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.