Wellington, walked and uncovered
FOG starts with the entire world hidden. In Wellington the flat part goes quickly and then the city goes vertical on you.
Wellington on the FOG map, fog cleared in a bright track along a walked route around the harbour and up into the hills.
A flat strip with a wall behind it
Wellington is two cities for a walker. The first is the reclaimed flat: Lambton Quay, Willis Street, Cuba Street, Courtenay Place and the waterfront, a compact strip squeezed between the harbour and the escarpment. It is genuinely small. You can walk the CBD end to end in half an hour, and that is the whole reason people call Wellington walkable.
The second city starts the moment you turn inland. Kelburn, Aro Valley, Mount Victoria, Brooklyn, Northland, Thorndon above the motorway. These are hillside suburbs on switchbacks, and the streets there do not behave. They loop, they dead-end at a set of public steps, they climb at angles that would be a staircase anywhere else. Wellington has a large network of pedestrian shortcuts, alleys and step-flights connecting streets that a car has to drive around entirely.
Lambton Quay is called that because it used to be the shoreline. Everything east of it is fill. When your walked track sits neatly on flat ground and then suddenly starts zigzagging, that is the old coastline showing up on your map.
An afternoon loop worth doing
Start at the railway station, walk the waterfront promenade south past Frank Kitts Park, Te Papa and around to Oriental Bay. That is a flat, uninterrupted stretch of harbour edge with no road crossings to speak of, and it lays down a long clean stripe on the map.
From Oriental Parade, turn up into Mount Victoria and climb to the lookout. It is a real climb, and the view over the harbour and out to the airport runway is the payoff. Come down the western side into Courtenay Place, walk the length of Cuba Street, then take the Cable Car up to Kelburn and walk back down through the Botanic Garden to Thorndon. That loop hits waterfront, town belt, ridge and old wooden suburb in one afternoon.
Note the Cable Car will draw a line, but it is a ride, not a walk. If you want the hill honestly, take the steps.
Why the fog here is easy then suddenly hard
The first sessions are very rewarding. The CBD is tiny and dense, so a lunch hour clears a noticeable patch, and the city percent moves in a way it never would in a sprawling place. Wellington City proper is small enough that a committed walker can make serious inroads on it.
Then the hills bite. Coverage on a hillside grid is slow because every block costs you elevation, and the streets fold back on themselves so you re-walk ground you have already cleared just to reach new ground. Getting from a cleared street to the one thirty metres above it can mean a few hundred metres of switchback. The town belt and the green reserves also break the map into disconnected patches rather than one spreading blob.
The weather is a real constraint, not a joke. Wellington gets sustained southerly gales and horizontal rain, and there are days where the waterfront is simply not a walking proposition. Summer evenings are long and calm enough to make up for it.
Practical notes
The CBD has some tall buildings but no serious canyon effect, so positioning is generally reliable. The hills matter more than the towers: steep valley sides and heavy tree cover in the town belt can make a track look shakier than the walk actually was.
Background exploring means you do not need the phone in your hand while you are climbing steps in the wind. It keeps revealing with the app closed and the screen off.
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Questions people actually ask
Is Wellington a good city for a fog map?
The flat CBD is small and fills fast, which feels great early. The hill suburbs are slow going, so a high city percent takes real work.
Does the Cable Car count?
It will record the route you travelled, because FOG follows where your phone goes. Whether you consider that walked is between you and the steps.
Does FOG include Wellington walking routes or guides?
No. FOG has no curated routes, guides or local partnerships anywhere. It is a map that hides everything until you walk it.
Can I bring in old walks?
Yes. The one-time unlock includes history import from Google Timeline exports and GPX files.
Does it work for running and riding too?
Yes, walking, running and riding, anywhere on Earth.
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FOG is free to explore. No account, no subscription, and your map never leaves your phone.
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