Bay. The coastal road was closed three times within a year in 2022. The waters around Pukerua Bay, from a point north halfway to Paekakariki to Wairaka Point south of Pukerua Bay, are currently protected by a rāhui. History The earliest people known to have lived in the area around Pukerua Bay were the Ngati Iri Māori tribe and later the Muaupoko, who built Waimapihi Pā near today's seaward end of Rawhiti Road. Pukerua Bay was on the main road for Māori travellers going north or south. About 1822, it was invaded from Kapiti Island by Te Rauparaha and his Ngati Toa people. According to oral tradition, the Muaupoko people fled up the gorge of the Waimapihi stream (on the Ohariu Fault line), abandoning their treasures on the way. The land blocks originally surveyed (Wairaka in the west, Waimapihi and Pukerua in the east) were sold to settlers from Europe for farming in the late 19th century. Charles Gray was the first resident to subdivide and sell residential sections in Pukerua Bay, in the early 20th century. Pukerua Bay's development history is curious because the railway went through it (1886) for years before there was good road access (1940), so it grew at first on the waterfront as a weekend destination. The original railway station was named "Pukerua" until it was changed briefly to Waimapihi in the 1920s and then to "Pukerua Bay" to avoid confusion with "Pukerau" in the South Island. By the end of the 1920s, Pukerua Bay numbered 100 houses, a small school on land donated by Charles Gray, and a few small stores. Electricity was put through from Plimmerton to Pukerua Bay in 1927 and in 1928 the track between Plimmerton and Pukerua Bay was formed into a narrow road. The beach remained the main attraction for weekend visitors from Wellington (by steam train) as there was still no road bridge at Paremata until 1935 and no highway until the Centennial Highway was completed in 1940. Most of the clifftop development dates from after World War II and Pukerua Bay has its own branch of the Returned Services Association. Pukerua Bay experienced significant growth in the 1950s and 1960s, being connected to Wellington via the Kapiti Line (which was double-tracked to Pukerua Bay and electrified to Paekakariki in 1940) and accessible from north and south via State Highway 1 (which ran through Pukerua Bay at the