Pakuranga
Pakuranga is a suburb of
Manukau city, one of the cities which form the
conurbation of
Auckland, in northern
New Zealand. It is located to the northeast of Manukau city centre, and 15 kilometres southeast of the Auckland central business district. According to the 2001 census, Pakuranga has a population of 8907.
Pakuranga is on a peninsula formed by the Pakuranga Creek and
Tamaki River, two
estuarial arms of the
Hauraki Gulf. It is connected by bridge with
Panmure. Although there had been a bridge here from as early as
1866, it was not until the construction of a sturdy structure across the Tamaki River in the
1950s, and the increasing levels of car ownership that Pakuranga became suburban.
Many of the American style houses of the 1950s and 1960s are still noticeable but much of the appeal of the early suburb lay in the proximity of untouched countryside. Since the 1970s Pakuranga has been surrounded and engulfed by suburban developments on a much larger scale, but lesser architectural merit. Traffic travelling to and from these suburbs and the centre of Auckland is largely funnelled through the roadways of Pakuranga which has degraded the area somewhat as well.
Despite this today Pakuranga remains an attractive suburb, with some light industry, centred around the Pakuranga Town Centre 1965. The Mall itself has been transformed several times since it first went up and retains nothing of the naive 1960s charm & appeal it once had. There is a good Public Art Gallery located here. Schools in Pakuranga include the independent
Saint Kentigern College.
The suburb's name is
Maori for
battle of the sunlight. This peculiar name is the result of a legend about a battle between mythical nocturnal creatures. The battle raged fiercely until a Maori priest caused the sun to rise earlier than expected. Caught by surprise in the rays of the sun, the monsters perished.
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History of Howick and Pakuranga
