The Little Akatarawa River is a river of the Wellington Region of New Zealand's North Island. It is a tributary of the Akatarawa River, which it meets 5 kilometres (3 mi) northwest of Te Mārua.
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1.2 km
Karapoti Gorge is one of the entrances into the Akatarawa Forest, a regional park in the Wellington Region in New Zealand. The Akatarawa River West runs through this narrow, mostly bush-clad gorge towards the Akatarawa Valley. A narrow road winds its way along the steep slopes, providing access for trail biking, mountain biking and walking. Karapoti Gorge is also the starting leg of the annual Karapoti Classic mountain bike event, which runs on the network of tracks in the Akatarawa Forest.
1.5 km
Price's Bush Tramway was a bush tramway built around 1903 near Akatarawa in the Tararua Range of New Zealand's North Island. It was built with a raised Fell third rail for braking the loaded trucks, as used by the Rimutaka Incline.
4.0 km
Akatarawa Forest is a regional park in the Upper Hutt within the Wellington Region at the southern tip of the North Island of New Zealand. It encompasses 15,000 hectares of native and plantation forest. It includes the headwaters of the Maungakotukutuku Steam, Akatarawa River West and the Whakatīkei River.
The park is owned and managed by Greater Wellington Regional Council, making it one of the largest landowners in New Zealand.
Akatarawa is a Māori name meaning 'Trailing vines'.
Activities include cycling, hunting, fishing, horse riding, 4WD-vehicle trips and trail biking, including at the Karapoti Gorge.
4.4 km
Birchville Dam is believed to be the second unreinforced concrete arch dam built for water supply in New Zealand. It was built in 1930 for the Upper Hutt Borough Council to provide increased water capacity for the borough and replaced a water supply weir built in 1913–1914 at the same location on Clarke's Creek, near Birchville. Decommissioned in 1958, when Upper Hutt joined the Wellington regional water scheme, this dam is now an historic attraction on the Cannon Point Walkway.
This dam does not appear in the New Zealand Dam Inventory.
4.5 km
The Cannon Point Walkway is a hiking trail in the Akatarawa Forest on the western side of the Hutt Valley in the North Island of New Zealand. The walkway is a loop of 7.7 kilometres in length, ascending to the Cannon Point trig at 341 metres, and with a total elevation gain of 304 metres. The portion of the track through the Akatarawa Forest Park is maintained by the Greater Wellington Regional Council.
The name of the hill and the walkway comes from the reports of a large tree that fell near the top of the hill. The fallen tree was said to look like a cannon when viewed from below. The area was part of Valley View Station, and the steep zig-zag track to the summit was originally cut by the farm owners for access on foot and horseback.
The road ends are at Bridge Road, Birchville and Tulsa Reserve in Tōtara Park. The route from Bridge Road follows the path of a former water supply pipeline upstream along Clarke's Creek to the historic Birchville Dam. From the dam there is a steep ascent to the ridgeline and then along to the Cannon Point trig at 341 metres elevation. From the trig there are panoramic views of the Hutt Valley. The loop is completed by a walk along the banks of the Hutt River between the two road ends.
On Sunday 9 October 1932, a "mystery" railway excursion to Upper Hutt attracted 800 people, many of whom took the opportunity to complete a hike of around 10 miles from the Akatarawa picnic grounds to the lookout at Cannon Point.
A 1.7-kilometre-long zig-zag portion of the track from Tulsa Park up to the Cannon Point trig crosses private land, and was closed by the landowner in December 2017 after a dispute between the landowner and the Upper Hutt City Council. Access was restored in August 2018.
A new bridge at the Birchville end of the track was opened in October 2022.