Notional Significance: Lagoons

[Alf’s back after a long absence! You can catch up on his pre­vi­ous post in this series, or read all Notion­al Sig­nif­i­cance posts.]

The path skirts the six-lane high­way, com­pressed between traf­fic and hill­side, pass­ing beneath stol­id, gal­vanised totems that awak­en onrush­ing com­muters to an immi­nent deci­sion. Soon the curve of the car­riage­way straight­ens, but the scrub­by bank on my right con­tin­ues to bend away, trac­ing the for­mer shore­line, and a cap­tured land­scape reveals itself. Okowai—a bowl of water—a pre­scient name for what became an acci­den­tal lagoon, cut off from the har­bour by the human aver­sion to indi­rect­ness.

The reshap­ing began with the rail­way in the late Fifties, a slen­der curve draped light­ly across the tips of the head­lands. Then came the motor­way, which bulked out into a hefty swathe of tar­mac and berm, usurp­ing the frac­tal fil­i­gree of the estu­ar­ine edge. From the ele­vat­ed, time-dilat­ed per­spec­tive of the motor­way, the result­ing lagoon seems lit­tle more than a ditch, an insignif­i­cant patch of damp­ness at the foot of an undis­tin­guished hill­side. But from down here, it’s the road that’s the anom­aly, revealed as the cause­way it is.

I fan­cy that Bal­lard would have felt at home here: like Shep­per­ton, this is an ambiva­lent land­scape delin­eat­ed by sev­ered bod­ies of water; by the rail­ways that brought the hin­ter­land into the city’s hun­gry grasp; by the obses­sive motion of motor­ways and the aggres­sive nor­mal­i­ty of domes­ti­ca­tion. Flood-mead­ows, oxbows. Dams and cul­verts. An inter(tidal)zone zone in the dis­solv­ing bound­ary between water­logged land and silt-laden water, between nature and arti­fice, between nos­tal­gia and impa­tient progress. A squadron of ducks crash­lands in a sed­i­ment trap, then cir­cles its raw perime­ter, eyes as opaque and yel­low as the shiv­er­ing water. Bal­lar­dian meets mal­lar­dian.

On the land­ward side, a gang of bull­doz­ers lurks next to their hand­i­work: a ragged zig­gu­rat of ochre earth that no longer resem­bles a hill­side, but is still far from the sub­urb that it’s des­tined to become. Above this, the Magrit­tean lone­li­ness of street­lamps with­out streets, stand­ing around on the ridge­line with heads bowed: some clus­tered togeth­er as if kvetch­ing at the bit­ter weath­er, oth­ers mooching off on their own. Some­one called a meet­ing but they did­n’t get the memo.

Since I began my jour­ney, this is my clos­est encounter with sprawl’s slow storm­front. For years, this land was lum­bered with the name “Aotea Block”, where the mana of Turi’s great waka was brought back to (colonised) earth with the clunky, cadas­tral “Block”. Now that the embry­on­ic sub­ur­bia is ready for sale, the devel­op­ers have pared that back to the more eupho­nious (and mar­ketable) “Aotea”.

Not that there’s any­thing remote­ly hab­it­able about this hill­side yet. Nick Papadim­itri­ou referred to the sub­urbs as “the momen­tary dream of a mush­room god”, but as res­o­nant as that image might be, it seems too gen­tly organ­ic for the vio­lent trans­for­ma­tion that pre­cedes the birth of a sub­urb. I’d like to imag­ine hous­es sprout­ing in slow motion from rich loam, the vis­i­ble fruition of stealthy thread­like net­works, but what I see is a mer­ci­less flay­ing of the land; ampu­ta­tion of hill­tops; suf­fo­ca­tion of val­leys. Shat­tered trunks and gouged trench­es. Blast­ed earth.

From beyond the barbed wire and warn­ing signs (“THIS IS A MULTIPLE/HAZARD AREA”) comes the nasal snarl of dirt­bikes. No longer farm­land, not yet neigh­bour­hood, the land-in-lim­bo becomes an oppor­tu­ni­ty for tres­pass and adven­ture (of a rather more hec­tic vari­ety than my plod­ding pil­grim­age and even slow­er writ­ing). By the time I write this up, the dig­gers will have returned, replac­ing the rut­ted trails with broad, stan­dards-com­pli­ant streets, ready to dream the order­ly dreams of a dor­mi­to­ry sub­urb.

As the rough path meets Okowai Rd, a semi­otic con­tra­dic­tion catch­es my eye. A “NO ENTRY/One Way Road” sign paint­ed in folksy let­ters on a cheer­ful blue back­ground, next to a carved wood­en pineapple—a fruit that once sym­bol­ised hos­pi­tal­i­ty and gen­eros­i­ty, due to its pre­cious rar­i­ty in Europe. I turn, and walk against the grain (which could describe my whole walk­ing project), past the moss-soft­ened fruit and into the shady for­est beyond.

The pine trunks are tall and bare, sway­ing and groan­ing in the insis­tent souther­ly. Their upper reach­es are tight­ly strung with cables, a tan­gled net­work recall­ing the over­head wires of the near­by main trunk line. These bind togeth­er an ele­vat­ed arch­i­pel­ago of crude plat­forms, like children’s tree­hous­es blown up to the scale of a for­est civil­i­sa­tion on an arbo­re­al moon.

A sign informs me that this is no ordi­nary for­est, but “Adren­a­lin For­est”: a pri­va­tised adven­ture play­ground where adults pay to face down their fear of grav­i­ty. On their logo, an ape swings non­cha­lant­ly from a wire. An invi­ta­tion to atavism, tempt­ing us to shed our civilised lay­ers and revert to our pri­mal selves. Down by the motor­way, Ballard’s ghost watch­es the incom­ing tide with a wry smile.

But com­pared to the kids on their trail­bikes, carv­ing up trails of two-stroke trans­gres­sion through the gorse and mud, this is a grim­ly reg­i­ment­ed form of “adven­ture”. The goal is team­build­ing, a syl­van con­fi­dence course to pre­pare you for the con­fi­dence trick of cor­po­rate climb­ing. It reduces adven­ture to mere adren­a­lin: the direct injec­tion of hor­mon­al arousal. I pre­fer to think that adven­ture is about dis­cov­ery, about not know­ing what might emerge around the next cor­ner, or what will emerge with­in you dur­ing the jour­ney.

I pick my way through pine and resur­gent bush. Here and there I stum­ble across rem­nants of farm infra­struc­ture, sub­sid­ing into lichen and ivy. A gal­vanised out­build­ing has been cov­ered with a sur­pris­ing­ly neat array of tags, their stylised mul­ti­coloured scrawls fol­low­ing the hor­i­zon­tal cor­ru­ga­tions like hiero­glyphs recount­ing solemn dynas­tic busi­ness. Many of the tags are repeat­ed over and over—I think I can make out RAZOR, ABC, KEEN—and now all I can think of is lines on a black­board, as if this were the result of a deten­tion class for tag­gers.

As I crest the top of the knoll, the under­growth thins out. There are more hand­writ­ten let­ters, but this time sig­nalling more respectable pas­times: “ATTIC ARTISTS/CAMERA CLUB/FIBRECRAFTS//POTTERY”. Mor­tar­less kilns and dense mats of pine nee­dles give way to rock walls, flower beds and dri­ve­ways, and then the state­ly form of Gear Home­stead.

James Gear was a failed prospec­tor but a very suc­cess­ful butch­er. After attempt­ing to carve up Ota­go rock in search of gold, he found there was more mon­ey in his old trade of carv­ing up ani­mals, and at his peak his fleshy empire stretched from Te Horo to Karori. He had a butch­ery shop on Lambton Quay, and his rather less salu­bri­ous meat­works (includ­ing the offal pits on his epony­mous island) dom­i­nat­ed the eco­nom­ic and olfac­to­ry land­scape of Petone for gen­er­a­tions. As one of the first exporters of refrig­er­at­ed meat, his lega­cy could tru­ly be said to be of nation­al sig­nif­i­cance. Now his Ital­ianate home­stead, once the height of good taste, is bet­ter known in pop­u­lar cul­ture for explod­ing sheep and aliens with a (bad) taste for brains.

He aged, fal­tered, and grew mis­an­throp­ic. Seek­ing silence and solace, he built a retreat and con­nect­ed it to the house with an elab­o­rate bridge, though only his ser­vants were per­mit­ted across it to feed and care for him. Alone in this annex, he cut him­self off from his fam­i­ly and the world, as the lagoons have since become sev­ered from their har­bour. No man is a (Gear) island, but wealth can buy you penin­su­lar soli­tude.

The homestead’s order­ly grounds perch on a steep bluff right above the motor­way. I look down across sev­en lanes, the rail­way and the agi­tat­ed har­bour, but there’s no way down towards the high­way. Instead, I fol­low the curv­ing dri­ve­way to the main entrance. Across the road, Aotea College’s logo is a pāta­ka: like Gear’s annex, a small house kept ele­vat­ed and safe from the world’s depre­da­tions. Steep banks and brick walls keep the Col­lege itself aloof from the street, while next door, blank ren­dered ram­parts form a sym­bol­ic gate­way to the nascent sub­di­vi­sion.

Despite these emblems of safe­ty, seclu­sion and order, the land­scape is still raw with tran­si­tion. Veins of decay wind through the rolling topog­ra­phy. Gul­lies clogged with sub­ur­ban detri­tus, bot­tles, tyres and trol­leys fad­ing into a uni­form rust-brown as the pine nee­dles build up in deep drifts. Aban­doned pad­docks claimed by gorse and rank grass. Mag­pies on the over­grown verges, hop­ping indig­nant­ly as they’re ruf­fled by imper­ti­nent gusts.

From here, the clos­est walk­a­ble path to State High­way 1 takes me through the grounds of Aotea Lagoon, anoth­er aquat­ic by-prod­uct of the motorway’s expan­sion. On a summer’s day this would be a sub­ur­ban oasis, but in this bit­ter grey­ness the cheer­ful odd­i­ties of its design take on strange sig­nif­i­cance. While I won’t be in for any big sur­pris­es (a mourn­ful sign advis­es “Ted­dy Bears Pic­nic Can­celled”), a ded­i­cat­ed earth-mag­ic psy­cho­geo­g­ra­ph­er could write a whole book about its twist­ed geome­tries and sym­bol­ism.

I begin to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the lagoon, pass­ing Guy Ngan’s crys­talline spike. Forged in gleam­ing steel by Chubb Lock and Safe, it resem­bles a gno­mon in search of a sun­di­al. Indeed, it pre­vi­ous­ly stood at the cen­tre of the wheel-shaped rose gar­den, but was removed for unknown rea­sons and now stands alone, its rest­less angu­lar ener­gies for­ev­er dis­si­pat­ed. I want to inves­ti­gate fur­ther, but a sud­den show­er dri­ves me in search of shel­ter. I duck into the near­by fern­ery, and rest amid its deep green shade while I con­sid­er my next move.