Celia Wade-Brown, mayor of Wellington, New Zealand, kayaking at Taputeranga Marine Reserve in Island Bay.
March 31, 2014
Celia Wade-Brown, mayor of New Zealand's capital city of Wellington, doesn't think twice about hopping on her bike to go meet visiting dignitaries. Her bike is her main transportation.
In a skirt suit with bike shorts underneath, Ms. Wade-Brown was part of the entourage that greeted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her visit in 2010. She said Ms. Clinton and her colleagues would never have known she biked there if it hadn't been mentioned in media reports.
Ms. Wade-Brown bikes through Civic Square in Wellington. Mark Tantrum for The Wall Street
"I think some people thought I had turned up to shake the secretary of state's hand, dripping sweat and wearing Lycra," she says.
Ms. Wade-Brown cycles to work most days, around 4.5 miles, and scuba-dives and kayaks frequently. In February, she kayaked across New Zealand's Cook Strait, a 20.5-mile journey that took around five hours and is considered extremely treacherous. She says it took her more than two years to prepare.
It wasn't until she emigrated to New Zealand from England in 1983 that Ms. Wade-Brown became interested in adventure sports. New Zealand's alpine peaks, rain forests and wilderness offer opportunities for hiking, kayaking and cycling. She became hooked on exercise through work and the "New Zealand ethos of actually getting out there and being very active, doing active sports."
Ms. Wade-Brown started scuba diving in 2005 when one of her sons, who was 12 at the time, wanted to learn. It proved to be "more complex" and "more rewarding than I expected," she says. She now has advanced diver certification and participates in diving events to clean up the Wellington harbor.
The Workout
Ms. Wade-Brown bikes to work five days a week and can often be seen around the city, pedaling to parliament or other meetings. "I love my bike. I can stop and talk to people and go and see things," she says.
She recently rode around the Takapu Valley, north of Wellington, to check the site of a new road. "We spent an hour or so cycling, which was completely canceled out by having scones with jam and cream" afterward.
Ms. Wade-Brown, who lives in the coastal suburb of Island Bay with her husband, kayaks at least twice a week. She tried commuting to work via kayak but said the nearly three-hour trip wasn't practical. The weather in Wellington can be a deterrent, she says, with wind gusts of up to 74.4 miles an hour a common occurrence.
"One reason I do so many different things is because you can't rely on being able to kayak three times a week," she says.
She is a frequent swimmer, participating in events like the State NZ Ocean Swim Series Capital Classic, swimming 300 meters, in January.
The Diet
For breakfast, she often has eggs from her flock of free-range hens, or toast and homemade jelly, or muesli with stewed rhubarb. She is a pescetarian, a vegetarian who eats seafood.
She usually has salad and a sandwich for lunch or salmon sushi. For dinner, she has groundnut stew, a dish based on peanut butter, or chickpea curry. She skips dinner if she has had wine and canapés at a function.
"This job gives you lots of opportunities for exercise, but also gives you a lot of opportunities for eating and drinking too," she says.
For her journey across the strait, she took New Zealand dried apricots, muesli bars and chocolate.
Her meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the airport in 2010. Getty Images
The Gear
She bikes in clothes that will be good work clothes, either trousers or bike shorts under a skirt. She rides in heels for short distances and keeps spare shoes at work.
She has a high-visibility jacket, extensive lights on her bike and helmet. The jacket costs around 80 New Zealand dollars (US$69) while lights sell for NZ$50. Her kayak cost some NZ$1,000 about 20 years ago.
For diving, she has a wetsuit and a secondhand buoyancy control device and a regulator. She rents a tank and said a boating trip for two dives costs about NZ$70.
The Next Challenge
Ms Wade-Brown says she hopes to kayak in Fiordland, in the southwest corner of New Zealand's South Island, and around Kapiti Island, a bird sanctuary off the coast and an hour from downtown Wellington.
She is also planning to do the Te Araroa trail—a 1,860-mile route from Cape Reinga in the far north of New Zealand to Bluff in the far south. It's "one of the longest in the world and it goes right through Wellington," she says.
The Playlist
She doesn't listen to music when she exercises but instead listens to Chinese lessons. She is learning Mandarin in order to welcome Chinese delegations and visitors, as well as for when she travels to Wellington's sister cities of Beijing and Xiamen.
Write to Rebecca Howard at rebecca.howard@wsj.com
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