Notional Significance: Skyway

[See all Notion­al Sig­ni­fic­ance posts]

The stretch of motor­way that leaps out from the bluff was known in the Six­ties as the “Kaiwarra-Thorndon Sky­way”, incon­gru­ously com­bin­ing the Jet­so­ni­an optim­ism of the term “sky­way” with a mangled con­trac­tion of “Kaiwhar­awhara” that today would only be used by Pakeha blokes of a cer­tain age. Both the sky­way and the land it avoids are human con­structs: one a wrig­gling, rest­less path through unen­cumbered air, the oth­er an inten­tion­ally fea­ture­less reclam­a­tion. From up on the bluff the land looks tem­por­ary, pro­vi­sion­al; a jumbled flot­sam of ship­ping con­tain­ers, Nis­sen huts, skips and chain-link that might has well have been depos­ited by a reced­ing tide.

On a more typ­ic­al Wel­ling­ton day, the space beneath the fly­over would feel as these spaces usu­ally do: dank, oppressed, musty and grim. But in today’s heat the sub-high­way air is pleas­antly cool beneath the dark con­crete ceil­ing, and the web forge between the car­riage­ways casts a dis­tor­ted grid of shad­ows across the cobbled incline, like the ripples of a stream. The space below is an elec­tric-fence sanc­tu­ary, a tem­por­ary home to brash orange machinery, road­side bar­ri­ers and fen­cing sup­plies, and also, bizar­rely, a giant head­less chick­en, fash­ioned from cor­rug­ated iron and with a neon-bright tube pro­ject­ing from its arse. Perched between brick and crib walls, trussed up with cables, it’s going nowhere.

I’d inten­ded to con­tin­ue straight down beneath the elev­ated high­way to Thorndon Quay, but a bloom of graf­fiti and anoth­er hand-beaten path tempt me away, up the oth­er bank to a sliv­er of scrub, wedged between the Armco and the rear gar­dens of Tinakori Rd. I’m just metres from the back of Kath­er­ine Mansfield’s birth­place, but that’s a well-trod­den her­it­age-industry path, so instead I pick my way through weeds and broken glass around the heav­ily-tagged rear walls of a red-brick bunker that turns out to be a bridge club. Past a couple of Tinakori houses, and I’m back at the cliff’s edge, approach­ing the dis­tinct­ive white wooden rail­ings that indic­ate a steep ped­es­tri­an short­cut down to the Quay.

In one sense, I have reached the end of Wel­ling­ton: this was the north­ern edge of the Mein Smith map; bey­ond here there was noth­ing but the harbour’s break­ing waves and a treach­er­ous coastal route towards the hin­ter­land. It was also a site of mul­tiple sig­ni­fic­ance to Maori, near the Pa-kuao kainga, the Whakahikuwai and Wai-paekaka streams, and the start of the Owhariu-Thorndon track, which wound up the the hill through what are now the sub­urbs of Wadestown and Crofton Downs. But this is one place where I can’t dodge the Mans­field con­nec­tion, giv­en that it’s the site for the oft-quoted excerpt from The Wind Blows:

“They can­not walk fast enough. Their heads bent, their legs just touch­ing, they stride like one eager per­son through the town, down the asphalt zig­zag where the fen­nel grows wild, and on to the esplanade. It is dusky — just get­ting dusky. The wind is so strong that they have to fight their way through it, rock­ing like two old drunk­ards. All the poor little pahu­tukawas [sic] on the esplanade are bent to the ground.”

It’s a recog­nis­ably Wel­ling­ton scene, but what strikes me is that the pohu­tukawa are now vast, intransigent, multi-trunked beasts, and that ref­er­ence to them as “poor little” sap­lings emphas­ises their own status as rel­at­ively recent immig­rants to this har­bour. Under their deep­en­ing shade, I zig down the zag and out onto the former esplanade, now the land­locked Thorndon Quay. I have to curve away from the high­way, around former wool­stores (now a sed­ate crypto-mall for house-proud middle-class design addicts, com­plete with European fur­niture show­rooms, archi­tects’ stu­di­os and a bijoux French mar­ket), but then I stumble across an almost-hid­den sub­way, slid­ing under­ground towards the sky­way. Signs tell me that I’m not wel­come, but there is no gate, so I decide to invest­ig­ate.

The under­pass is adequately lit, but reeks of damp con­crete and uniden­ti­fied pet­ro­chem­ic­als. Pipes and cables march neatly across the walls, and white rect­angles mark the places where graf­fiti has been freshly buffed from the stippled plaster. The tun­nel bends right, slopes up, and depos­its me among a tangle of rail lines, the motor­way high above. Gravel, peel­ing paint, great slow fans turn­ing above con­crete sheds. A train trundles past, Sunday pas­sen­gers head­ing home from a shop­ping trip to town or look­ing for­ward to an after­noon at the beach. It’s the first of many entan­gle­ments between the rail­way and the Road of Nation­al Sig­ni­fic­ance: their paths and his­tor­ies are inex­tric­ably inter­twined, and no mat­ter how much NZTA and their mas­ter want to down­play the sig­ni­fic­ance of rail trans­port, its import­ance to Wel­ling­ton and the region is undeni­able. It’s a Rail­way of Loc­al, Region­al and Nation­al Sig­ni­fic­ance.

I look up to the hefty, chunk­ily-coffered under­side of the motor­way and the rude stumpy legs that sup­port it. It may have been regarded as an engin­eer­ing mar­vel at the time, but now it lacks the fin­esse, the eco­nomy of means and above all the aspir­a­tion to weight­less­ness that I would asso­ci­ate with the word “sky­way”. Pho­tos of the young motor­way tell a dif­fer­ent story: Einhorn’s ori­gin­al design had del­ic­ately tapered stan­chions beneath the light­weight on-ramps, and even the simple cyl­indric­al pil­lars beneath the main decks were fluted, as a faint nod to Ion­ic columns. Now they are all grace­less hef­fa­lumps, pre­sum­ably encased and entombed after a later strength­en­ing exer­cise. No doubt this was a sens­ible meas­ure, but one per­formed with such vis­ion­less prag­mat­ism that it reminds me that now engin­eer­ing is rarely a noble sci­ence; more a branch of account­ing.

I could tres­pass fur­ther among the mar­shal­ing yards, but instead I return to the main road, which now becomes the Hutt Rd. The busi­nesses are mostly mat­ter-of-fact, though the former Flamingo and Elle’s Food Bar offer faded glor­ies in shattered neon and overop­tim­ist­ic pas­tels. Open-air stacks of pipes and land­scap­ing mater­i­als (Otago Col­oured, Bark Nug­gets, Moon­fleck Pebbles — the raw stuff of the earth gathered, filtered and poet­i­cised for con­sump­tion) show that this place is not only dom­in­ated by the pres­ence of infra­struc­ture, but also offers the prom­ise of new infra­struc­ture. Gun shops, pan­el­beat­ers, rent­al cars and defunct brothels: the busi­ness of edges and the edge of busi­ness. For such a no-non­sense place, the names are exot­ic and almost medi­aev­al. Nikau Pal­matum, Can­ni­bal Cre­ations, the majest­ic Kings of Stor­age and Join­ery, Sala­man­der Res­tor­a­tion. The next time my sala­man­der is feel­ing jaded, I will know where to bring it for some recu­per­at­ive care.

Next I nego­ti­ate a land­scape of over­bridges, their under­sides a con­crete forest of slender square columns and flattened arches. This is an earli­er wave of infra­struc­ture, a rem­nant of the pat­ri­ot­ic mod­ern­isa­tion binge that led up to the 1940 Centen­ni­al Exhib­i­tion, and while it would be a stretch to call it “eleg­ant”, there’s a Pir­ane­sian depth to the layered arches that brings a grim rich­ness to the jour­ney. This is also a place of con­nec­tions: the John­son­ville line slink­ing over­head towards its first tun­nel; the gate­way to the ferry ter­min­al; links through space and time to the rel­ics of the Exhib­i­tion, dis­persed from Ron­go­tai to Kel­burn, the water­front and fur­ther.

In the shade of the last over­bridge, I pause to reapply sun­screen, which has been sluicing off my red­den­ing skin in the late sum­mer heat. As soon as I stop, I am hailed by a half-famil­i­ar fig­ure: it’s an acquaint­ance of mine, accom­pan­ied by out-of-town vis­it­ors on a per­verse shop­ping trip through this dusty grey world. After exchan­ging pleas­ant­ries and expres­sions of sur­prise, one of his com­pan­ions asks if it would be rude if she could ask for some of my sun­screen. My friend laughs and says “You’re in New Zea­l­and now: sun­screen, beer and salty snacks are all regarded as com­mon prop­erty.” I con­cur, and after we’ve shared brief con­ver­sa­tion and chem­ic­al pre­cau­tions, I leave behind this very Wel­ling­ton moment and strike out for Kaiwhar­awhara.