Notional Significance: Gorge

[See all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts]

The stretch of Hutt Rd from Kai­warawhara to Ngau­ran­ga is a long, dry slog through an arti­fi­cial val­ley. The west­ern side is almost nat­ur­al, cov­ered by tena­cious regen­er­a­tion, but often cut, but­tressed and bat­tered to keep the slope from fail­ing, occa­sion­al­ly sliced by gul­lies and roads that scrab­ble up to to the mon­eyed cliffs above. The east­ern side is poor­er in every sense. Between the road and the low bank of motor­way that forms the oth­er wall of the val­ley there’s a rib­bon of half-land, ini­tial­ly lit­tered with fal­ter­ing indus­try and big-box DIY (Place­mak­ers in a place­less space), then a strip of scrub­by green which exists only to mit­i­gate and sep­a­rate. Its only role is to not be any­thing else.

At the cusp between the two lies an aban­doned petrol sta­tion. On dirty glass the clean type reads “VENDING ROOM CLOSED”, then apol­o­gis­es cor­po­rate­ly before inform­ing you that “Cold drinks are still avail­able from the vend­ing machine”. But that too is dead — elec­tric­i­ty deac­ti­vat­ed, coin slot gath­er­ing rust — and the toi­lets (“Exeloo facil­i­ties are designed for your com­fort and safe­ty”) are equal­ly defunct. It’s an instant ruin of the Oil Age, as blind, emp­ty and obso­lete as the think­ing that con­tin­ues to pour bil­lions into motor­way con­struc­tion. Unser­viced and incon­ve­nienced, I drag myself onward.

The rail lines begin to diverge, the Hutt-bound tracks now hug­ging the pave­ment while the Main Trunk loops away and climbs a gen­tle bank, wind­ing up for its leap into the hill­side. I check the Hutt line both ways, check again for any­one watch­ing, and hop across the white rail­ing and the nar­row tracks. I enter the non-land, the “verge” in many sens­es, a park­land glimpsed from car or car­riage but nev­er intend­ed for human habi­ta­tion. The com­bi­na­tion of soft lush grass and mod­est copses should evoke the eter­nal savan­na, the evo­lu­tion­ary Eden of Dut­tonesque rever­ie, but instead it’s an uncan­ny val­ley of land­scap­ing wrong­ness. Cap­tured rivulets trick­le blind­ly among weeds; cars growl and thun­der just out of sight; rails and warn­ing signs admon­ish inter­lop­ers; the only spoor is rab­bit drop­pings and graf­fi­ti on rot­ting bill­boards.

At the point where the North Island Main Trunk Line clam­bers over the road and into its first long tun­nel, I scram­ble back over the lines and onto the foot­path. The rail­way bridge is old iron, gird­ers and riv­ets, but the net­work is drag­ging itself self-con­scious­ly into the 21st Cen­tu­ry. Brand-new rail­way sub­sta­tions with aes­thet­ic pre­ten­sions crouch beside the lines, tilt-slabs tilt­ed in anoth­er dimen­sion to evoke speed and progress, Futur­ist bunkers guard­ed by razor­wire loops. Across the road there’s a small plaque attached to a pio­neers’ horse trough, a fill­ing sta­tion from the days before the Hutt Rd knew iron hors­es or horse­less car­riages. It lan­guish­es amid con­crete and grav­el, the remorse­less creep of Trades­cant­ia.

Final­ly I reach the base of the Gorge, and a clash of moder­ni­ties. A tan­gle of fly­overs do their Bal­lar­dian best to con­vey mid-cen­tu­ry infra­struc­tur­al viril­i­ty; a geo­des­ic half-dome on the hill­side is redo­lent of tech­no-hip­pie escapism; but the ware­hous­es of Jar­den Mile and the name­less asphalt islands are exem­plars of ear­ly 21st-Cen­tu­ry Cheap­ism. Long-run, tilt-slab, bot­tom-line.

This clot of divid­ed high­ways, side-ramps and non-roads is tough to nav­i­gate, but the bot­tom of the Gorge was always thus. The first Euro­pean set­tlers had to pay Māori to fer­ry them across the riv­er mouth in canoes, or even pig­gy­back them one by one to avoid wet feet. After the first bridge arrived, half of Te Wharepōuri’s waka stood as a memo­r­i­al beside the stream, before it suc­cumbed to age and weath­er and crum­bled onto the road, into sheds and for­get­ful­ness. The Gorge was still untamed when the first high­way came, the car­riage­way gouged away by floods in 1941, but the road bit back, eat­ing into the bluff in 1963 when the inter­change was born. The motor­way con­sumed Fort Kel­burn, which once guard­ed the har­bour from the Russ­ian threat, its only mem­o­ry a stumpy road still called Fort St. Above the junc­tion, the hills still loom: stark, watch­ful, unfor­giv­ing.

The stream itself is now humil­i­at­ed, corset­ed between con­crete walls or bound in stormwa­ter dun­geons, but now and again it reveals its old iden­ti­ty, tum­bling in impa­tient rapids over boul­der dams or coil­ing in deep, slow atavis­tic pools beside reefs of bare rock. Beyond the police dog train­ing grounds, the riv­er has to jump through its own hoops, an obsta­cle course of cul­verts and weirs, as it weaves back and forth beneath the motor­way. Actu­al­ly, “motor­way” is not quite cor­rect: though I’m back up close to SH1 for the first time since Thorndon’s ter­ra fir­ma, this stretch of Cen­ten­ni­al High­way can­not strict­ly be called a motor­way, not with a foot and cycle path beside it. Nev­er­the­less, with a half metre of grav­el­ly con­crete to nego­ti­ate and only a kerb to sep­a­rate me from six lanes of grunt­ing, grind­ing traf­fic, the dis­tinc­tion seems moot.

This side of the road is clean, unlike the clut­ter that trick­les down Glover St oppo­site: anony­mous lock-ups; white­ware ware­hous­es; big-box church­es (mus­cu­lar Chris­tian­i­ty pumped up to indus­tri­al strength). Pylons stand aloof, hold­ing pow­er aloft. The walls of the gorge press inwards as the rail­way springs over­head, grab­bing a fleet­ing gasp of light and air between the musty tun­nels of the main line. Road, rail and stream entwine like braids, weav­ing their own modes of sig­nif­i­cance through the frac­tured land­scape.

On my left is the val­ley where Alfred Tyer, king of the meat byprod­ucts, once prac­tised the ancient arts of tan­ning and fell­mon­gery. His nox­ious, flesh­ly alche­my trans­mut­ed cor­rupt­ible skin into endur­ing­ly pro­tec­tive leather, but the dom­i­nant indus­tries now pro­vide phys­i­cal pro­tec­tion, trans­porta­tion and elim­i­na­tion of the oth­er­wise intan­gi­ble prod­ucts of the infor­ma­tion age. Heavy walls bear the logos of Data Secu­ri­ty Ser­vices and Doc­u­ment Destruc­tion Ser­vice; win­dow­less white vans car­ry the stout shield of ACM Cur­ren­cy Man­age­ment. High fences, high volt­age.

I detour up Tyers Rd, inves­ti­gat­ing the anony­mous sheds that sit on an arti­fi­cial plateau. They hud­dle at the base of the upper cliffs, zig­gu­rat forms rough­ly carved from fran­gi­ble bedrock. From the upper road, the big sheds on the old tan­nery site below almost achieve an abstract beau­ty: ware­house rooftops coaxed into a shim­mer­ing com­po­si­tion of angu­lar forms. They’re part of an indus­tri­al park some­times called “Trans­port Vil­lage”, though of course it’s all trans­port and no vil­lage.

Motion­less. Through dead still air the sounds of the high­way come drift­ing up, min­gling with cica­da song in the fierce flat heat of sum­mer. The built envi­ron­ment is most­ly pre­dictable, the edge­lands lin­gua fran­ca of asphalt and cor­ru­gat­ed met­all, but amid all this there are touch­es of exur­ban sur­re­al­ism. The sub­sta­tion is done up like a PoMo swim­ming pool, its ele­men­tal pow­er of trans­for­ma­tion (and trans­for­ma­tion of pow­er) domes­ti­cat­ed in baby blue tiles and stuc­co, cam­ou­flaged with faux-Deco and cod-Clas­si­cal flour­ish­es. And then I’m struck by the unset­tling inno­cence of a baby doll, impaled in either macabre humour or unhinged mal­ice upon the rail­ings of an unknow­able depot.

Back to the high­way, and up again. The north­east slopes are raw and crag­gy, true gorge, where hunters still track and kill wild goats, but to the west the val­ley opens up into a broad­er basin, where docile ani­mals and the earth itself are torn apart and processed for con­sump­tion. Shrill yel­low hop­pers mark the retail arm of the quar­ry that is slow­ly chew­ing its way north, crush­ing the land­scape into bite-sized chunks of grav­el. Fur­ther down the road, obliv­i­ous sheep spend their last ani­mate hours penned beneath translu­cent roofs, stacked above barbed wire and an intesti­nal tan­gle of shin­ing pipes. Warn­ing signs brand me an intrud­er, but the blind trucks keep trundling by, pay­ing no notice, so I wan­der fur­ther in, south of the abat­toir.

The land­scape veers between indus­tri­al, qua­si-rur­al and unearth­ly. A ret­i­cent stream trick­les some­where below, all but hid­den in a wood­ed gul­ly. A stock track mean­ders through tus­sock and gorse, and a sim­ple weath­er­board house stands sen­tinel on the hill­side, alone amid the broom and fen­nel, obliv­i­ous to the loom­ing wave of sub­ur­ban sprawl on the crest of Mt Mis­ery above. There’s some­thing wrong with the grav­el on the road: it glints and twin­kles, crunch­es omi­nous­ly under­foot. It’s more glass than stone, lead­ing to a minia­ture moun­tain range of bot­tles and jars, piled into peaks and ridges that par­o­dy the hills beyond. The greens, golds and browns of the land­scape are reflect­ed in recy­cling — dusty drifts of Bernadi­no, Rag­ulet­to sauce, Coro­na, a mediocre Scotch. The road squeaks and shat­ters, tin­kles like frost beneath my boots as I leave the crys­tal world and head back for the last leg of the gorge.

Trucks wheeze and grum­ble against the steep­ness of the grade, and I know how they feel. The road now cuts a deep V through ragged, ser­rat­ed slopes, sev­en lanes of traf­fic chok­ing out any last sem­blance of the gorge as nat­ur­al land­form. But after a few min­utes’ slog the sky opens up and the road begins to flat­ten. An off-ramp peels away, before a fake-doored stor­age depot (perched on the ridge like a red-and-white cater­pil­lar) and the diag­o­nal slice of an over­pass sig­nal the promise of New Lands beyond. Pedes­tri­ans are herd­ed away onto a seg­re­gat­ed path, but before it slides into an under­pass there’s a glimpse of some­thing sur­pris­ing: anoth­er deep cool pool among the regen­er­at­ing bush, with the dis­tant sound of falling water as a faint reminder of the pow­er that orig­i­nal­ly carved this val­ley.

Even at walk­ing speed, I can sense the slack­en­ing gra­di­ent, the impend­ing bal­lis­tic pause at the apex of a parabo­la. Before the high­way flat­tens, it pass­es beneath the New­lands over­bridge, which is one for afi­ciona­dos of the genre: bold stan­chions like an invert­ed tri­dent plunged into the earth, sharp-edged and steely, bat­tle­ship grey. But then the road seems to get a sec­ond wind, coil­ing in prepa­ra­tion for anoth­er steady rise as it once again becomes hon­est-to-god Motor­way — mean­ing that the foot­path has to part ways from the high­way. At last, my feet feel the fall of land as they fol­low the off-ramp down into the wide flat bowl of John­sonville.