Hutt River, New Zealand
Encyclopedia
The Hutt River flows through the southern North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

 of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. It flows south-west from the southern Tararua Ranges for 56 km, forming a number of fertile floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...

s, including Kaitoke
Kaitoke
Kaitoke, part of Upper Hutt City, is a locality in the southern North Island of New Zealand. It is located at the northern end of the Hutt Valley, 45 kilometres northeast of Wellington City and six kilometres from the northern end of the Upper Hutt urban area...

, central Upper Hutt
Upper Hutt
Upper Hutt is a satellite city of Wellington. It is New Zealand's smallest city by population, the second largest by land area. It is in Greater Wellington.-Geography:Upper Hutt is 30 km north-east of Wellington...

 and Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt is a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Its council has adopted the name Hutt City Council, but neither the New Zealand Geographic Board nor the Local Government Act recognise the name Hutt City. This alternative name can lead to confusion, as there are two cities in the...

.

The headwaters in the Kaitoke Regional Park
Kaitoke Regional Park
Kaitoke Regional Park is a Wellington Regional park located in Kaitoke, New Zealand, past Upper Hutt. The park is adjacent to the Hutt water collection area and comprises mostly native bush...

 are closed to preserve the quality of the drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...

 drawn off at Kaitoke
Kaitoke
Kaitoke, part of Upper Hutt City, is a locality in the southern North Island of New Zealand. It is located at the northern end of the Hutt Valley, 45 kilometres northeast of Wellington City and six kilometres from the northern end of the Upper Hutt urban area...

 to supply the greater Wellington area. Below Kaitoke is the Kaitoke gorge, a popular destination for Rafting
Rafting
Rafting or white water rafting is a challenging recreational outdoor activity using an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other bodies of water. This is usually done on white water or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers. The development of this...

. Below the gorge is Te Marua
Te Marua
Te Marua is the northernmost urban suburb of Upper Hutt. The usual resident population in the 2006 census was 1,068. For reasons of location and distance from the city, the area is often classified as rural. Te Marua is well known for its Plateau Reserve where remnants of the old Rimutaka...

, where the Mangaroa River
Mangaroa River
The Mangaroa River is a river of the Wellington Region of New Zealand's North Island. It flows north from the western foothills of the Rimutaka Range to the west of Lower Hutt, meeting with the Hutt River on the northern outskirts of Upper Hutt.-References:...

 joins the Hutt from the east. Further down, at Birchville
Birchville
Birchville is a suburb of Upper Hutt, New Zealand in the North Island. Its centre lies at the entrance to the Akatarawa Valley, in the north of the city, near confluence of the Akatarawa Stream with the Hutt River. It is about a 5 km drive north from the centre of Upper Hutt...

, the Akatarawa River
Akatarawa River
The Akatarawa River is located in the lower North Island of New Zealand.It is a short river, flowing south for 20 kilometres through small rocky gorges and the Akatarawa Valley before joining the Hutt River at the northern end of Upper Hutt. Its eventual outflow is into Wellington Harbour, then...

 joins the Hutt from the west. Here it flows in a deep channel between the surrounding hills and is turned to flow across the Wellington Fault
Wellington Fault
The Wellington Fault is an active seismic fault in the southern part of the North Island of New Zealand. It is a dextral strike-slip fault with variable amounts of vertical movement causing uplift to the northwest, as expressed by a series of ranges...

 to Maoribank
Maoribank
Maoribank is a suburb of Upper Hutt, located in the lower North Island of New Zealand.Te Āti Awa iwi had a village in Te Hau-Karetu before European settlement.-Further reading: - - Upper Hutt City Library....

. The movement of the fault can be seen from the displacement of the river terraces in Harcourt Park
Harcourt Park
Harcourt Park is a non-profit cottaging corporation in Ontario, Canada, composed of of land, 18 lakes, and 600 surveyed properties that are individually leased in favour of private ownership...

. At the top of the Upper Hutt floodplain, the river makes a sharp turn against the bedrock at the foot of the cliff at Maoribank to flow down the valley. The Upper Hutt floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...

 contains the greater portion of Upper Hutt city. The Whakatiki River joins the Hutt from the west and it is about this point the river starts to flow along the virtually straight Wellington geologic fault
Geologic fault
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock, across which there has been significant displacement along the fractures as a result of earth movement. Large faults within the Earth's crust result from the action of tectonic forces...

, which lies on the western side of the river valley. At the lower end of the Upper Hutt floodplain is Taita Gorge, which separates Upper Hutt from Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt is a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Its council has adopted the name Hutt City Council, but neither the New Zealand Geographic Board nor the Local Government Act recognise the name Hutt City. This alternative name can lead to confusion, as there are two cities in the...

, this gorge is significantly shorter and less constricting that Kaitoke gorge. The river's outflow, at Petone
Petone
Petone is a major suburb of the city of Lower Hutt in New Zealand. It is located at the southern end of the narrow triangular plain of the Hutt River, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour...

, is into Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 harbour. The geological fault which the river previously followed continues as a steep bluff at the edge of the Wellington Harbour
Wellington Harbour
Wellington Harbour is the large natural harbour at the southern tip of New Zealand's North Island. New Zealand's capital, Wellington, is on the western side of Wellington Harbour. The harbour was officially named Port Nicholson until it assumed its current name in the 1980s.In Māori the harbour is...

.

For most of its length, the Hutt is a shallow and sometimes braided
Braided river
A braided river is one of a number of channel types and has a channel that consists of a network of small channels separated by small and often temporary islands called braid bars or, in British usage, aits or eyots. Braided streams occur in rivers with high slope and/or large sediment load...

 river in a wide rocky bed (see picture), but in the Kaitoke gorge the river flows directly over bedrock
Bedrock
In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...

 and approaching the mouth at Petone the river is narrower and the banks steeper. The larger populated areas in Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt are protected from flooding by stopbanks
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...

 and introduced willow trees, as is common in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. The regular flooding of Lower Hutt resulted in high fertility land and prior to the building of state housing
State housing
State housing is the system of public housing offered to New Zealand residents on low to moderate incomes. Some 66,000 houses are managed by Housing New Zealand Corporation, most of which are owned by the government.-The Liberal Government:...

 by the Labour Government
New Zealand Labour Party
The New Zealand Labour Party is a New Zealand political party. It describes itself as centre-left and socially progressive and has been one of the two primary parties of New Zealand politics since 1935....

 starting in 1937, there were many market gardens in Lower Hutt.

The Hutt has moved significantly since European settlement, due to a major earthquake in 1855 which raised the riverbed.

State highway two follows the course of the river for most of its length, with the exception of the Kaitoke gorge and the head waters, before crossing the Rimutaka Ranges into the Wairarapa
Wairarapa
Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...

.

The river was named after Sir William Hutt
William Hutt (British MP)
Sir William Hutt KCB, PC was a British Liberal politician who was heavily involved in the colonization of New Zealand and South Australia.-Background and education:...

, chairman of the New Zealand Company
New Zealand Company
The New Zealand Company originated in London in 1837 as the New Zealand Association with the aim of promoting the "systematic" colonisation of New Zealand. The association, and later the company, intended to follow the colonising principles of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of...

. One of the Maori names for the river was Heretaunga, which is also the name of an Upper Hutt suburb and secondary school.
The river has a good stock of brown trout, and can be walked or cycled from Upper Hutt to Petone along tracks on either side, though the eastern bank is more accessible.
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