Bombay Hills

The Bombay Hills are a range of hills to the south of Auckland in New Zealand's North Island. They are located 40 kilometres (24.9 miles) southeast of Auckland, close to the town of Pukekohe. State Highway 1 here reaches its highest point between Auckland and Tirau in the eastern Waikato Region, 134 kilometres (83.3 miles) to the southeast.

While they may appear to be just a spur of the Hunua Ranges, they are geologically quite distinct, being mainly of volcanic origin.

Though only a small and seemingly insignificant range of hills, they lie at the southern boundary of the Auckland Region, and serve as a verbal divide between Auckland and the rest of New Zealand.

Aucklanders and other New Zealanders have a mostly light-hearted "love-hate" relationship. Stereotypically, Aucklanders view parts of the country "south of the Bombay Hills" as provincial and unsophisticated, while the rest of the country sees Aucklanders as brash and arrogant. For this reason, the boundary between Auckland and its southern neighbours bears great significance. People on both sides of the boundary are as likely to use the phrase "New Zealand stops at the Bombay Hills".

References

• "Bombay Hills", from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966. Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 26 September 2006. Accessed 15 March 2007.