Whau Portage

I like this sculpture in New Lynn. It also reminds me that historians like J. T. Diamond reckoned that the Whau Portage, via the Whau River between the Manukau and Waitemata Harbours, was not as important to Maori as the Tamaki Portage, named for the river of that name out east. Why? Mainly because of a pesky geographical feature, a fairly steep ridge running from Green Bay to Blockhouse Bay. Said ridge helped put the kibosh on the Whau Canal idea from all the way back to the 1850s. It'd be one heck of a hike carrying a waka up over that ridge all the time. That's not to say it didn't happen -- after all, we do have a Portage Road in New Lynn -- the Tamaki, though, is generally flatter.

But ... I still like the sculpture.