Porirua

Like most of New Zealand, Porirua spent millions of years untouched by biped mammals while the rest of the world was being filled and subdued according to biblical precept.

The world's greatest navigators (the Polynesians) eventually produced the legendary explorer Kupe, who visited the Porirua area and left his mark, some say, about 1100 years ago. Mana Island is named in his honour, its long name referring to the skill and bravery of that man who sailed over thousands of kilometres of uncharted seas without a magnetic compass, metal sextant, or chronometer.

Three or four hundred years later, fellow-Polynesians arrived in considerable number, attracted to the fertile temperate soil and abundant wildlife. Most of the soil remains, but wildlife species are in some cases consigned to history. Europeans are in part to blame.

1770 saw the arrival of James Cook, who mapped the country's whole coastline (more or less), the first time anyone of European extraction had been right around the main islands of what was coming to be called "New Zealand".

More and more Europeans arrived in the succeeding 200 years. The big population boost to the Porirua area was after the First Labour Government decided that land for State Housing was getting scarce in Wellington and Lower Hutt and that a new area was needed. The first State house was built in 1951.

In 1965 the area (not as extensive as the present city) was declared to be a city. It continued to grow, reaching about 50,000 people by 2001, partly as a result of territorial growth in 1973 and 1988 instigated by the Local Government Commission.

PS, there was a mental hospital in Porirua in the days when New Zealand had mental hospitals. Thousands of otherwise rational New Zealanders equated the two.

Porirua is now one of four cities in the Wellington Region. It lies north of Wellington City, north-west of Lower Hutt City, and west of the landlocked Upper Hutt City.

Its topography is dominated by the Porirua Harbour, which has a substantial semi-circular bay at the western entrance (popular with champion windsurfers) and two inlets, one to the east extending past Camborne and Whitby to Pauatahanui, the other curling around to the south-west past Papakowhai, Onepoto, and Takapuwahia up to the edge of the central business district. The Pauatahanui Inlet has some world-class wildlife, one study finding it had one of the greatest densities of copepods in the world. Great environment for birds and fish.

(Photograph south-eastwards across the Porirua Inlet showing the Police College, with its residential blocks to the left and the new Aotea suburb on the skyline. Image public domain from WikiMedia Commons by user Arnhemcr)

Suburbs cover most of the flat to undulating land except in the eastern half, which is largely rural. Housing stock has ages ranging from brand-new up to about 110 years, from the days when the opening of the railway made day beach excursions practicable for residents of northern Wellington and they flocked to Paremata and Plimmerton and many liked it so much that they settled.

The city has a moderate amount of industry, mainly stretching from the south-west to the north-west of the CBD but with a substantial pocket on what was the lower end of a huge flax swamp at Plimmerton, the most northerly of the contiguous suburbs. Major industry for many years was car assembler Todd Motors, later Mitsubishi Motors, in the biggest building in the city (central to the panorama in the "history" section above).

Porirua houses a number of enterprises of national significance, notably the New Zealand Police College and the prize-winning Whitireia Community Polytechnic. It used to have the national stock firm Wrightsons in a purpose-built 12-storey building, but since a merger that building became Guardian Health Care House then by 2011 it had become BNZ Tower.

Public transport is mostly by bus, but a half-hourly electric train service runs through Porirua from Wellington, serving seven railway stations in the city or on its southern border, on the way to Paraparaumu (and in 2011 the route is being extended to Waikanae). Peak-period trains average about 12 minutes apart.

Small selection of past and present residents:

Patricia Grace, award-winning writer

Helen Smith, first Values Party candidate to win a seat on a council

Ken Gray, All Black and City Councillor

Ken Douglas, trade unionist and City Councillor

Michael Campbell, most successful New Zealand golfer of recent years

Peter Jackson, multiple "Oscar" winner (remember "Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong"?)