pakuranga

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Suburb south-west of Howick, in Auckland. Until the 1950s Pakuranga was sparsely settled and largely farmland. A rising demand for housing in Auckland saw it transformed into a new suburb. In 1965 the Fletcher Construction Company developed Pakuranga Town Centre and Tī Rākau Drive. Housing companies then built thousands of middle-income homes. In the 1970s, Pakuranga became known as Vim Valley – after a ‘typical Pakuranga housewife’ was used in a television commercial for Vim, a cleaning product. For many, it was the archetypal middle-class suburb.

Meaning of place name
A contraction of Te Pakūrangarāhihi (the battle of the sun's rays), the name given to a clash between Waitākere priests and a Hūnua war party sent to retrieve Hinemairangi, a patupaiarehe from the Hūnua Ranges in east Auckland, from the Waitākere Ranges in the west. Waitākere priests chanted incantations, bringing down super-heated sunrays on the Hūnua. The Hūnua priest responded in kind, and the Tāmaki (Auckland) isthmus erupted in fire.

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