Coast35 Shared Path
Kāpiti Coast · Wellington
This walk was suggested by the community and checked against the authority quoted above before it was published. The route line comes from official track data. Kāpiti Coast District Council’s own wording: “Dog on-leash areas: all public footpaths, streets and roads within the District (urban and rural). (Note: this includes the shared cycleways, walkways, and bridleways alongside the Kapiti Expressway.) Every dog shall be kept under continuous control / on-leash while that dog is in a dog on-leash area. For dogs on shared pathways the leash or lead should not be more than 2 metres in length, while in open park reserve and beach foreshore areas a longer recoil or extension leash or lead may be used but must have a locking mechanism and meet the requirement of continuous control. No dog areas: the Kapiti Expressway (not including the shared cycleways, walkways, and bridleways alongside the Expressway). (Kāpiti Coast District Council Dog Control Bylaw 2019, amended 2023: Schedule Two 1(c), Schedule One 1(j), clause 6.8, and the LEASH OR LEAD definition.)”. Evidence: the council’s own mapped rule zone. How we check dog rules.
Good to know
Dogs are allowed here. Keep them on the lead, watch for ground-nesting birds and stock, and read the signs at the gate.
About Coast35 Shared Path
Coast35 Shared Path is a full-day walk of 35.0 km, near Kāpiti Coast in Wellington.
The whole length of the Kāpiti Coast on one continuous off road shared path, which the council dubbed Coast35 for its 35 kilometres. The line mapped here runs north from the Queen Elizabeth Park gate at Paekākāriki to where the path finishes at Taylors Road, a couple of kilometres past Ōtaki. It is wide and easy grade the whole way, sealed as far as Peka Peka and gravel from there north, and it is shared with cyclists and with horses on most sections. That is why the lead rule matters more here than the verdict does. The Kāpiti bylaw is unusually specific about it: on a shared pathway the lead should be no more than 2 metres, which rules out a long flexi among bikes. The route is three legs and two authorities. The southern leg through Queen Elizabeth Park is Te Ara o Whareroa on Greater Wellington land, where a lead is not required and a dog only has to be under control, although the Te Ara o Tipapa Loop and the Dune Swamp Loop leading off it are no dog areas. From Poplar Avenue at Raumati South northward it is the district council bylaw that applies, and it names the shared cycleways and walkways alongside the expressway in its on-leash schedule while making the expressway itself a no dog area. Our advice is to keep the lead on for the lot: it is the same shared path either side of the park boundary and the bikes do not stop at it. One thing to get right before you set off. This is not the Paekākāriki Escarpment Track, the steep narrow Te Araroa route that climbs south out of the village, and the council is blunt about that one: no dogs on it at all. Coast35 is the flat coastal line heading the other way. Almost nobody walks 35 km in a day and there is no need to. The leg boundaries at Poplar Avenue and at Peka Peka split it neatly, and two off-leash stretches sit just off the route under the same bylaw: the Ōtaki River stopbanks on both banks west of the old State Highway 1, and the Waikanae River walkway, south side from Otaihanga Domain to the old highway and north side from Jim Cooke Park to the old highway with Edgewater Park excluded. One quirk of the mapped line: on the Waikanae Beach side the path steps out onto Kauri Road and Puriri Road for a few hundred metres before rejoining the corridor. Quiet streets, and on-leash under the same schedule, so nothing changes for the dog.
Expect hard going, with around 89 m of climb, and takes about 7 hr 8 min to walk.
Dogs are allowed here, on the lead. This walk is on the map because Kellie & Jack suggested it, and we checked it against the source above.