Pharazyn Reserve West Dunes Loop
Waikanae · Wellington · Loop
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: “Kapiti Coast District Council Dog Control Bylaw 2019 (amended 2023). Schedule Two, section 2 Sensitive sites lists "e) Pharazyn Reserve" and states "These sensitive sites remain dog on-leash areas at all times". Clause 6.12: "Dogs must be on-leash on all sensitive sites. It is an offence not to comply with this requirement." The western dune block is mapped a step tighter again, as an on-leash restricted area, which the bylaw defines as "An area where dogs are permitted, provided they are under continuous leash control and remain on formed pathways and walking tracks." So on the leash, and on the track, not out into the plantings”. Evidence: the rule-setter’s own published wording. 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 Pharazyn Reserve West Dunes Loop
Near Waikanae in Wellington, Pharazyn Reserve West Dunes Loop runs 1.3 km as a loop.
A 1.3 km loop through the dune country on the western side of Pharazyn Reserve at Waikanae Beach, on formed walking and cycling tracks that wind between the sand ridges. It is flat, easy going and quiet, and it comes back to where it started, so it walks as a circuit rather than an out and back. The dunes here have been replanted in natives over the past decade, a lot of it by local primary school pupils on Arbor Day, so what was bare sand and marram is filling in with spinifex, pingao and low coastal scrub. The dog rule on this block is two rules stacked, and both matter. Kapiti Coast District Council lists Pharazyn Reserve in Schedule Two of its Dog Control Bylaw as a sensitive site, an important habitat for wildlife vulnerable to disturbance by dogs, and the bylaw says those sites "remain dog on-leash areas at all times". There is no summer or winter switch. On top of that, the western dune block is mapped as an on-leash restricted area, which the bylaw defines as an area where dogs are permitted "provided they are under continuous leash control and remain on formed pathways and walking tracks". So your dog stays on the leash, and you both stay on the track. The plantings are the reason. Keep going west and you reach the Waikanae Beach foreshore, which is a different rule again and worth getting right. Outside the reserve, the open foreshore is an off-leash area all day through winter and between 7pm and 10am in summer. In summer daytime, 10am to 7pm from 1 December to the end of daylight saving, it is off-leash too, except that the stretch from the Waikanae Boating Club to the Waimeha Stream sensitive site is a no dog area, and sensitive sites are always excepted. It is a quieter end of the beach than the township, but check which side of the boating club you are on before you unclip. The east half of the reserve, the old oxidation ponds turned wetland, has its own perimeter walkway and sits right alongside. If you link the two in one outing, the tighter western rule applies once you are over on this side.
Graded easy, it climbs about 5 m overall, and takes about 15 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.
