matt.geek.nz

Today I realised that you can actually travel a fair distance through Wellington completely indoors. It is possible to start from Hunter Street, enter a doorway, and to re-emerge in any of the following places without passing through an outside area:

• Victoria St
• Willis St
• Boulcott St
• Extra for experts: The opposite side of Lambton Quay

It’s probably not news to many Wellingtonians (“Congratulations, Matt, you’ve discovered a mall.”) but it was news to me, and kiwis are so starved of subways and underpasses that this sort of thing is a novelty.

This got me wondering: how far could you get from the corner of Hunter & Lambton Quay without crossing a road?  The answer, I think, is quite far. You can get from that point to Clifton Terrace, the corner of Lambton and Bowen Street, or to the corner of Boulcott and Willis.  What do you think, reader? Would it be possible to get any farther?  And what’s the optimum route, from say, the corner of Lambton and Bowen all the way to Boulcott and the Terrace, where the following conditions are favoured in descending order:

1. Route does not cross a road 
2. Route or partial route avoids driveway entrances and carparks
3. Route or partial route is indoors
4. Route or partial route is under an awning

This map illustrates what I think are the extremes of where you can get to without crossing a road. (This is of course trumped by the waterfront: you can travel kilometres, though most of it is in the open air.)  Is the map correct?  Are there any underpasses that I’ve missed which open up a new block?

Useless information, I know, but maybe it’ll be handy in the next zombie apocalypse.