Hakataramea

Hakataramea, spelt Hakateramea in some older sources, is a rural village located in the southern Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. It is in the Waimate District and sits on the north bank of the Waitaki River at its confluence with the Hakataramea River.HistoryThe area in and around Hakataramea was leased by the New Zealand and Australia Land Company in the 1860s and freehold settlement began in 1878. On 7 November 1881, a combined road/rail bridge from Kurow to Hakataramea across the Waitaki River was opened. The bridge carried the Kurow Branch railway into Hakataramea, and this branch line provided an economically valuable connection to the Main South Line, from which it diverged in Pukeuri, north of Oamaru. Plans existed to extend the line beyond Hakataramea up the Hakataramea River valley to a proposed town that would have been home to 10,000 people, but neither town nor railway extension were ever built. Railway services consisted of mixed trains hauled by steam locomotives. Due to low traffic and the closeness of the more significant Kurow railway station, the 1.76 km of trackage between Kurow and Hakataramea closed on 14 July 1930. The road/rail bridge into Hakataramea is now road only and carries State Highway 82.