I can lean over the end of the pier with my arms spread and such is the force of the nor’ westerly that I am prevented from falling into the sea. In these same extraordinary conditions, aircraft continue to fly in and out of the capital looking for all the world like twigs torn from a hedge and flung across the sky. Welcome to Wellington.

This is hardly the stuff of postcards or likely to threaten the Costa Brava with its balmier and more predictable climes. But give me Wellington any day. The city squats head down in the crosshairs of southerly and northwesterly weather systems. It catches everything going. Sometimes we locals feel the word “gale” doesn’t quite deliver the full meaning of what we endure: trees snapped in two like matchsticks, or seagulls forced back to the landing strip along Oriental Bay, where they stand with their heads buried in their breasts. It doesn’t quite capture the rush of clouds and the startled sun.

Paul Theroux has remarked that the Wellington wind appears to have “physical mass”. True, it does bludgeon. Captain Cook gave up on his third attempt to sail through Wellington Heads. Without checking his diary entry, I am almost certain a nor’ westerly gale would have been the reason.

The city’s population occasionally feel scandalised by the unseemliness of it. We often apologise to overseas visitors on its behalf. But among ourselves a more tribal view emerges. We are quietly proud of its excesses, of its raging character and its Olympian quest to flatten the city and scatter its inhabitants. We love it. Especially the kite-surfers and windsurfers.

These ferocious days are a reminder of our place on the edge of the Southern Ocean. No surprise that winds should cut you in two with the efficiency of piano wire when the same winds have blown off the Antarctic ice shelf.

A day later the stillness is uncanny. The harbour is a pond and the city a sparkle. It is suddenly the most fragile place on earth. You can take a fishing charter from the downtown wharves and putter out to Cook Strait. In quick time you have left behind the smart cafés and are lurching about mid-ocean, and there is absolutely nothing in any direction to suggest that a city lies tucked out of sight less than 30 minutes away.

However, I prefer my glorious isolation to come with a beach. As the crow flies, 50km (32 miles) west of the capital lies Golden Bay. To my mind, Golden Bay and the capital are two pieces of jigsaw that fit together.

You can fly to Takaka, a tiny airstrip, in 40 minutes. Or you can take the more family-orientated eight-hour journey beginning with a ferry crossing of Cook Strait. When you drive off at the other end, the South Island feels like a different country, possibly because you have crossed a formidable stretch of water. Stop to pick cherries (in season); load up with Marlborough sauvignon blanc; enjoy a break at Pelorus Bridge, where the children can leap off car-sized boulders into the river; walk and swim at Tahunanui Beach in Nelson; pick up smoked fish from the Smokehouse café at Mapua; then take the long winding drive up Takaka Hill and down the other side, always with the exhilarating feeling of descending to Shangri-La, as you spiral down from the raw mountaintop to a long and green valley. A brief stop at Takaka for provisions, then on to the beach at Pakawau.

To wake up to the sun blazing through the french windows, the perfect sea shining at the foot of the bed; the resident tui birds chasing each other around the pohutakawa tree. This is a place where you pull off your shoes and socks and don’t put them on again until it is time to pack up and leave.

The tide is up and almost level with the small lawn. I have stood on this same patch of dry grass and caught fish with my surfcaster. Now, see where that fishing boat is moving far out to sea? In a few hours it will be possible to walk a kilometre across the wet sand to stand where the boat passed. In the course of the day, the sand flats will emerge and disappear.

At low tide the children look for pools with warm water. Sometimes a hovering and shrieking seagull gives notice of a stranded fish. Far out on the edge of the sand, a dog runs with happy delirium. When the tide turns it happens quickly. Briefly there is the pleasant illusion of walking on water. Enjoy the moment, then hurry on.

The late afternoon light is fading. To the west is the dark broken outline of Farewell Spit. The wind is strangely absent. The cockles we dug up are now boiling in a pot filled with cheap white plonk.

At night, if the air is sharp, we might huddle before a fire of driftwood. In summer we sit at the table outside and listen to the sea slurp around the rocks below. I have a new year’s memory of a huge orange moon hanging overhead. I have not seen a moon as big since. Our salty faces are tight with sunburn. There is high laughter from a beach farther along the beach. A second bottle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc demands our attention.

At an early hour I stand on the lawn and watch a fisherman row a dingy out to his set line. I have seen this scene before; in fact just last year, and at this hour, and the same guy in the dinghy. I wander along to where he has hauled up his net and he tells me what he told me last year. The fishing isn’t as good as it used to be. True enough, locals used to catch large snapper from the beach. I have seen the black-and-white photographs on the walls of the local café. Men and boys in bare feet shouldering coal sacks filled with fish. I tell the man we’re off to Farewell Spit and he blinks as if I’ve said something startling, like a plan to visit the Moon. The people and the tides have their own rhythm.

There is just the one coastal road and a series of one-way bridges to negotiate on the way to Farewell Spit. For the whole way there the Tasman Sea keeps us company. One year I remember seeing a human chain in raincoats and wet-suits stretching out to sea in a hopeless attempt to direct a large number of stranded whales.

On to Puponga at the base of the spit. You can park at the Department of Conservation car park, and walk for 20 minutes across farmland to the west coast. The final stretch of track leads up to a stand of manuka, a gentle ascent, then the breathtaking view of a broad reach of white sand, the sea tumbling ashore. Now, drop down to the aptly named Fossil Rock. Walk across an unbroken crust of white sand. Check behind the boulders for sea lions. In the other direction, endless beach, sea, seagulls, oyster-catchers, and not another soul.

On another morning, for the first time in an age I will look in a mirror. It appears that I haven’t shaved in a while. And later, pulling on socks and shoes, while not an unpleasant experience, is nonetheless a sign of something pretty special coming to an end. I switch on the car radio. The forecast is for gales in Wellington.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray, £12.99) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007.

Ride the wind

Lloyd Jones recommends:

Evans Bay and Petone Beach: a favourite with windsurfers.
Oriental Bay pier: feel the full blast of a nor’ westerly.
Wind Sculpture Walk: contemporary art on show at Cobham Drive and Evans Bay.
Maranui Surf Club, Lyall Bay: escape the southerly gale, pull up a chair and watch the kite-surfers.
Smokehouse Café, Mapua Wharf: this eatery, 25 minutes’ drive from Nelson, smokes local produce using brick kilns.