I'll be making a visit down to wlg this christmas and honestly, I'm dreading all those hills..

It's a very different terrain compared to basically everywhere else.

As you get further out of central city areas it feels alot more natural..

If your just beginning, i'd find yourself somewhere quiet. a carpark, Rural-ish area (ideally one that's not 80+ as that adds pressure)

Build you your confidence from there.  

Kapiti is great because there are so many shocking drivers that it doesn't matter if you drive 30k in a 50k zone, stop randomly in the middle of the road, or forget to indicate. It's also relatively quiet, flat and straight compared to Wellington City

rscole86: Where are you? Where have you already been?

If you have not been on the motorway before then a few suggestions;
Eastern suburbs has a 70kmh zone between the airport and the Basin.
Southern suburbs has a 70kmh zone along Ohiro or Happy Valley.
Northern suburbs, I'm not sure but possibly Westchester interchange up to Grenada and Westchester along Middleton to Tawa.
Porirua has a 70kmh zone outside the tip and hospital and they use to do their licence testing around Takapuwahia.
Lower Hutt, Harcourt Werry drive. The hills up to Kelson, Normandale and Korokoro are good, surg the later two having very narrow streets.
Upper Hutt I think only has Alexander Road as a higher speed zone.

nickb800:

Kapiti is great because there are so many shocking drivers that it doesn't matter if you drive 30k in a 50k zone, stop randomly in the middle of the road, or forget to indicate. It's also relatively quiet, flat and straight compared to Wellington City

Based on observations of driving in the area, the motorway, particularly joining a 100kph stream of traffic at 40kph.

Driving Range ;-)

When my daughter was learning (and after a couple of professional AA lessons), we'd go after work hours out to Lyall Bay where there are lots of wide roads with pretty low traffic numbers … some nice intersections to practice on too. 

After that we would take the coastal road (practice in slightly winding road) to a few suburban streets around Island Bay, then through to the Basin and motorway home.

Covered most road conditions nicely …. we also did same route when wet and windy.

Must have worked because she is now a paramedic driver

Hutt river carpark in the weekends is empty as massive to just drive around, You see a lot of learner drivers down there .

Bigger enough to learn to do donuts as well.

Depends what stage of the learning process you're at.

For absolute beginners, major suburban park-and-ride locations tend to have big empty car parks on the weekends, where you can bunny-hop your way around until you begin to have some mastery of the clutch, and practice stopping on a particular line, parallel parking and so on.
The old Mitsubishi Motors / Todd Park site in Porirua used to be popular, there's little traffic on weekends except other learners, and some gentle slopes where you can practice the dreaded and sweat-inducing hill start.

Once you're ready for more advanced driving, other posters have suggested places where there are wide suburban streets and lower traffic volumes.

Good luck, and don't forget to check the insurance policy!

PolicyGuy:

 

Depends what stage of the learning process you're at.

 

For absolute beginners, major suburban park-and-ride locations tend to have big empty car parks on the weekends, where you can bunny-hop your way around until you begin to have some mastery of the clutch, 

 

practice the dreaded and sweat-inducing hill start.

 

As the number of Manual cars continue to fall,  For most leaners these threats don't exist any more,

PolicyGuy:

Depends what stage of the learning process you're at.

 

For absolute beginners, major suburban park-and-ride locations tend to have big empty car parks on the weekends, where you can bunny-hop your way around until you begin to have some mastery of the clutch...

SpartanVXL: If theres one good thing about electric vehicles, it'd be getting rid of a manual clutch.

Although I can see the move to "one pedal" driving in EVs conflicting with a bunch of license testers who will likely ping people for not using the brake pedal enough....

Newly developed subdivisions where the roads are open, but there's not many houses built yet. Ideal for practicing residential driving, not much other traffic, good sight lines.