Karaka

By Charlotte Cossar.

This is horse country and the residents are very proud of it. For years, this area, just over the other side of the motorway from Papakura, has had a reputation of being a place where prominent and famous people associated with the horse industry live.

However, recently this has changed. Popular with families moving south away from the busy suburban streets in search of a slower and more relaxing way of life, the area has been carved into adequate-sized blocks.

Many of the homes are big, most have pools and often man-made ponds - a trend of the area. Karaka is the place to be to experience wide-open spaces and clean air.

A feature of the area is the spectacular rural views gained from most properties across the gently sloping rural countryside.

The Karaka (as the area was called) was originally a farming area. A barge operated from Weymouth to the Karaka side of the Manukau Harbour from 1859, and in the early 1940s during the Second World War peas were grown for extra income. After this, the area was used for mixed farming with dairy farms being the most prominent up to the 1980s. Today, while there are still some larger farms remaining, most have been subdivided or converted into horse studs.

Only 20 minutes from Auckland International Airport and 25 minutes from downtown Auckland, many residents think nothing of commuting to the city. No longer considered a long way out, especially with Auckland's boundaries expanding so quickly, Karaka is now just another Auckland suburb - albeit a very desirable and popular one.

SCHOOLS

Karaka has a private pre-school and learning centre, the Te Hihi School on Linwood Rd and Karaka School in Blackbridge Rd provides education from infants to form 2 and there is a bus service to Rosehill College. There are also buses from Papakura to private schools in town. Attracting many families to the area is the relatively new Strathallan School, which offers non-denominational co-educational day school for students from pre-school through to secondary level.

AMENITIES

Karaka has a sports community centre and function centre, and there are numerous clubs, including athletics, outdoor and indoor bowls, badminton, tennis, rugby and soccer.

General shopping is only a few minutes away in Papakura and Pukekohe, where there are also a library and swimming pool complexes, netball courts and cricket and rugby playing fields. There is also a new, rather large, indoor gymnasium in Papakura.

HOUSE PRICES

There are three small areas of residential size lots on Linwood Rd at Karaka, Te Hihi and Kingseat. Properties in these areas sell for between $200,000 and $450,000. Lifestyle blocks in the area are anywhere from $400,000 to $3 million, depending on size and quality of home, and larger farms would be in the vicinity of $25,000 to $30,000 per acre.