The Birchville community is spread out along both banks of the Hutt River in a long fairly narrow valley.

In 1982, the New Zealand Geographic Board clarified that Birchville, rather than Parkdale, Rivervale, Akatarawa, or Gillespies Road was the official locality name.

[3] On 4th (or 5th) August that year, a party of 5, led by Ernst Diffenbach, using a punt to travel up-river, had reached the Akatarawa River junction.

However, over the next few years the state of these wooden bridges deteriorated so much that they eventually had to be closed to vehicle traffic for safety reasons.

In October 1998 another flood so damaged the remaining piers and structure of this 1880s vintage bridge that it needed to be demolished.

[citation needed] There is now little physical evidence to show where this bridge crossed the Hutt River other than power lines that align with a paper road shown on some maps.

As at 31 October 2015 the Upper Hutt City Council had not determined the cause of the failure, but it indicated that the bridge would probably need to be replaced and this would probably take several months to a year to happen.

[citation needed] The remains of this first concrete bridge's piers and abutments can still be seen in the riverbed and on the river banks today.

Stop Banks were also constructed north of the new bridge to prevent flooding of the Parkdale subdivision[citation needed] that was being developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Also, the Cannon Point Walkway track, which passes the Birchville Dam, can be accessed from the river trail at the end of Bridge Road.

North-east of the Akatarawa Road bridge, the river trail extends on both banks but there is no crossing available upstream.