It was the second week of October and my birthday was coming up so I started thinking on what I was going to do this year to make it memorable. Initially I thought about doing a themed party, but I didn’t have much time to really organize things and so I had to scrap that idea. Also thought about going bar hopping around town, but then I thought I didn’t want to celebrate this year by becoming drunk and hungover again— which is what I have always been doing for my past “early twenties years”. I kind of wanted to do something new or even at least be somewhere new. I then got to talking to one of my close friends at work about it and she suggested on heading up to the Wairarapa region and visiting the Castle Point Lighthouse.

I’ve heard from other friends who’ve been before how lovely this place was and I’ve seen some photos of it as well, so I’ve been wanting to visit the place for some time now. When my friend made the suggestion, I immediately said “Yes! Let’s go!” And so we started planning on it.

We couldn’t really go on my actual birthday because I was going to be working so we decided to go a few days before the day when we were all on a day off. Then, the day before the trip… it was freezing, cold and gloomy. We were thinking that if the weather continued to be horrible the next day, we might just have to cancel the whole thing which got me pretty bummed out.

The next day rolled around and luckily, it was a sunny day! Yeah! Checked the weather of Castlepoint on metservice as well and it also said it was also going to be a good day there. I then texted my friend and we then both decided that we’ll just push through with our plans as the weather was good.

Not ever having been to the area before, and having seen only photos of the lighthouse itself, I had this picture in my mind that by the time we got there, there would just be this little walkway going straight to the lighthouse and that was all we were going to see. Instead, I was greeted by this beautiful view of the beach with the lighthouse at the distance on top of a cliff. It was stunning!

As it was already lunchtime by the time we got there, we were already starving and so we decided to hold off the sight-seeing for a little bit and eat some lunch. So we drove back a little bit to the Whakataki Hotel and bought some chicken burgers and fish and chips to go and then ate them by the beach.

After hanging around by the beach for a while, we then decided to head up the cliff to the lighthouse. Once we got near, I was surprised yet again because there was still lots more of the area to be seen that’s hidden away from the view from the beach!

After some mandatory photos at the bottom, we then headed up to the lighthouse (Yes, finally! Ha!). As I’m not the fittest person in the world (I’ve got a gym membership that I go to once every who knows when), the walk up made me a teeny tiny bit breathless (Haha) but the struggle was worth it!

Past the lighthouse there was more walking, sight-seeing and photo-op sessions. The scenery the whole time was just beautiful!

We were also able to take this crazy photo down below! Haha!

Overall, a totally memorable trip! Really happy that I was able to do this as a sort of “advance birthday celebration” kind of thing and in the company of great people as well! Absolutely wonderful!