Mount Kaukau () is a large hill in the northern suburbs of

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

near Johnsonville,

Khandallah Khandallah is a suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is located northeast of the city centre, on hills overlooking Wellington Harbour. Description The northeastern part of the suburb is dominated by a large area of park ...

and Ngaio. The summit is 445 metres above sea level and is the most visible high point in the Wellington landscape further accentuated by Wellington's main television transmitter mast, which stands 122m from the summit. The city, harbour and the Remutaka and Tararua Ranges can be seen from the summit. On a clear day Mt.

Tapuae-o-Uenuku Tapuae-o-Uenuku, formerly Mount Tapuaenuku, is the highest peak in the northeast of New Zealand's South Island. The name translates from Māori as "footprint of the rainbow", though is usually regarded as being named after Chief Tapuaenuku. At ...

and the Kaikoura Ranges in the South Island may be seen, whilst northwest is the Porirua Basin and the Tasman Sea.

Name

The hill's original name ''Tarikākā'' means 'where the parrots rested' and is shared with the nearby settlement in Ngaio at the base of the mountain. Before the clearing of the native

totara ''Podocarpus totara'' (; from the Maori-language ; the spelling "totara" is also common in English) is a species of podocarp tree endemic to New Zealand. It grows throughout the North Island and northeastern South Island in lowland, montane and ...

forest on the slopes and general area, the native parrot

kākā The New Zealand kākā (''Nestor meridionalis'') is a large species of parrot of the family Nestoridae found in New Zealand, New Zealand's native forests. The species is often known by the abbreviated name kākā, although it shares this name wi ...

was common through the city. Over a hundred years later today, the population of kākā has begun to regenerate thanks mostly to the efforts at

Zealandia Zealandia (pronounced ), also known as (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago.Gurnis, M., Hall, C.E., and Lavier, L.L., ...

, and are becoming a more regular sight throughout the city and in the rejuvenating native forest on the slopes of Mount Kaukau.

Slopes and surrounding area

Much of the eastern 'city side' slopes of Mount Kaukau make up Khandallah Park, which is one of the oldest parks in New Zealand, established in 1888 and then registered as a domain in 1909. Khandallah Park has more than 60 hectares of native forest. Native birds such as the

kererū The kererū (''Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae'') or New Zealand pigeon is a species of pigeon native to New Zealand. Johann Friedrich Gmelin described the bird in 1789 as a large, conspicuous pigeon up to in length and in weight, with a white br ...

tūī The tūī (''Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae'') is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze colored with a distinctive white throat tuft. It is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand, and the only spe ...

and

New Zealand fantail The New Zealand fantail (''Rhipidura fuliginosa'') is a small insectivorous bird, the only species of fantail in New Zealand. It has four subspecies: ''R. f. fuliginosa'' in the South Island, ''R. f. placabilis'' in the North Island, ''R. f. pe ...

are common sights when walking through the native forest. Stumps of the old totara trees can also be seen walking through the first lower parts of the forest. In mid 2017 an old bunker off Woodmancote Road, at the base of Mount Kaukau, was rediscovered after it had been sealed off and forgotten many years previously. The bunker in an 'H' shape, had been built for Royal New Zealand Signals Corps in 1942. Due to poor construction the bunker was very leaky and was never used. Mount Kaukau forms part of the Northern Skyline track from Johnsonville to Karori and Makara.

Recreation

Khandallah Park has 9 kilometres of walking tracks allowing access to the peak of Mt Kaukau from

, Johnsonville, Ngaio and

Crofton Downs Crofton Downs is an inner suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is situated between Ngaio to the northeast Wilton to the south-west and Wadestown to the south. Its border runs on the Korimako Stream that flows south into t ...

. Some tracks are also open to mountain biking and e-biking. File:View of Northern Walkway (descending Mt Kaukau).jpg, View of Northern Walkway (descending Mt Kaukau) File:View of Matiu (Somes) Island from Mt Kaukau track.jpg, View of

Matiu / Somes Island Matiu / Somes Island is the largest of three islands in the northern half of Wellington Harbour, New Zealand. It is the former site of military and quarantine internments, as well as animal quarantine until 1995. Since 1995 it has been designat ...

from Mt Kaukau track File:View of Mirimar Peninsula from Mt Kaukau track.jpg, View of

Miramar Peninsula The large Miramar Peninsula ( mi, Te Motu Kairangi) is on the southeastern side of the city of Wellington, New Zealand, at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, in Wellington's eastern suburbs. According to Māori legend, it was formed when the ...

from Mt Kaukau track

Transmitter

Kordia TV mast, Mount Kaukau, New Zealand

The 122-metre Mount Kaukau television transmitter was built in 1965 to transmit television channel WNTV1 offering improved coverage over the channel's previous transmitter at Mount Victoria. Today it is the main television and FM radio transmitter for the Wellington metropolitan area. In May 2022,

Kordia Kordia is a New Zealand government-owned company, offering a range of technology services and solutions to businesses. It provides a range of services, including mission-critical connectivity, cloud and cyber security services, as well as manag ...

removed the top 18 metres of the aerial, as the section was redundant following the end of analogue television broadcast.

Transmission Frequencies

The following table contains television and radio frequencies currently operating at Mount Kaukau: https://rrf.rsm.govt.nz/

Former analogue television frequencies

The following frequencies were used until 29 September 2013, when Kaukau switched off analogue broadcasts (see

Digital changeover dates in New Zealand The digital changeover is the name given to the process by which analogue television in New Zealand was replaced with digital terrestrial television. It is sometimes referred to as the "analogue switch off". In New Zealand, the switch off of ana ...

Kaukau Challenge

Every year Khandallah School, which is at the base of Mount Kaukau, organises a fun walk / fun run from the school to the summit and back, called th
Kaukau Challenge
The Kaukau Challenge has been an annual event since 2006 with about 500 people taking part each year.

Snowfall of 2011

In mid-August 2011, two Wellington men, Nick Fone and Daniel McFadyen claimed to be the first people to ski and snowboard down Mount Kaukau when they took advantage of the unusual weather pattern delivering snow to most parts of the North Island. As Wellington has a temperate climate, snow down to near sea level is extremely rare, happening less often than once every 15 years.

References

{{commons category, Mount Kaukau Wellington City Tourist attractions in Wellington City Kauk Towers in New Zealand