Upper Hutt
Sawmillers milled larger trees, such as Totara, for building materials and burned off the remaining scrub and underbrush.The line continued over the Remutaka Ranges to Featherston in the Wairarapa as a Fell railway, opening on 12 October 1878.[15] The historic area, the Remutaka Incline Rail Trail, crosses into part of neighbouring South Wairarapa District.[17] While the main areas of urban development lie along the Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River valley floor, the city extends to the top of the Remutaka Pass to the north-east and into the Akatarawa Valley and rough hill-country of the Akatarawa ranges to the north and north-west, almost reaching the Kāpiti Coast close to Paekākāriki.A smaller flood plain lies upstream, above the Kaitoke Gorge, but has experienced little urban development.Upper Hutt has a temperate climate however due to its sheltered valley location, it generally tends to be warmer than inner city Wellington in the summer and much colder in the winter.[21] Today, Upper Hutt City falls entirely within the boundaries of the Remutaka electorate, currently held by Labour's Chris Hipkins.This decision was made as to ensure the maintenance of the significant rural character and amenity in the Mangaroa Valley.A site in Upper Hutt was purchased for a factory,[27] and the first Dunlop tyres were produced on 11 March 1949.[32] In 2008, a 20.2 hectares (50 acres) site including the former tyre factory was purchased by property developer Malcolm Gillies, with the intention of turning it into an industrial park.[34][35] As of 2024, Brewtown is home to some popular entertainment attractions such as Daytona Adventure Park, which houses Go-kart racing, ice skating and ten-pin bowling.Fergusson Drive is the main thoroughfare through suburban Upper Hutt, passing through the city centre and connecting to State Highway 2 at Silverstream and Maoribank.With the central government reluctant to fund any road improvements in the area, the Upper Hutt City Council commissioned the construction of a two-laned high-speed bypass along the banks of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River from the Taitā Gorge in the south to Māoribank in the north.It promptly ran at full capacity and, after several serious accidents that were a legacy of its origins, it was enlarged and re-engineered to cope with the growing traffic volume.Services run every 20 minutes between 6 am and 4:30 pm weekday and half-hourly Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.Upper Hutt's main railway station was originally built in 1876 but has been rebuilt twice, firstly in 1955 and more recently in 2015.The most recent rebuild, jointly funded by NZTA and the Upper Hutt City Council, cost $3.5m and features a coffee bar, public toilets and an upgraded ticket office featuring real-time information of arrivals and departures of trains in a larger waiting room than the 1955 building.Later in November, the 8.8 km Rimutaka Tunnel opened, bypassing the Remutaka Incline and most of the existing line between Upper Hutt and Featherston, and reducing the time between the two from 2.5 hours to just 40 minutes.The less steep 1 in 40 grades between Upper Hutt and the small settlement and shunting yard at Summit could be managed by ordinary steam locomotives.The only other rolling stock able to traverse the incline unaided were small bus-like Wairarapa railcars, colloquially known as "Tin Hares".In conjunction with the tunnel, the laying of a new route, new bridges and substantial realignment and double-tracking of the rest of the line from Wellington to Trentham had occurred by 26 June 1955.Walking and mountain-biking is popular along Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River and on the tracks in many parks, including Karapoti (focal point of the annual Karapoti Classic), Kaitoke, Cannon Point Walkway, Tunnel Gully and the Remutaka Rail Trail.
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