For reports of scouting out outdoor venues (e.g. public reserves) around Wellington.
Belmont Regional park / Hill Rd Entrance
Has carparks and cell-phone coverage at the bottom, but no toilets. Entrance road (Hill Rd from the intersection with Sweetacres Drive) is narrow and dangerous (one-lane, with only limited scope for passing if you meet another vehicle). Gates close at dusk, so probably not accessible at night.
We only took a short walk, and the bit we saw was a shingle road with the odd abandoned ammunition bunker (part of the Belmont Magazines from WWII). The lower photo here captures it nicely. There’s an abandoned airfield further up, but we didn’t get that far. The road is normally closed to vehicle traffic, but access can clearly be negotiated; there were notices up that it was being used by an orienteering club today.
There is at least one other track from the carpark, leading north across the hills, and the farm paddocks are accessible (provided you close everything up after you).
For the sort of terrain on offer, Stratton Street looks like a better option.
Sweetacres Reserve (Hil Rd / Belmont)
No carparks, so its a bust.
Speedy’s Reserve (Between Hill Rd, Belmont, and Kelson)
Internet material looks promising, though the upper Hill Rd entrance marked on that map wasn’t accessible, and the lower one doesn’t have carparks. Will investigate from the Kelson side sometime.