Pukekohe and the rural south-west
Karaka
Rural centre 40 km south of central Auckland on the eastern foreshore of Manukau Harbour. It serves a fertile region of market-gardening and dairying. Karaka is also home to the national yearling sales, held at the Karaka Bloodstock Sales Complex. In recent years wealthy Aucklanders have established lifestyle blocks in the district. Its growing affluence was illustrated in 2005 by the $14-million sale of a house, which broke the New Zealand record.
Waiuku
2006 population: 7,725
Historic settlement, now the service town for a fertile farming and horticultural area 64 km south of central Auckland. This was a traditional area of Ngāti Te Ata. Sited on the Awaroa portage – between the Manukau Harbour and Waikato River – Waiuku was a stopping point for Waikato Māori trading with Auckland. Early Mission stations at Ōrua Bay and Moeatoa may have influenced Māori support in this area for the British invasion of the Waikato.
Glenbrook Steel Mills
Since 1968 ironsands from the Waikato River mouth have been used in the production of steel at the Glenbrook Steel Mills, 7 km north-east of Waiuku on the estuary. Renamed New Zealand Steel in 2002, and a subsidiary of the Australian company Bluescope Steel, the mills are the sole New Zealand producer of flat rolled steel products.
Pukekohe prejudice
In 1963 Pukekohe onion-grower Rai Wai Ching contested a Parliamentary seat to highlight town prejudice. At candidates’ meetings he complained he was not served in bars and was only sold (less comfortable) downstairs seats in cinemas. After threats to blow him up, he was given police protection. Ching was not elected, but the publicity gradually changed town attitudes. He was later able to drink in hotels and choose his cinema seat.
Pukekohe
2006 population: 22,299
Town servicing a fertile farming and horticultural area, 52 km south of Auckland. Skirmishes in the 1860s Waikato war began around fortified churches at Mauku and Pukekohe East.
The success of pioneering Chinese and Indian growers in the 1920s made Pukekohe the home of the reactionary White New Zealand League (1926) and the progressive Chinese Growers’ Federation (1942).
The well-drained volcanic soil from Pukehohe–Bombay south to Pukekawa produces one-third of New Zealand’s fresh vegetables. The northern slopes of Pukekohe Hill are renowned for their potato crops.
Port Waikato
Settlement on the southern shores of the Waikato River estuary, 42 km south-west of Pukekohe. British gunboats used the Waikato to carry arms and subjugate Māori Kingites in 1863. Port Waikato is now a small farming community which expands in summer with crowds of surfers. The limestone soils to the south are used for raising beef.
Tūākau
2006 population: 3,504
Rural service centre on the north bank of the Waikato River, 9 km south-east of Pukekohe. Early fighting in the Waikato wars engulfed Tūākau, where General Cameron and the 65th regiment had built the Alexandra Redoubt. Large tracts of land in the area were confiscated from Māori after the war.
The construction of the Tūākau Bridge in 1900 led to Pākehā development around the Māori settlements at Onewhero (meaning red soil) and Pukekawa, 9 and 14 km south of Tūākau respectively, across the Waikato. This rugged area was settled more slowly than the district to the north. The steepest slopes were planted in pines in the 1960s, and elsewhere dairying gave way to raising and fattening beef. Lifestyle blocks are now changing the area.
