Notional Significance: Two Tides

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The stream is now fully can­al­ised, a tame chan­nel run­ning arrow-straight towards the har­bour, as subtle as an engineer’s ruler. It once meandered across the broad­en­ing val­ley, softly fold­ing into the estu­ar­ine flats. On its left bank, the colo­ni­al forces built Elliot’s Stock­ade to over­see the new road, but the stream flooded and drove the fort up onto the surer ground of the adja­cent bluff. The col­on­isers even­tu­ally took their revenge, sub­du­ing the unruly water­course by for­cing it into this unnat­ur­al fur­row. The land is now safe for high­er pur­poses: build­ing recyclers; the liquor-indus­tri­al com­plex; funer­al homes.

Wild­ness remains, though only in degraded, des­per­ate, atav­ist­ic forms. The con­struc­ted banks swarm with brambles and Tra­des­can­tia, and among the resur­gent weeds lie the signs and spoor of mod­ern­ity: shop­ping trol­leys, street signs, road cones. It’s as if they were depos­ited by a great flood, rather than the indi­vidu­al acts of loc­al prank­sters. Van­dal­ism as an avatar of venge­ful nature.

Only a few hun­dred metres now to Pori­rua sta­tion, and I’ve had enough walk­ing for the day. But just as I’m look­ing for­ward to the rest, a train rattles past me, telling me I have to wait half an hour for the next one.

In the wake of the depart­ing car­riages, I seem to catch my name in the air. The sun has been relent­less since John­son­ville, so I put the hal­lu­cin­a­tion down to incip­i­ent sun­stroke. But it comes again, clear­er this time. I turn.

Across on the oth­er bank, parked up beside the stream, I see a col­league wav­ing at me. “What you doing out here, mate? Need a lift?” Briefly, I’m temp­ted. But where­as for him, someone walk­ing in a place like this must be doing so for want of oth­er trans­port, for me walk­ing is its own imper­at­ive. I make a non­com­mit­tal ges­ture, and stride on. Well, “trudge” would be more accur­ate, but I try to do so with pur­pose and élan.

While I have time on my feet, I decide to seek out a nearby site of true nation­al sig­ni­fic­ance. I cross the river on the Sta­tion Rd bridge and make my way towards Cobham Court. But first I must nego­ti­ate a labyrinth of round­abouts, dis­ap­pear­ing foot­paths and the con­temp­tu­ous ram­parts of win­dow­less build­ings. It’s a cun­ning design, dev­ast­at­ingly effect­ive at deter­ring any­one bloody-minded enough to dare nav­ig­ate the city on foot. The hap­less intruder is con­stantly giv­en hope, then thwarted by blind alleys or sucked into the air-con­di­tioned vor­tex of North City. The Gru­en Trans­fer begins out­side the vis­ible walls of the mall. Scrip­ted dis­or­i­ent­a­tion. Spa­tial indoc­trin­a­tion. A retail dis­tor­tion field.

Even­tu­ally, the stalk­er finds him­self on the oth­er side of the zone, star­ing up in search of a sign. But the sign is gone. It has left but a shad­ow, a semi­ot­ic after­im­age; what was once golden now just a slightly deep­er shade of blood red.

This is the site of the first McDonald’s in New Zea­l­and. Its arrival was a phe­nomen­on of such myth­ic res­on­ance that it seems to have engendered false memor­ies in loc­al politi­cians, indu­cing fond recall of an event that should have been shrouded in the soft fug of infant­ile amne­sia. The fran­chisees retell the pre­par­a­tion as an epic battle, with plucky cap­it­al­ism even­tu­ally van­quish­ing the dark forces of bur­eau­cracy, uni­on­ism, and inferi­or loc­al ketch­up. The grand open­ing was like the fall of Sai­gon in reverse, as Ron­ald McDon­ald was nervously heli­coptered in to a stam­ped­ing mob of star-struck loc­als hungry for Amer­ic­an glam­our and two-for-one bur­gers.

The shock­waves spread out­wards, and the nation­al psyche (and cho­les­ter­ol count) was nev­er the same. But ground zero is now bar­ren, a glass and tile shell on the edge of a deser­ted asphalt court. The fran­chise has moved down the road, to a 24/7 drive-thru set in a moat of car­park­ing. The van­guard of fast food was no longer fast enough.

I head back towards the sta­tion. The old shop­ping centre is sim­ul­tan­eously weary and vital. Weary, since the com­mer­cial and human energy has vis­ibly ebbed since the peak of post-war optim­ism, when the old vil­lage and sand­flats were swept away to be replaced by the heart of a mod­el mod­ern city. Vital, since the sur­viv­ing busi­nesses, even in their struggles, embody the com­munity far more than the cold fluor­es­cent pulse locked with­in the glower­ing mall. High-tech tensile sails failed to tempt back the shop­pers, but even $2 shops, down-at-heel bars and dusty baker­ies exude more indi­vidu­al­ity, urb­an determ­in­a­tion and Pori­rua-ness than the busy tills of North City and the Mega­centre.

I have to pick up my pace as I fight back through the maze to catch the next train, but even in the grim ser­vice lanes I spy humour, inven­tion and weird­ness. The triple links of the Inde­pend­ent Order of Odd­fel­lows adorn the breeze block wall of the Ngāti Toa Lodge. The logo for Gem­ini Power Train­ing is a head­less, pumped-up gyn­and­ro­morph. A sign read­ing “Alley Barber” is both loc­a­tion­ally accur­ate and a pin­nacle of the hair-punner’s art. The street finds its own uses for the street.

I return a week later, and the year has turned. The sun-beaten haze of a linger­ing sum­mer have been driv­en away by a squally, bit­ing south­erly. In the sta­tion under­pass, the col­ours of a dozen mur­als blare out from the walls, as if com­pet­ing to dis­pel the gloom of the day.

Manically upbeat, like over­eager hosts har­anguing their vis­it­ors about their beau­ti­ful home and tal­en­ted chil­dren, the mur­als blath­er on about nat­ur­al attrac­tions, Māor­it­anga and urb­an diversity. Some are high-gloss bro­chures blown up to a ludicrous scale (pūkeko the size of moa), but oddit­ies creep in. Pac­man ghosts and grin­ning pine­apples. Con­spicu­ously white hip­sters thumb­ing a ride on an acid-green night bus. Pigeons and cor­mor­ants watch­ing patiently from train win­dows while a blood-red sun climbs into a curdled sky. It’s Bill Hammond’s rush hour.

 I cross a bridge and walk north along the left bank. The water is high and tur­bid, shiv­er­ing beneath the gusts that whip down the val­ley to meet the tide. Pori­rua; Pari-rua; two tides. The two arms of the har­bour, Onepoto and Paua­ta­hanui, defined by the lun­ar swell of their waters, and in turn defin­ing the com­munit­ies that found their edges. After 15 long inland kilo­metres, I’ve reached the tide again.

The chan­nel starts to break and bend, regain­ing some of its nat­ur­al swag­ger after its con­crete cap­tiv­ity. But even the “nat­ur­al” is cul­tiv­ated: earn­est plant­ings of hebes and toe­toe, a cal­cu­lated rean­im­a­tion of a murdered eco­sys­tem. On one bank, barbed wire and terse warn­ing signs (“Unau­thor­ise Parking/Will be Tow Away/at Own­er Expense”—gruff poetry with no time for gram­mat­ic­al niceties) guard the rear yards of big box retail. On the oth­er, the Kene­puru Stream spills out from a cage of rail­way wires and steel girders.

The path leads beneath the motor­way ramp, scrap­ing the water’s edge. It’s not long since it was last submerged—a fringe of water­logged flot­sam lies washed up on the slip­pery con­crete. Post­mod­ern jet­sam is tangled among the drift­wood: Pump bottles, a plastic bowl­ing pin, the wedge heel of a sneak­er. Amphi­bi­ous tag­gers have ven­tured into the tide to put their marks on the raw con­crete pylons of the over­bridge. I hunch beneath the low beams and pass through, stalked by a watch­ful black swan.

The stream meets the sea along the invis­ible line of the Ohariu fault. The tide beats in and out of the double har­bour, like slow deep breaths through a pair of lungs…but the lungs are chok­ing, sed­i­ment clog­ging their chan­nels as the denuded hills melt away with every rain­storm. And the silt is laced with pois­ons: pesti­cides; paints; an ele­ment­al potion of mer­cury, lead and zinc. Since John­son­ville, every roof I’ve passed has added its dose of heavy metals to the cock­tail, wash­ing down the stream to join the tox­ic slurry. Met­al fever. Dead har­bour. The foul(ed) mouth of an urb­an pois­on-shed.

I pick my way through the Pak’n’Save car­park, dodge the round­about traffic, and start across The Ramp. That’s how it’s marked on the maps: not just any motor­way on-ramp, but worthy of cap­it­als and the def­in­ite art­icle. It spans river, rail and high­way, thrust­ing upwards with the steady insist­ence of an air­craft climb­ing into the sky, before curving left and swoop­ing down to join the motor­way itself. Armco and asphalt on one flank, grey­wacke and gorse on the oth­er, I walk on against the traffic’s impa­tient tide.