A photo collage of scenes from out a bus window, mostly views of Wellington harbour. A yelloe Metlink bus in the centre.
Memories from a journey on the Number 24 bus. Image: Joel MacManus

WellingtonJuly 11, 2025

In praise of the Number 24 Bus, Wellington’s most scenic commute

Senior writer
A photo collage of scenes from out a bus window, mostly views of Wellington harbour. A yelloe Metlink bus in the centre.
Memories from a journey on the Number 24 bus. Image: Joel MacManus

The best tour of Wellington costs just $4.34 with a Snapper card.

On most bus trips, efficiency is paramount. The goal is to get from A to B, cheaply and (ideally) quickly. But there are those occasional, special moments, where you can just settle in and enjoy the journey. Stare out the window, put your headphones on and pretend you’re the main character in a music video.

For commuters in Johnsonville and Miramar, the Number 1 and Number 2 buses, respectively, are the fastest and most direct routes, charging along motorways and through tunnels. Then there’s the Number 24. In the family of east-north bus services, it’s the distractible younger child who runs off chasing butterflies and talking to their imaginary friends.

The number 24 was created in Metlink’s 2018 redesign of the bus network, a mashup of parts of the old 46, 50, and the old 24. It meanders through forgotten streets, winding its way up hills and around coastlines. It’s not a high-frequency route or a particularly well-patronised one. Really, it’s a minimum viable product designed to service some of Wellington’s lower-density neighbourhoods. But what Metlink cobbled together is nothing short of remarkable.

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One Sunny afternoon, I rode the entire length of the Number 24 route. I’m now fully convinced that it is the most beautiful bus ride in Wellington – and the perfect way to see the best of the city on a budget. Let me take you on a tour….

Our journey begins at Miramar Shops – Stop A. Miramar, which is Spanish for “sea view”, is a lovely shopping village with excellent op shops and cafes. Stroll around Palmers Garden Centre as you wait, or check out the film memorabilia at The Roxy Cinema. Miramar is a thematically appropriate place to begin a tour of the city because it is the first place on the Wellington mainland to be populated by humans. The first inhabitants, Ngāi Tara, called this area Te Motu Kairangi, meaning the island of high quality or esteem.

The bus sets off, turning around Polo Ground Park, then begins a winding uphill stretch up Awa Road. Near the top of the hill, we turn past Worser Bay School. This is the former site of Te Whetu Kairangi, the first and most important pā established by Tara, the founding chief of Ngāi Tara and the namesake of Te Whanganui a Tara.

Along the ridgeline, there are views to our left of Wētā Workshop and Wētā Studios’ large campus, and to our right, the glistening blue of Karaka Bay and of Mākaro, one of two islands inside Wellington harbour, which the early explorer Kupe named after his daughters.

At the end of the peninsula, the road narrows to a single lane. The surroundings become semi-rural, with farm bikes, wooden fence posts, and unkempt gorse bushes. Then, a rare sight: an up-close view of the abandoned Mt Crawford Prison, first opened in the 1920s and closed since 2012. It still has barbed wire around the exterior and, on the day of my ride, a police officer watching the front gate.

The road turns inland, and we’re treated to more stellar views. From the top of the Mt Crawford, Evans Bay looks as serene as an alpine lake on a winter morning.

We wriggle downhill through some quiet scenes of late-20th-century suburbia, until we are almost back where we started. The bus turns right through the Miramar cutting, then heads towards the low-lying Rongotai isthmus. Māori legend says Rongotai is the dried-up body of the taniwha Whātaitai, who tried to break free of the harbour with his brother Ngake, but got stuck between the sea floor and the hills. Geological research and Māori oral history tell us that Rongotai was raised from the sea by the Haowhenua earthquake in approximately 1460.

After a rather uninspiring detour through Kilbirnie (Feast your eyes on the Pak’nSave! Gaze in wonder at the KFC drive-thru!), the bus turns back out to the Evans Bay coastline past a local landmark, the Zephyrometer, a 26-metre tall needle which waves to show wind direction and speed.

The coast road passes by the Evans Bay Yacht Club, sailboats bobbing in the water, the iconic Havana Coffee boatshed, and quiet pebble beaches. This is a great section for people watching – Evans Bay Parade is a popular spot for running, biking, fishing and plane spotting.

Heading towards Point Jerningham, there’s a great view of Matiu, the second, and much larger, harbour island. Matiu is now a nature sanctuary run by DOC and Taranaki Whānui, with regular access via the East by West ferry.

As the bus turns towards Oriental Bay, we’re treated to my favourite view of Wellington: glass towers of the city across the bay, under a bright blue sky.

A calm harbor with gentle waves, city buildings along the waterfront, hills in the background, and a clear blue sky above. Reflections of glass panels are visible in the foreground.

Oriental Bay is a stunning bit of waterfront, and the Number 24 is one of the few buses that traverse it; most take a more direct route through the Hataitai bus tunnel. The waterfront is lined by mature Norfolk pines. The Carter Fountain sprays 16 metres into the air. In summer, crowds cram in to enjoy the golden sand at Oriental Beach.

A coastal promenade lined with trees, people walking and enjoying the sunny day. Calm blue water and distant hills are visible, with buildings along the shoreline and a white car in the foreground.

As the Number 24 reaches the city, it joins almost every other bus route by heading along the main public transport spine, the Golden Mile. Along Courtenay Place, past Te Aro Park, Cuba Street, and through Lambton Quay, past the Beehive and Old Government Buildings. The seats rapidly fill up with city workers on their way home.

A round, modern government building sits atop a hill surrounded by trees, with sunlight streaming through. In the foreground, two people stand near a grassy area by a road, and three tall white sculptures are visible.

After a quick break at the train station, the bus is off again. There’s a frankly quite boring stretch along Thorndon Quay and Hutt Road (unless you’re the kind of infrastructure nerd that loves looking at rail yards and the underside of motorway viaducts), but then things get interesting again. We turn up Onslow Road towards Cashmere, climbing up steep, winding roads that seem far too narrow for any bus.

View of a city across a calm bay, with hills in the background, trees in the foreground, and a road with a white railing curving along the hillside under a clear blue sky.

That’s where another gem of the Number 24 experience reveals itself: the view of the harbour and city from the side of Mt Kaukau. It’s the same harbour we’ve been watching the entire journey, but from the added height, it is so much more expansive and awe-inspiring. The city beckons in the distance. At some points, there is a clear line of sight all the way to the Hutt.

View of a calm bay with mountains in the distance, seen from behind a white railing on a balcony or terrace under a clear sky.

The ride continues through the streets of Khandallah, a cute shopping village, gorgeous upmarket houses, and lush green trees. Everything you’d expect from the leafy suburbs. Then, a giant loop through Broadmeadows, where we reach the highest elevation of our journey, looking straight down on the dotted white houses of the city below.

A scenic suburban neighborhood with houses, trees, and a winding road, overlooking a distant city and calm blue water under a clear sky, viewed through a window.

The home stretch of the Number 24 bus ride follows Burma Road. We’re further inland now. No more harbour views, but Paparangi ridge makes for a nice accent against the late afternoon sky.

A sunny hillside neighborhood with many houses scattered across green slopes under a clear blue sky, with a few trees and fences in the foreground.

As we approach the last stop, I feel a pang of regret that the journey will soon be over. But like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, there is one final, glorious sight to behold. It stretches out from the grey, welcoming all into its arms. Wellington’s greatest tourist attraction: The Johnsonville Mall.

View from a bus window of a road with moving cars, a parking lot, and various buildings. In the background, there are hills with houses and clear skies above.

Final verdict

The number 24 bus is an excellent way to spend a meditative day of sightseeing. You can take the route from either end, but I would recommend starting in Miramar to get the best views around Oriental Bay. Metlink runs both single- and double-decker buses on this route. I was riding a single-decker, but the premium experience would be to ride in the front seat on the top floor of a double-decker. The Number 1 bus is the fastest way to get back to the city from Johnsonville, but I recommend taking the Johnsonville line train for a more scenic experience.

Cost: $4.34 with a Snapper card, or $8 with cash (adult fares, off peak).

Time: 1 hour, 12 minutes.

Keep going!
A modern-day color photo of a waterfront promenade with a superimposed black-and-white historic photo of the same location, showing how the area looked in the past compared to now.
The heritage-scheduled Oriental Bay seawall. Image: WCC

OPINIONPoliticsJuly 9, 2025

This Wellington sea wall shows how our heritage rules are broken

Senior writer
A modern-day color photo of a waterfront promenade with a superimposed black-and-white historic photo of the same location, showing how the area looked in the past compared to now.
The heritage-scheduled Oriental Bay seawall. Image: WCC

The government wants to make it easier to remove protections on heritage buildings – but more change is needed.

The Oriental Parade sea wall is a long, concrete barrier that curves around the stretch of Oriental Bay. It’s a critical piece of infrastructure, first built in the 1920s to protect the adjacent houses and roads from storm surges. Its purpose is just as vital today – arguably more so, given the threat of rising sea levels due to climate change. But there’s a problem: the sea wall is subject to heritage protections, because it is recognised as “an important early civil engineering structure” with “a distinctive form and profile.”

Those protections mean that any maintenance on the sea wall must use like-for-like materials in a way that recreates the original appearance, or requires an expensive and lengthy resource consent application. At a practical level, that means repairs are more difficult and expensive than they would otherwise need to be. That costs the council (and ratepayers) money.

The Oriental Bay sea wall is not the only piece of heritage-protected infrastructure in Wellington. There’s also the Evans Bay sea wall, the Lyall Bay sea wall, the Island Bay sea wall, the Seatoun Tunnel, the Karori Tunnel, the Northland Tunnel, the Hataitai Bus Tunnel, the Kelburn Viaduct and the retaining wall on Carlton Gore Road.

All of these structures were significant engineering achievements at their time and are worth acknowledging. But they’re all still in active use, and to most people, their value is practical, not historic or aesthetic. The heritage protections are a hindrance to their core purpose.

Black and white old photo of footpath and pedestrians looking down on people swimming in the water. There are houses in the hills in the distance
The Oriental Bay sea wall in 1932. Image: WCC

Wellington is not the only city facing overly onerous heritage restrictions, but the issue is particularly salient in the capital because it has a greater number of heritage buildings (575 on the current council register), many of which have suffered earthquake damage.

Wellington City Council has spent $380 million strengthening its heritage buildings over the past five years, mostly on the central library and town hall. Other publicly owned heritage buildings, such as the Gordon Wilson flats and Dixon St flats, have become prominent ruins. Several private building owners want their heritage protections removed so they can do simple renovations. Oh, and the city now has heritage protections on a rusty oil tank.

Wellington City councillor Ben McNulty has been leading the charge on heritage reform. During last year’s District Plan debate, he attempted to remove the heritage listings from 10 buildings (all of which were requested by the owners), including the Gordon Wilson flats and the rusty oil tank. After that move failed for process reasons, McNulty and Wellington mayor Tory Whanau wrote a letter to minister for RMA reform Chris Bishop asking for new legal powers to remove heritage protections.

“The decisions made by previous generations of heritage advocates are resulting in expensive legacy issues. Whilst the Council technically can remove properties from heritage listing under current legislative conditions, in practice it is an uncertain and risky pathway to delist a heritage building,” McNulty and Whanau wrote.

The protection process

There’s a common misconception that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is responsible for imposing heritage protections – but that’s not quite right. Heritage New Zealand identifies buildings for the national heritage list and advocates for their protection, but the actual legal restrictions kick in once a council “schedules” the building in its District Plan. Many councils also employ in-house heritage experts to identify sites of local significance that aren’t recognised by Heritage New Zealand. Most of Wellington’s heritage sea walls fall into this category.

Giving a building heritage protection is a relatively simple process and, in the past, it has been mostly uncontroversial. It’s only years later, when the building owner wants to renovate or demolish it, that the heritage protections become a problem. But once a council has made a heritage decision, undoing it isn’t so easy.

Removing heritage protections requires a change to the District Plan, which involves an extensive process of public hearings and can be challenged in the environment court. Once a building has been heritage-scheduled by a council, its protection becomes a “matter of national importance” under the Resource Management Act. This is an extremely high bar which planners and courts must consider and often trumps all other considerations.

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What could – and should – change

Bishop has proposed creating a streamlined process to allow councils to remove heritage protections by a simple majority vote. This would be much faster and harder to challenge than the current system, as it would leave the final decision in the hands of the environment minister rather than the courts.

Wellington City Council supported the streamlined delisting process in its submission on the RMA reform bill. Heritage New Zealand opposed the change, with chief executive Andrew Coleman writing that “there is insufficient evidence to justify them and they have not been fully worked through”.

The streamlined process would help to address some of the more egregious issues with the heritage regime, but it’s really just a stopgap measure. Both the council and Heritage New Zealand agree that more is needed.

A low angle shot of a large block of brutalist-syle apartments with blue panelling and windows
The derelict Gordon Wilson Flats, Wellington. Photo: Marc Daalder

The big issue that needs to be addressed is that pesky matter of “national importance”. See, heritage isn’t the only thing considered to be of national importance under the RMA. There’s also: coastal environments, lakes and rivers, outstanding natural landscapes, areas of significant native bush, Māori connections to ancestral lands and water, protected customary rights, and risks of natural hazards.

Many other relevant matters aren’t listed, but might be locally important on any given decision: urban growth, access to housing, costs of repairs, safety risks, property rights, and, in the case of the heritage sea walls and tunnels, the ability to maintain and operate essential infrastructure.

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Under the current law, there is no guidance for how planners and courts should weigh up these competing matters. This means we end up in situations like the Gordon Wilson flats, where there are many obvious negatives of letting a decaying ruin continue to stand, but its heritage protections leave it stuck in a quagmire. There needs to be some kind of government-level directive which makes it clearer how each other those matters should be weighed against each other.

Heritage protections aren’t an inherently bad thing. The problem with the current system is that they are too blunt and inflexible. We can protect the buildings and structures that we collectively value, but we need to acknowledge that those protections have trade-offs – and sometimes, those trade-offs simply aren’t worth it.