Huntly Primary School

Story

Huntly is a town in the Waikato district and region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is on State Highway 1, 93 kilometres south of Auckland and 29 kilometres north of Hamilton. It is situated on the North Island Main Trunk railway and straddles the Waikato River. It is within the Waikato District which is in the northern part of the Waikato Region local government area.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 railway from Auckland reached Huntly in 1877, when the Huntly Railway Station was opened.Major industriesHuntly Power Station is a large gas/coal-fired power station, prominently situated on the western bank of the Waikato River. It is New Zealand's largest thermal power station, situated in the area which 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 farmland and lakes (many of them former open-pit mines) which are used for coarse fishing, yachting and waterskiing. Kimihia Wetland was created to cope with subsidence and treat water from Huntly East Mine.