stroll, there are several hiking trails going up the hill and leading to a viewpoint where you get to look over the valley. Returning from this hike is the perfect moment to soak in a bubbly or non-bubbly hot tub.
Around Wellington Naturist Club
Without wanting to offend Wellingtonians, Wellington is not a place that you would immediately recognise as a capital city. To us, it looked more like an oversized town. This has quite some advantages, for one that the city is very walkable. Especially the promenade around the harbour is great for a stroll on a sunny day. Another advantage is that's hard to get totally lost in Wellington, making it the ideal place to aimlessly wander around. We found some hidden gems just by starting at Cuba Street and then turn into whatever streets that looked nice, interesting, or funny.
When the weather is too good to be in a city, there's a nude beach called Breaker Bay near the airport and another one called Peka Peka Beach, on less than an hour north of the city. Both can easily be visited on a (half) day trip from the club.
The list of things to do around Wellington is quite long and most importantly, very varied. There's an abundance of forests, lakes, and mountains, a magnificent coastline, and a wine region just around the corner. Whatever you like to do, if you don't find it near Wellington, you probably won't find it anywhere in New Zealand.
Staff & Guests of Wellington Naturist Club
If there's one big thread running through our trip around New Zealand (well, at least the north island), one element of which we could be certain to find it at any club we visited, it's the friendliness of the Kiwis. Just like at most other clubs we visited, it's hard to talk about "staff" and "guests" at Wellington Naturist Club because a lot of the working depends on volunteers and many help a hand without being asked. We don't really have a clue who's supposed to do what around the club, and that in itself says a lot.
To us, Wellington Naturist Club will be remembered as the place where met a lot of lovely people while spending some time in the nude between our explorations of the surroundings. But we're pretty sure that for others, it's the place they just like to visit on a sunny afternoon, or the refuge they hope to never leave again.
Book at Wellington Naturist Club
The best ways to book at Wellington Naturist Club are:
✅ Website: https://wellingtonnaturists.co.nz
✅ Email: reservations@wellingtonnaturists.co.nz
✅ Phone: +64 (0)27 3306212
Summary
Unfortunately, this was already our last club visit in New Zealand. We're grateful to have been able to learn so much in such a short time about the local naturist culture. Yet, we'll have to come back one day to the world's cosiest little capital because we still need to try pickleball and the non-bubbly hot tub.
