 Smith considered it important to locate the town and country areas close together and the Hutt Valley appeared to promise that space.The drawback was that his chosen locality was a mix of dense forest, scrub, flax and swamp, its river was prone to flooding and the beach so flat that when the first passenger ships began to arrive—just four days after Smith began his survey work—they were forced to anchor 1600 metres from the shore.But construction of temporary houses began, as well as the assembly of wooden houses that had been carried on each ship, while tents also soon dotted the dunes behind the beach.