Waitetuna

Three through roads serve Waitetuna.

The main road, SH23, is served by the Hamilton to Raglan bus.[6] It was formed as a deviation from Old Mountain Rd between 1907 and 1912.

Waitetuna Valley Road runs south to Te Pahu and Te Awamutu. It follows the old Aramiro Track,[7] which was widened to a 6 ft (1.8 m) track in 1909[8] and to Fillery Rd about 1990.[9]

Old Mountain Road was originally the main road. It was formed as an extension to the first road, built in 1863 from Raglan via Okete to the Waitetuna River.[10] The county history said, "For a dozen years or more before the county was formed (1875), 10 miles of roughly formed dirt road, wide enough to carry horse-drawn drays, linked Raglan township with the Waitetuna River. From there the packhorse route (originally known as the Tikihouhou Track) made by the Army during the Waikato War, wound a tortuous way across the ranges, but it was too narrow, and too steep in parts, to carry vehicles."[11] It became the through road to Hamilton in 1879.[12]

The main road was metalled between 1914[11] and 1921[13] and sealing started in 1937,[14] but wasn't completed until 1961.[11]

Waitetuna almost got a railway. In 1923 the Waikato-West Coast railway district was set up under the 1914 Local Railways Act.[15] It got a detailed survey done for a 2 ft 6in gauge railway[16] and had a contractor ready to build a line[17] through the Kaniwhaniwha and Waitetuna valleys, joined by an 18 ch (1,200 ft; 360 m) tunnel,[18] past Te Uku School and Okete Falls and along the edge of the harbour to Raglan.[5] However, it was opposed by local MP Alexander Young,[19] the proposed local rate was defeated in an election in 1923[20] and the Board was wound up in 1928.[21]