The Escarpment Track is a 10-kilometre-long (6.2 mi) hiking track between Pukerua Bay and Paekākāriki in the northern part of the Wellington region of New Zealand. It forms part of the 3,000-kilometre (1,900 mi) Te Araroa trail from Cape Reinga to Bluff. The track climbs to approximately 215 metres (705 ft) above sea level, along a narrow route formed along a steep coastal escarpment.
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3.6 km
Pukerua Bay is a small seaside suburb at the southern end of the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand. In local government terms it is the northernmost suburb of Porirua City, in the Wellington Region. It is 12 km north of the Porirua City Centre on State Highway 59, and 30 km north of central Wellington. In Māori, the words puke rua literally mean two hills but it is not clear to which hills the name refers.
3.7 km
Pukerua Bay railway station is located on the North Island Main Trunk Railway in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand and is part of the suburban rail network of Wellington. It is double tracked, has an island platform layout, and is 30.4 km from Wellington railway station, the southern terminus of the NIMT. It is one of two railway stations in Pukerua Bay, the other one at Muri being closed.
3.9 km
The Transmission Gully is a gully in Wellington, it is also a chain of steep-sided, isolated valleys in the Wellington Region of New Zealand, runs approximately north–south between the Kāpiti Coast and Tawa, through hills east of Porirua.
The gully's name comes from the 110,000-volt transmission line that formerly ran through it. The line, built in 1924, linked Wellington to the Mangahao Power Station near Shannon, and later to the wider North Island transmission grid.
Despite lying mostly within the boundaries of Porirua City, Transmission Gully is sparsely populated, and most of the land is farmland, forest, or scrub. There are some areas with lifestyle blocks, particularly near Pāuatahanui, and Transmission Gully is also home to Battle Hill Farm Forest Park.
The 1879 proposal for a Haywards–Plimmerton line railway route north from Wellington envisaged using these valleys; the line was never built.
The Transmission Gully motorway running through the gully was opened in March 2022. It is part of State Highway 1 and was constructed as part of the 2008–2017 National Government's Roads of National Significance package. It will not, however, offer any access to the gully itself, as only a single interchange providing access to Paekākāriki exists between Pāuatahanui and Mackays Crossing.
Apart from the motorway, the only other road access through Transmission Gully is the narrow and winding Paekākāriki Hill Road. Beginning at Paekākāriki, it travels up and over the western ridge of Transmission Gully, and then gradually descends the western bank along most of the length of the gully to Pāuatahanui.
4.3 km
The Paekakariki Station Precinct Trust works "to acquire, develop, and administer the venue of the Railway Station Precinct at Paekākāriki for recreational, historical preservation, tourism, and educational purposes, and for other allied or supporting activity".
4.3 km
Paekākāriki railway station in Paekākāriki on the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand, is an intermediate station on the Kāpiti Line for Metlink's electric multiple unit commuter trains from Wellington. Paekākāriki was the terminal station of the commuter service from 1940 to 1983, when the service was extended to Paraparaumu, and to Waikanae in 2011.
The station was opened in 1886. Initially, banking locomotives were attached at Paekākāriki for the steep "hill" up to Pukerua Bay and steam locomotives were changed there for electric locomotives to Wellington from 1940 to the 1960s.
The large wooden station building on an island platform is used by a museum, and has a bookshop run by Irving Lipshaw and Michael O’Leary in one section. There are a restored signal box and a level crossing at the south end.
Steam Incorporated has taken over most of the rail yard for rail preservation.
Several buildings are listed by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, as Category I or Category II The station and yard is a historic area.
It overlooks a section of State Highway 59 known as Centennial Highway, and the North–South Junction section of the Kāpiti Line and the North Island Main Trunk railway line.
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