The surrounding hills are mainly farm land used for sheep and cattle grazing, providing a rural backdrop to the east and west.

There are two walks between Pukerua Bay and Plimmerton (5 km south), one around the rocky coast, and one inland (part of a longer cycleway) parallel to the railway.

According to legend, the rock is the petrified wife of culture hero Haunui-a-Nanaia, who pursued her from Māhia Peninsula, naming places on the way including Manawatū, Ōhau and Turakina.

[7][8] The earliest people known to have lived in the area around Pukerua Bay were the Ngāti Ira Māori tribe and later the Muaūpoko, who built Waimapihi Pā near today's seaward end of Rawhiti Road.

According to oral tradition, the Muaūpoko 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.

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.

Most of the clifftop development dates from after World War II and Pukerua Bay has its own branch of the Returned Services Association.

Growth continued in the 1970s with the Sea Vista Drive subdivision and soon the fact that the SH 1 route, with increasing traffic, was going through the middle of Pukerua Bay became an issue.

[11] Pukerua Bay has a branch of Porirua Library, a Returned Servicemen's Association, tennis club, scout hall, sports field, and several nature reserves and trails.

The park is adjacent to the Pukerua Bay railway station, and replaces an old asphalt bowl which the City Council claims was the only purpose-built skatepark in the Southern Hemisphere when it opened in 1976.

A popular 10-kilometre walkway, the Escarpment Track, constructed as part of the national Te Araroa Trail, links Pukerua Bay with Paekākāriki.

Prominent residents are author Gay Hay, former CEO of Meridian Energy Dr Keith Turner, actor Christopher Winchester, and artist Pauline Morse.