Ōkato

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Ōkato has all the elements of a New Zealand rural community with sporting facilities (rugby grounds, bowling club, squash courts, tennis courts and swimming pool), Coastal Taranaki School, a police station, and a volunteer fire brigade.

Ōkato was also notable as the home of Ōkato Cheese which was manufactured by the Ōkato Co-operative Dairy Company. This manufacturing site closed some years after merging with Egmont Co-operative Dairy.

Activities in the Ōkato area include the Stony River walkway which affords a number of locations from which to take photos of Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont)

History: Ōkato is a town and rural service centre 26 km south-west of New Plymouth on State Highway 45. Ōkato is one of the three surviving northern taranaki military settlements established in the 1860s (along with Urenui and Lepperton).

The Stony River (Hangatahua), which arises in the Ahukawakawa Swamp in Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki/Egmont) National Park, flows past the western side of Ōkato. Blue Rātā Reserve on the banks of the river is home to a unique variety of northern rātā (Metrosideros robusta) which begins its life as a true tree. Usually northern rātā starts out as an epiphyte in the canopy of a host tree which it eventually overshadows.