Wainuiomata River

explanation refers to women who came over the Wainuiomata Hill to evade marauding tribes from the north, and who sat wailing by the stream after the slaughter of their menfolk.

From this we have "faces streaming with water" or "tears"[citation needed] - although the name could equally refer to the large pools of water which lay over the swampy surface (face) of the northern end of the Valley, or to the river itself, which can flood the Wainui (Coast Road) valley.

The earliest settlements were based around the river[citation needed] where the timber mills supplied the Wellington region where the demand was great in the 1850s and 1860s.

In 1879 the Wellington ratepayers voted to extend their water supply, and by 1884 a dam was built[by whom?]

The establishment of the waterworks meant the coming of the telephone although, by 1921, there were still only two subscribers.