Ngaio, New Zealand

Ngaio is an inner suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Kaukau, 3500 metres north of the city's CBD. It was settled in the 1840s and many of its streets are named after early settler families. Ngaio was originally a logging community known first as Upper Kaiwarra, then as Crofton until 1908. The area was administratively part of a separate local authority called the Onslow Borough Council which amalgamated with Wellington City in 1919.
Ngaio takes its name from a New Zealand native tree, the ngaio.

Facilities

Ngaio contains a library, multi-purpose hall, pharmacy, petrol station, two cafés, Plunket rooms, dentist, medical centre, tennis courts and a variety of small shops.
Ngaio's dwellings are a mix of ages and styles, including original colonial buildings built in the 1860s, railway cottages and bungalows built in the 1920s and 30s, and 1960s weatherboard houses. The Tarikaka Settlement is a small area of former railway cottages built in 1928 on Tarikaka Street, Bombay Street, Carroll Street, Khandallah Road, Ngata Street, Raihania Lane and Pomare Street.

Library

operates Cummings Park Library which is situated at the south entrance of Cummings Park on Ottawa Road. Opened in 1989, and refurbished in 2008, the library's entrance is paved with 850 tiles made by local potters Paul Winspear and Paul Wotherspoon and decorated by children from Ngaio and Chartwell Schools.
The library's Māori name is Korimako, named after the Korimako stream that runs through Ngaio.
The library offers internet access, free Wi-Fi, word processing, printing and faxing. The library collection includes a special collection of local oral history, detailing the memories of prominent Ngaio locals.
Regular preschool and educational programs are run during the week including Baby Rock & Rhyme for babies, storytime for children aged 3 – 4 and Kōhunga Kōrero: Pakiwaitara i roto i te reo Māori – monthly storytime in te reo Māori for children aged 2–6 years old.

Town hall

The Ngaio town hall offers a venue for community services, sports, performances, cultural and private events. The hall contains a stage, kitchen, drop in centre and the Ngaio toy library. The hall has a capacity of 300 people and has an accessible entry ramp at the front. The hall was opened in 1924 and was renovated in 1989.
Groups that regularly use the hall include:

Bodh Gaya Buddhist Centre
Ngaio Badminton Club
Ngaio Drop In Centre
Ngaio Toy Library
Onslow Table Tennis Club

There is also occasionally a book sale there, organised by the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.

Parks and reserves

Trelissick Park runs from the bottom of the Ngaio Gorge road and runs across the borders of nearby Wadestown and Crofton Downs. The area acts as an ecological corridor between the Harbour and the northern suburbs. The park has historic gunpowder magazines built in the 1870s. While the park contains areas of original forest remnant, it is also under on-going restoration work led by the Trelissick Park Group that was set up in 1991. Since then, over 80,000 trees have been planted in the area, along with weed management, trapping and bridge building.
Orleans Makererua reserve runs from Makererua street to Orleans street and has remnants of the native bush that was originally throughout Ngaio.
Cummings park is off Ottawa road and has a children's playground and dog exercise area.

Transport

The suburb is served by the Johnsonville Branch commuter railway which connects it to the central city. There are two railway stations in Ngaio; Ngaio railway station and Awarua Street railway station.
Buses operate two bus routes through Ngaio; numbers 25 and 26. Route 22 is operated by NZ Bus

Ngaio Gorge

Ngaio Gorge is the main road between Ngaio and Wellington city and is a key transport route in the event of an earthquake. The road is described as a "primary access road for the Onslow area" and a "critical escape route from the city should Ngauranga Gorge become impassable" by Onslow-Western Ward Councillor, Simon Woolf. Heavy rains in July 2017 resulted in a large landslide, with boulders and rubble completely covering the road. In the following weeks, 3500 cubic metres of rubble were cleared and a temporary 42 metre long shipping container wall was installed to protect the road from further slips. A temporary road next to Trelissick Park was created to handle uphill traffic when the main road was reduced to one lane. The Wellington City Council planned to extend the shipping container wall in preparation for construction of a permanent solution in late 2019.

Demographics

Ngaio, comprising the statistical areas of Ngaio North and Ngaio South, covers. It had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km².
Ngaio had a population of 5,634 at the 2018 New Zealand census, an increase of 135 people since the 2013 census, and an increase of 375 people since the 2006 census. There were 2,127 households, comprising 2,742 males and 2,892 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.95 males per female, with 1,260 people aged under 15 years, 840 aged 15 to 29, 2,982 aged 30 to 64, and 558 aged 65 or older.
Ethnicities were 89.1% European/Pākehā, 6.4% Māori, 1.7% Pasifika, 7.9% Asian, and 3.1% other ethnicities. People may identify with more than one ethnicity.
The percentage of people born overseas was 23.4, compared with 27.1% nationally.
Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 60.6% had no religion, 29.2% were Christian, 0.3% had Māori religious beliefs, 0.7% were Hindu, 0.5% were Muslim, 0.9% were Buddhist and 2.5% had other religions.
Of those at least 15 years old, 2,448 people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 204 people had no formal qualifications. 1,848 people earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 2,664 people were employed full-time, 657 were part-time, and 126 were unemployed.

Name	Area	Population	Density	Households	Median age	Median income
Ngaio North	0.82	2,547	3,106	954	38.5 years	$57,200
Ngaio South	1.37	3,087	2,253	1,173	39.9 years	$59,400
New Zealand					37.4 years	$31,800

Education

School enrolment zone

Ngaio is within the enrolment zones for Wellington Girls' College, Onslow College, St Oran's College, Raroa Normal Intermediate and Ngaio School.

Primary school

Ngaio School is a coeducational contributing state primary school, established in 1908. In 1928 it was moved to its current location at 45 Abbott Street. It has a roll of as of The school does not have a uniform. Its school song is Tūrangawaewae, Māori for "A Place to Stand". The school acts as a Civil defense centre set up by the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office to provide support and information to their surrounding communities. They do not store emergency food, water or other supplies.

Pre-school

Preschool education is provided by Ngaio Kindergarten, Ngaio Playcentre, Ngaio Childspace, Grace Kindergarten, Trelissick Preschool. and Te Kohanga Reo o Ngaio.

Churches

Ngaio has three churches. The Ngaio Union Church has modern buildings and serves the Methodist and Presbyterian community. The nearby Anglican All Saints Church, with its distinctive brick tower visible from most places in the suburb was designed by renowned church architect Frederick de Jersey Clere and built in 1928. In 2011, the All Saints Church was closed after engineers deemed the church a serious earthquake risk following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Also the Onslow Community Church which has a recently built modern hall in Ngatoto Street near the Ngaio/Khandallah boundary.

History

Pre 1840: Tarikākā

The area that modern day Ngaio occupies was originally called 'Tarikākā' by Māori, which means 'nest of the kākā', named after the noisy parrot that lived in the area. The area was not occupied by Māori, but many Māori tracks ran through the area, including what became the Old Porirua Road. And a track to the ancient Ohariu Pā on Mākara Beach, from today's Awarua Street.

1840–1858: Upper Kaiwharawhara

The area was named Upper Kaiwharawhara or Upper Kaiwarra in the 1840s by Captain Edward Daniell who purchased 2,500 acres from the NZ company after selling his commission. In 1845, Daniell built a house in the area near the current Trelissick Crescent and called it "Trelissick" after his old family property in England. Daniell built the 'Bridle Trail' from his property down through current Kaiwharawhara to the harbour. An agreement was made between Daniell and four sawyers in 1842 to allow them to build the Kaiwara saw mill on his property. The mill was built close to the present day junction of Crofton Road and Kenya Street. A recent subdivision built off Old Porirua road honoured Daniell by naming the road leading to it 'Captain Edward Daniell Drive'.
The mill was described by Edward Jerningham Wakefield in his book, "Adventure in New Zealand from 1839 to 1844: With Some Account of the Beginning of the British Colonization of the Islands":
"In the bottom of a thickly wooded valley, only accessible over a steep ridge, a natural fall in the narrow rocky gully of the stream afforded great facilities for erecting a dam. A platform and rough shed extended from side to side of the gully over the dam-head; the wheel and machinery were working underneath; and two or three circular saws were kept in constant employment. The open sides of the workshop displayed this curious work of art in the midst of nature's wildest scenery... The stern craggy sides of the gully might be imagined to frown upon so strange a neighbor as the fretting wheel. Two or three log-huts under the forest sent up their curl of smoke; while the neat housewives, with their flaxen-haired children, stood at the doors to receive with joyful pride the praises bestowed by visitors on the untiring industry of their husbands."
The mill was taken over by John Chew in 1863, who built a cottage made of local tōtara, rimu and kauri. Chew Cottage still stands today at 19 Ottawa Road which is the now the main road in Ngaio after starting life as the track for John Chew's timber.