New Zealand - Huntly

Huntly main street with its beautiful garden and rest areas.

Sent by Russell, a postcrosser from Auckland, New Zealand. This postcard was sent on 26th February 2011, the day Christchurch was hit by an earthquake.

This is from Wikipedia : Huntly (population 7,067) is a town in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is on State Highway 1, 93 kilometres south of Auckland and 35 kilometres north of Hamilton. It is situated on the North Island Main Trunk Railway and straddles the Waikato River.

Huntly was called Rahui Pokeka when migrants settled the town some time in the 1850s. The Huntly name was adopted in the 1870s when the postmaster named it after Huntly, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. He used an old 'Huntley Lodge' stamp to stamp mail from the early European settlement. The 'Lodge' was later dropped and the spelling changed to also drop the additional 'e'.

The town is very well known for its large coal-fired power station, situated on the western bank of the Waikato River. Huntly power station is New Zealand's largest thermal power station, situated in the area which also is New Zealand's largest producer of coal, producing over 10,000 tonnes a day. The area has a very long history of coal mining, with both open pit and classical mines operating or having operated here. The major New Zealand clients for the mined coal are the power station and the New Zealand Steel mill at Glenbrook. Huntly is also surrounded by rich farmland and beautiful lakes (many of them former open-pit mines) which are used for coarse fishing, yachting and waterskiing.[citation needed]

Huntly falls within the Waikato District Council and Environment Waikato local government boundaries.