Masterton Hotels

Masterton is a town and local government district in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges. It is 100 kilometres north-east of Wellington, 28 kilometres south of Eketahuna, on the Ruamahanga River. Masterton is a thriving community with an urban population of 19,900, and district population of 23,100 (June 2008 estimates). The Wairarapa Line railway allows many residents easy access to work in the cities of Wellington, Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. Local industries involve service industries for the surrounding farming community. The town is the headquarters of the annual Golden Shears sheep-shearing competition. Named after pioneer Joseph Masters, Masterton was first settled by Europeans on 21 May 1854. It gained borough status in 1877. It did not quite qualify to be a city by 1989 when the minimum population requirement for that status was lifted from 20,000 to 50,000. The Wairarapa Line railway opened to Masterton on 1 November 1880. In 1992, Raymond Ratima bludgeoned to death seven family members in a house in Masterton. He was later found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Masterton enjoys a mild temperate climate. Due to the geography of the Wairarapa valley and the Tararua Range directly to the west, the town's temperature fluctuates more than nearby inland city of Palmerston North. Masterton experiences warmer, dry summers with highs above 30°C possible and colder winters with frequent frost and lows below 0°C.