MOSO

Can someone please give me a lowdown on Upper Hutt - schooling (both primary and secondary), housing, commuting, reliability of trains, leisure activites etc?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks

Maz

Jac n Adie are your best bets here.

irnbru14

Does this mean, conversley, you can do an Updown on Lower Hutt

Maz

Yes. Now get back to work!

SidNZ

Hi Moso,

We have lived in Upper Hutt since we arrived three and half years ago and we love the place.

I can't help with schools but you can check out the city on this website:
www.upperhuttcity.com

There are plenty of houses including a lot of new ones (see trademe.co.nz).

The train service into Wellington is okay and in the peak periods the train runs every 20 minutes. There are problems on the line sometimes but it is generally reliable. Driving to Wellington in the morning takes me around 45 minutes provided I leave at 7.00am.

Cheers,

Sid

zoej

Hi, we live in Upper hutt too. We are based in Silverstream - it has a decile 10 primary - apparently the best in the valley! Anyway Josh loves it. There is also loads of train links to wellington and bus links and very easy road access to welly, lower hutt, over the haywards to Porirua and Kapiti and also easy to get over the Rimatakas to the Wiararapa.
There is a great pool, new cinema, its not as good as lower hutt for retail therapy shopping (10 mins away), but has everything you need (supermarkets etc) and plenty of local shops in various places too - corner shops etc.
Plus just over into whitmans valley is the short straw cafe - bliss!!!! The ultimate straw house!

House price - its catching up, but more affordable than wellington and some areas of lower Hutt.

joandmike

Hi Moso

We are in the same boat as you with regards schools etc although looking to live in Karori and coincidentially it would appear that you live 15 minutes down the road from us in good old blighty. I have tried this link http://www.tki.org.nz/e/schools/ which is good - it gives information about the schools together with their ERO (which is very similar to an Ofsted report). I have also found that any of the schools that I have contacted have been very helpful and sent loads of information. Good Luck.

MOSO

We've been looking at Karori mainly too. We went out in Feb and the kids spent the day at Karori Normal school where they have places (via ballot) and they thoroughly enjoyed it - especially eating a picnic lunch in the playground! We liked the look of Upper Hutt when we drove through it on our way up to Napier but I think it's probably too far out. We're trying to avoid commuting, but you can certainly get more for your money in Upper Hutt than Karori.

We're now in the situation of many - we need to sell the house here in order to move which is a nightmare at the moment. We've got 2 people ready to make offers but they haven't sold their homes so we're edging closer but not yet close enough!

Have you been out to Karori yourselves?

happynz

That's quite the norm. New Zealand schools don't do school dinners. The overwhelming majority of students pack their lunches. There often is a 'tuck' shop on the school grounds, but the offerings of scuzzy sausage rolls and gristly pies are not too appealing.