Paekakariki

Paekakariki (Pʌɪ-ka-KA-ri-ki), prior to 1905 known as Paikakariki, is a town in the Kapiti Coast District in the south-western North Island of New Zealand. It is 22 km north of Porirua and 45 km north-east of Wellington, the nation's capital city.

Paekakariki's population at the 2006 New Zealand census was 1602. This figure increased to 1665 in the 2013 census. The town's name in Māori means "perching place of the kakariki (green parrot)".

Paekakariki lies on a narrowing of the thin coastal plain between the Tasman Sea and the Akatarawa Ranges (a spur of the Tararua Ranges) and was an important transportation node. To the south, State Highway 1 climbs towards Porirua; to the north the plains extend inland from the Kapiti Coast; at Paekakariki the highway and North Island Main Trunk railway run close together between the coast and hills.

Immediately prior to European settlement the area had a violent history, due mainly to the presence of the great Māori warrior leader Te Rauparaha, whose pa was on nearby Kapiti Island. He died in 1849, the same year that a road connecting Paekakariki with Porirua was completed.

The name was spelt Paikakariki prior to 1905.Paikakariki: A Sonnett is the title of an 1867 poem by William Golder.

Paekakariki's history has been intimately linked with the railway, and there is a museum at the railway station commemorating this heritage. In 1886 the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company's line from Wellington to Longburn was completed, and Paekakariki became an important stop on the journey. In 1908, the line was incorporated into the national network of the New Zealand Railways Department and became part of the North Island Main Trunk linking Wellington and Auckland, the North Island's most important line. In 1917, NZR withdrew dining cars from its passenger trains due to World War I economic difficulties and Paekakariki became a main refreshment stop on the trip north; originally a temporary measure, the dining cars did not return for decades and Paekakariki's status remained until the 1960s.

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