We'd been told that Petone, which is right on the bay and not very far from Lower Hutt, was a cool place to hang out so we headed there about mid-morning and we weren't disappointed: It is a cool little place. In many respects it reminded me of Geneva-on-the Lake, a small beach town in Ohio that my friends and I spent many a summer day wandering around when we were in high school. Like Geneva-on-the-Lake, Petone's business district is one long street lined with shops and restaurants. It's also a pretty relaxed place, as most beach towns are around the world.
Petone differs from Geneva-on-the-Lake in some important respects, however. First, it's bigger. Second, instead of arcades where you can waste a lot of time (and money) playing everything from skeeball to video games, Petone has bookstores - really nice bookstores run by really friendly people. Finally, Petone is a town that takes its history seriously: There are monuments, plaques pointing out historic buildings and even an old ship that was used to bring early settlers to what is now a good-sized place. The people of Petone have even restored the old police station and jail and turned it into a tourist atttraction, which, when you think about it, probably says a lot about them.
Petone is also home to a wonderful place called La Bella Italia, which is kind of hard to define. It's part restaurant (Elena and I shared a pizza that was really, really good while Josep had a plate of lasagna that was equally good), part grocery store, part bakery, part souvenir shop... if it's Italian you can probably find it on the shelves, in the display cases or on the menu... okay, you can't buy a Lamborghini there but you get the point. We didn't find it by accident, a nice lady at one of the bookstores told us it was the best place in Petone to have lunch, especially if we wanted pizza.
After cruising the main street and eating a late lunch, we headed back to our car by walking along the town's very wide beach at low tide and then out on a long pier where we found a small band of folks fishing for their supper. They didn't seem to be having much luck but that didn't seem to bother them much; mostly they seemed to be enjoying the day and joking with one another.
It was, all things considered, a day well spent.
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| That's Wellington across the bay. I shot this photo from the Petone beach. |
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| Dylan once wrote that you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, but sometimes you might need a flying fish to do just that. |
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| Another view from the Petone beach, this of the mountains that are a constant backdrop in New Zealand. |
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| They were fishing but, mostly, they seemed to be enjoying the day and joking with one another. |
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