A self-guided audio walking tour of central Wellington, from the railway station through the parliamentary precinct and Thorndon, along Lambton Quay and down to the waterfront. It starts at the station of 1933 to 1937, built on reclaimed land, and the Old Government Buildings of the 1870s, built in timber rather than masonry to save money. Around Parliament it visits the Supreme Court of 2010, whose courtroom form draws on a kauri seed cone, the Cenotaph with Richard Gross's Pegasus and rider, Parliament House, built after the fire of 1907, the fireproof Parliamentary Library of 1901 and the Beehive, from Sir Basil Spence's 1964 concept. In Thorndon come the Sacred Heart cathedral, the Brutalist National Library, the cathedral of St Paul, Old St Paul's of 1866 in native timbers, and the Thistle Inn of 1866, where the shoreline once ran right outside the door. Then the Cable Car, begun in 1899 to reach Kelburn, the Old Bank Arcade, Lambton Quay, which began as the harbour foreshore, and Saint Mary of the Angels, a Gothic church in reinforced concrete. On the waterfront it visits Kumutoto, the Harbour Board's bond store that is now the Wellington Museum, Civic Square, the wharewaka Te Raukura, the bronze Kupe group, Solace in the Wind and Te Papa, and ends at the remains of Te Aro Pā, preserved beneath an apartment block on Taranaki Street.
24 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 282 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 29 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Wellington Railway Station, Old Government Buildings, Supreme Court of New Zealand, Wellington Cenotaph, Parliament House, Parliamentary Library, The Beehive, Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, Old St Paul’s, Thistle Inn.
Wellington Cable Car, Old Bank Arcade, Lambton Quay, Saint Mary of the Angels.
Kumutoto, Wellington Museum, Civic Square, Te Raukura Wharewaka, Kupe Statue, Solace in the Wind, Te Papa Tongarewa, Te Aro Pā.
The Executive Wing of Parliament, built on the site of the old Government House from Sir Basil Spence's 1964 concept.
Frederick Thatcher's timber Gothic Revival church, consecrated in 1866 and built of kauri, rimu and tōtara.
A two-storey timber inn of 1866 on a site where liquor was served from 1840, when the beach ran right outside.
The cable tramway and funicular begun in 1899, climbing through three tunnels from Lambton Quay to Kelburn.
The bronze group of Kupe, Hine Te Aparangi and Pekahourangi, unveiled in 1999, a replica of William Trethewey's sculpture for the 1939–1940 Centennial Exhibition.
The preserved remains of a pā established around the 1820s, beneath a modern apartment block on Taranaki Street.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 24 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 24 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Wellington — Parliament, Lambton Quay and the Waterfront, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
24 narration points, including Wellington Railway Station, Old Government Buildings, Wellington Cenotaph, Parliament House and Parliamentary Library. That is about 44 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2–3 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 24 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.