Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Kia ora, I'm Shelyce Tansey and today on The Detail. The new Auckland City Rail Link is set to open later this year and that got us thinking. What else lies beneath Auckland Central's surface? Well, there's no better way of discovering what's underground than to go out and explore yourself.
And there's no better person to explore with than Bill Mackay, a lecturer in architecture and planning at the University of Auckland, who knows a lot about Tāmaki Makaurau's subterranean history. So we are standing currently in Myers Park at this beautiful art installation. And you were just telling me that the sound that we just heard is the taniwha.
Am I correct in saying that the stream that runs down Queen Street is named after the taniwha?
Yes, so the stream is called Waihorotu, Water of Horotu, and there was a pā up in Albert Park also called Waihorotu as well. So the stream originated in the spring in Myers Park here, and then it ran under here to Achea Square, which was a big wetland there. The Tanawhas said to have lived in the wetland there.
So this installation under Merrill Drive, under the overpass, under the road here, it's interactive. You can hear the clashing of water that evokes the stream. And you can see that we're in a watershed where a lot of water would be running downhill from the sides here. and then running through what was a big wetland and what is now Acheia Square and then moving down Queen Street.
So basically Waihorutu is exactly where Queen Street was and that's all underground now.
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Chapter 2: What lies beneath Auckland Central's surface?
When colonists arrived here and started up Auckland, one of the things they did, unfortunately, with the Waihoratu stream is they turned it into a sewer. So all the sewage, all the rubbish, you know, scraps, you name it, was dumped in there. And it was renamed the Liger Canal.
What was the state of the river like after that had happened?
It was in a terrible state. We've actually got a couple of photographs of it from that period as well.
Wow. And so they put all the sewer and stuff into it and then they just covered it up? Was that sort of the solution?
Yeah, and eventually they undergrounded the whole thing. So they built vaulted brick arches over it and it became, you know, an old school sewer running down under Queen Street.
And I can imagine that would have been quite smelly before it all was covered over. It would have been quite smelly for everyone that lived around there.
Yeah. Because it discharges in the harbour, there have been, and it's very difficult in Auckland because when we turn streams into sewers, both stormwater and waste matter from toilets and things like that go in there. Now the big effort in Auckland and the older areas is to separate those two.
So it's no problem having just rainwater going down there, discharging into the harbour, but we don't want anything else.
No. What do you think the state of Waihoratu is in right now, if we were to go down and have a look at it?
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Waihorutu stream?
How would we even go about something like that?
It's happening quite a lot in Auckland because Auckland, with the topography in Auckland being lots of hills and valleys, We had a lot of streams and thousands of them have been piped. But there's a big move these days when the Waterview Tunnel was done, a lot of the Oakley Creek upstream was daylighted as well.
So you can get, you put flora and fauna back there, you get the habitat back, we get the freshwater fish, we get the birds, you know, we get everything. It's a great idea.
And so what would something like that, what would that entail? Would we have to dig up kind of Queen Street to get it back?
Not all of it because it tends to be over on one side of Queen Street, the western side of it.
To get here, we walked past the Grand Millennium Hotel and you were telling me about some tunnels that are connected down to the carpark.
Yeah, there is still a tunnel under Merrill Drive that goes from the carpark of the Grand Millennium Hotel through to the Aotea Centre. And I last walked through that probably about six or seven years ago, but students tell me it's closed off now, unfortunately.
So it's not all covered in...
It's just like a subterranean tunnel under a road designed for pedestrians, but they've just closed it off.
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Chapter 4: How did colonization impact the Waihorutu stream?
It took about a year, I understand, about a year and a half, two years. But we actually stopped it early because as the Americans really got involved, and there were some big naval battles down in the Coral Sea, Midway, that kind of thing. They pushed the Japanese back, so there was less fear of invasion. So we actually closed down the tunnels while the war was still on.
Wow. And how deep underground are these tunnels even to begin with?
They're underground in terms of under Albert Park, but Albert Park's a hill. So it's really like a tunnel at street level going through a hill, the whole of branches that you would shelter in. But one of the main tunnels goes all the way under Albert Park and pops out in the Parnell area.
Which is quite a distance.
Yeah, so that would be terrific as a little walking or cycling route rather than going uphill, downhill, which those of us who live in Auckland are used to.
It is a pain, I will say, to walk up that hill from Parnell.
It's going to be good for you, though.
Well, it would be, yeah. I mean, a lot easier to walk underground, though. Could we one day see them reopen?
Yeah, so there were some people who were very enthusiastic about reopening them. Bill Reid has dug out a small portion of one of the tunnels and has spent the past three decades trying to convince council to reopen the rest.
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Chapter 5: What is the current state of the Waihorutu stream?
So you imagine if Waterview Tunnel was open at both ends, imagine, and it dips down, so you can imagine that you'd need to get that water out of there if there was some disastrous cyclone or something like that.
Well, exactly.
Yeah.
And you were also telling me about the, I think it's an apartment building down at Britomart that is designed to flood.
Yeah. So down in the viaduct area, there's a apartment building that's about six stories high. And that's got a big car parking basement. And the problem down there, because it's right on the water's edge, is that it basically wants to pop out of the water. Imagine that you're pushing a bucket down into bathwater. It wants to pop up. So that basement is designed to flood in a major event.
So if we had a tidal wave or a kind of a super storm surge on top of a spring tide and it flooded, it's designed to do that because it's better to write off all the cars in the basement than it is to have your whole building popping out of the ground and being destroyed.
Well, you'd probably want to state that to your insurance when you're parking down there.
Yeah, but it's all legit. It complies with the building code that's got council approval, but yeah.
And do you think with the new city rail link, do you think we could start seeing more underground projects?
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