The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 9 (January 1, 1929)
By Coast and Hill to Wellington
By Coast and Hill to Wellington.
So on from Paekakariki, through a series of short tunnels in the rocky cliffs high above the surf-beaten rough shingle beach. “Pae-kakariki” means a perch or snare used for catching the green parakeet. The top of the steep range above was called of old Te Pae-o-te-rangi. “The Pillow of Heaven”—say, sky-top.
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On the Northern Section.
(Photo, W. W. Stewart)
Departure of special express train from Auckland.
That rough country inland, the eastern masses of the forested Tararuas—Kapakapanui and Wainui and sister peaks—was the scene in 1846 of Te Rangihaeata's retreat northward, pursued by the Government forces after the Hutt and Porirua campaign.
The outer and inner shores of Porirua are storied ground. We pass through the seaside township of Plimmerton, a great holiday resort for the city and inland people. It was named after Mr. John Plimmer, one of Wellington's earliest pioneers. Here stood Taupo Village, where wily old Rauparaha, who had secretly been assisting his nephew, Te Rangihaeata, against the whites, was skilfully captured in 1846, under Governor Grey's direction. He was kept a prisoner for two years in British ships-of-war. The exact spot where Rauparaha was captured is quite close to the present railway station at Plimmerton. The Natives point out a little grassy space bordered by ngaio trees between the station and the beach as the place where Rauparaha's whare stood, and where he was surprised and seized at early dawn by a party of British bluejackets.
Out yonder is the long flat-topped island of Mana, one time an eyrie and retreat of warrior bands under Rangihaeata. Nowadays it is a sheep-run.
That quiet salt-water bay going far inland on our left is Paua-taha-nui (which has been corrupted to Pahautanui). It was the scene of lively skirmishing between Rangitaeata's war-canoes and bush-ambushed bands and the British naval patrol parties who manned H.M.S. “Calliope's” little gunboat.
On the green flat on our right, as we cross the sea-arm, sheep graze around the crumbling ruins of an old-time brick fort, built in the year of Wellington's one and only war. This was Fort Paremata, garrisoned by British redcoats.
Porirua Harbour, which we skirt on our right, was lively enough, too, in 1846, with all the martial business of defence and offence against a too-mobile foe. That little war, a kind of romantic dream to-day, was a serious enough matter when Wellington Town was but six years old, a forest wilderness in its rear and on its flanks.
Between Porirua and Wellington Harbour the route is parallel with the military road cut through the forest and over the range by the 58th Regiment and some friendly Maoris. A line of stockades protected this pioneer road. There was one, Elliott's Stockade, on the shore of Porirua, near the head of the harbour. There was another, Lieut. Leigh's post, on Tawa Flat, close to our line, and there was Lieut. Middleton's stockade higher up. The suburban hilltown of Johnsonville was originally a bush clearing, where a small blockhouse of rough slabs, loopholed for musket-fire, with a loft reached by a ladder, was built in 1846. The various stockades garrisoned by the 58th Regiment, the “Black Cuffs,” were built in this way: a trench was dug, and large split trees and small whole trees were set in close together and the earth firmly filled in around them. Firing apertures were cut in this bristling wall of timber. At Khandallah, on the Wellington-ward slopes, there was a small sentry-post, a position popularly called “Mount Misery.” This spot, Sentry-box Hill, now abbreviated to Box Hill, is near the west side of the line, at the little church, near Khandallah Station.
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In the Stirring Days of 1846.
(Photo, J. W. Jones, Manners St., Wellington)
The crumbling ruins of Fort Paremata, garrisoned by British Redcoats in 1846. Paremata railway bridge is seen in the background.
Now the sight of Port Nicholson's lake-like expanse, ringed about with steep hills, and houses and shipping, recalls us from the past. Kipling once saw Wellington and something of the back-country, as his poem, “The Flowers,” reminds us—
Broom behind the windy town, pollen o’ the pine—
Bellbird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine.
For miles the outer hills and gullies where the bush has been cut away are golden with gorse and with the broom that took the poet's eye.
Through the last short tunnels Wellington City opens out below, and on our right, with its miles of curving sea-front lined with wharves and shipping, and its houses climbing in tiers to the skyline 400ft. and 500ft. above the sea. A complete contrast this angular semi-mountainous landscape to Auckland's softly rounded beauty, yet a landscape of charm and variety that gains in interest as one explores the city and its surroundings. The first daylight view of Wellington from the railway is a quick revelation of the unusual in seaport scenery. Of a softer quality of beauty is the picture it makes on some calm summer night, when, from the glittering lights on the waters of Oriental Bay to the heights of Brooklyn and Kelburn, the successive terraces of the city are picked out in the lines of a thousand steadily blazing golden stars.