Henderson Valley is a small community which is part of the beautiful Waitakere Ranges. It is located approximately 20 km from the CBD and is close to numerous breath-taking bush walks, vineyards and beaches. The major road in the locality is Henderson Valley Road, and Scenic Drive is on the western boundary.
The Henderson Valley was traditionally known as Ōpanuku which means “the place of Panuku” and the name referred to the whole of the valley from the head of the stream to Henderson Creek. It is said that Nihotupu a Turehu, thought to be one of the first inhabitants of the Waitakere Ranges, lived in a cave at the base of the Rua-o-te-whenua hill (on which the television tower now stands) in Waiatarua. Much of the land now in Henderson Valley was bought from local Maori in 1853 as a small part of the large Hikurangi purchase negotiated by the Crown. The Opanuku Stream which flows down the valley was one of the earliest waterways to be dammed for kauri logging in West Auckland, in the 1850s.[7] The valley was settled by pākehā by the 1880s, with Henderson Valley Road providing access.