Waitakere Dam Tramline

Last Sunday, I was invited to join a party of historical society folk from Waikato and West Auckland, visting the Waitakere Tramline near Swanson.

The tramline is part of the Watercare facilities there, leading to Waitakere Dam, and was constructed in 1905. Today, it's part of the Waitakere Tramline Society.

First, you see the filter station ...

Then a pleasant walk up a bush-clad walk (this is the tarsealed bit at the beginning. Most is just metal) ...

... past ancient rocks ...

.... until you see the entrance to Georges Tunnel, the first of two on the tramline. No photography allowed in the tunnel because at the far end there's glow-worms (first ones I've seen since a trip as a nipper to Waitomo.)

The Harvey Stewart Flyer emerges. Built in 1976 by Alert Engineering and Waitakere Tramline Society members, is was so-christened in honour of Harvey Stewart, a friend of the club and train buff. Powered by a 2.5 hp Kawasaki 4 stroke petrol engine originally, it has been re-powered twice (up to 2005) and as at that date had a 16hp Kubota diesel engine, according to their guide book.

And if you click the video, you'll hear what it sounds like.

The carriages are small, because of the size of the tunnels, and very, very cramped if you have long legs. I've still got sore thighs from holding my feet as far away from the outer edge as I possibly could.

The Society apparently want to get a two-foot guage Model-T loco (below) up and running on the line (these photos, as with the two at the top of the post, from their display room). It's not original to the line to the dam, but the Society have loaned it to the Victoria Battery Society at Waihi until 2005, and are not looking for knowledgeablr people to recondition it for the Waitakeres.

Our guide who welcomed us to "Jurassic Park" on the other side of George's Tunnel.

Once you're out of the bush and tunnels -- there are spectular views, like this: Waitakere Falls.

This (above) is a chute carrying Kelly's Stream over the tramline to the valley below.

I climbed the stairs to the top of the dam. Far, far more scary coming down, especially with my phobia! Still, feel the fear, and be a lunatic anyway, I always say ...

The views, though were worth it.

So -- a small excursion, on a small train, but through beautiful scenery. Well worth a visit.

Happy 150th Birthday, St Ninian's of Avondale

It was a gorgeous day in Avondale this morning. Around 40 people turned up at the adjoining Avondale Memorial Park to our little do in honour of Avondale's oldest member of the community -- St Ninian's Church. How many 150 year old buildings have a crowd of people boisterously singing Happy Birthday to them, with three hip-hip-hoorays? Come to that, how many heritage buildings have special handmade birthday cards put together for them?

This huge card was put together by "the Akozone Homework Centre students at Avondale Community Library, April 2010". Utterly, utterly brilliant. You should have seen the faces of the congregation members who used to go to St Ninian's pre-1984 when they saw what youngsters had done in honour of the old building. Cool stuff.

Our Avondale Community Board granted the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society (my home society) funds to print 200 copies of a commemoration booklet for the 150th -- and these were officially launched today. Free. Needless to say, almost all were snapped up, by those attending for themselves and for others not there but who wanted to be.

The community pulled together, and all refreshments were provided by those attanding who could do so. Some even brought chairs. Auckland City Council staff and the local community centre helped with chairs and tables as well.

A "Happy Birthday" appeared on the side of the building ...

... and Sunita Kashyup of Auckland City Council provided a couple of these cool temporary signs. One's on the picket fence outside the church, where I'd like to see a permanent one later this year, and the other's with the local library, who will be putting together a display for our church building later on.

Here's the text of  my speech of welcome and introduction at the function today, after a brief word and greeting by Rev Margaret Martin who had connections with the old church..

Speech given by Lisa Truttman
President, Avondale-Waterview Historical Society
at Avondale Memorial Park
8 April 2010

Welcome ladies, gentlemen, friends, to this the 150th birthday of Avondale’s St Ninian’s Church, the old Whau Presbyterian Chapel. A special welcome from the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society to Wayne Coe, President of the Avondale Senior Citizens, and the leaders of our neighbouring historical societies here – West Auckland (Trevor Pollard) and Blockhouse Bay (Keith Rusden). Members of the Avondale Union Parish are here today, including Rev Margaret Martin and Rev Vai Ngahe, welcome. A welcome as well to members of the Avondale Community Board, and to Sunita Kashyup of Auckland City Council.

From my insisting (hopefully!) that this sesquicentenary landmark should be noted to today’s gathering -- has involved more than just one lone Avondale history buff.

My thanks to the members of my home historical society for backing this idea solidly right from the beginning. To the Avondale Community Board for their generous grant toward the printing of the first 200 of the commemorative booklet – which are free, while stocks last (if there is a demand after that, we’ll see about printing some more.)

Special thanks to Wayne Coe, who took up the challenge of being a face of the caring community for St Ninians in the recent Aucklander article, a community leader who cares passionately about the future of our 150 year old, and who worked hard to help with preparations for today. Felice Coiffure hairdressers across the road helped us with providing hot water for the morning tea.

Thanks also to the Avondale Business Association who have, since 2001, been staunch supporters of Avondale’s heritage.

Thanks to Sunita Kashyup – Sunita, believe me, the community of Avondale welcomes you and appreciates the hard work you and your team at Community Development do for us.

Thanks to all of you who have helped out with refreshments – and simply being here, to show your support for the oldest member of our community.

The history of our chapel is in the booklets.

We have Avondale’s earliest settler from 1843, John Shedden Adam, to thank for the chapel being where it is, although in truth he sold the land for a pittance to the Presbyterians because the line of the Great North Road cut off this part of his Allotment 13 from the rest across the road in the mid 1850s creating an odd triangular piece of land – and the Provincial Council only finally settled with him in 1858.

We have the Presbyterian parishioners to thank for the funding of the building, the provision of kauri timber from the Waitakeres, building it from November 1859 in howling storms, and the opening of it on 8 April 1860.

This is our first church, and this is also our first school, right from April 1860. Few buildings have survived the test of time where we can still say – this is where the children of the district, a huge district which included West Auckland, parts of Mt Albert, and up to Pt Chevalier, -- this is where the children came to learn. Even the cherished old buildings at the Avondale Primary School are now no more but this one – this building still stands.

Long may it continue.

In this building, people learned, people worshipped, people celebrated, people were married, and people were farewelled, either due to their return back to the Old Country, or to an eternal rest here. Through the years, the Whau Presbyterian Chapel, Avondale Presbyterian Church, St Ninian’s Church, and later community centre, has endured. It was shut up and closed for a few years after it ceased to be a church in 1984, but it reopened to Avondale.

Now, it is shut up again – and as those before us in the 1980s kept the memory of how important the building is to our community’s story, its past, present and future alive – those of us who care today should do the same, until we can see the building reopened to Avondale and the community once more.

If anyone would like to be kept up-to-date, as far as my society can find out from Auckland City Council and its successor agency what is planned for the building, there’s a book here where you can put your names down to receive a newsletter, irregular frequency, so you can keep in contact with us. We’ll let you know, for instance, when (hopefully) a permanent commemorative sign is placed on the fence marking the importance of 2010 for St Ninians. Even better – we’ll let you know when the building is to be reopened.

Let’s hope this is not the last of the birthdays for our St Ninian’s church.

Corrugated art at White Swan Road

 Outside the Lynfield Veterinary Clinic on White Swan Road in Lynfield is a great eyecatcher display of what can be done with corrugations and other stuff.

St Ninian's in The Aucklander

Just had a call from our Society's treasurer that The Aucklander have published their article on St Ninian's and the 150th. I'm chuffed, and Council say it might reopen later this year! Fingers crossed.

Just on a week to go to the commemoration, now ...

A splendid heritage loo in Roskill South

On the way to visit a friend, I spotted this from the bus as it headed along Dominion Road, just past the intersection with Richardson Road. My friend was kind enough to drop me round after lunch to take some shots for the blog.

This is another of Louis Statham's artworks for local Community Board/Council projects, and features public transport in the early days of the district. A great touch is the inclusion of a piece of interpretive information, all part of the complete work.

So ... below is one of Roskills late 1920s community buses. These provided a link for residents in Roskill South with the tramlines north of Mt Albert Road. Some community bus services werre illegal, and ran in opposition with the then-Council contrlled trams all the way into the city. For a while, they got around the regulations by not charging fares, but instead encouraging "membership subscriptions" on a voluntary basis, so they could say they were simply providing a service for members, not the general public. It was a dodge which didn't last long in the courts.

Three Greenline buses which ran (according to the info) between Pt Chevalier to Otahuhu via Mt Roskill.

And ... a Dominion Road tram.

If you're in Auckland and haven't seen this before, stop by the Roskill South shops, and walk down the Richardson Road hill to spend a penny and take a look at this really quite marvellous piece of Auckland transport history.

St Ninian's 150th anniversary

St Ninians 150th anniversary flyer

Well, come rain or shine, the Avondale-Waterview Historical Society hope to be able to mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of St Ninian's church building on 8 April 2010. (Showers and westerlies are predicted for that day -- I'm crossing fingers they either don't come between 10 and 11 that day, or the weatherman stuck the wrong finger out the utterly wrong window.)

Doesn't matter if there's only a few there on the day, just as long as awareness of our oldest building is kept up. And I, for one, keep reminding the powers-that-be that it's important to us here in Avondale.

The local Community Board have been brilliant -- they have granted the Society $720 towards the cost of printing the first 200 issues of a commemoration booklet I've pulled together. After those have gone, I'll publish the compilation online (link to come).

die Mauer -- the Berlin Wall

Not NZ history, I know, but a find made at the Avondale Sunday Market today caught my fancy. When the Berlin Wall came down, chunks of the wall were sold off as souvenirs. Many of them don't have true provenance, so I can't say the two chunks I do have in the collection are really from Berlin. Or from a wall. Although the paint on them seems similar.

But when I saw this, I had to have it. Even just for a wry chuckle.

That looks, for all the world, like an East German Trabant, or "Traby". According to Wiki:

"With its mediocre performance, smoky two-stroke engine, and production shortages, the Trabant is often cited as an example of the disadvantages of centralized planning; on the other hand, it is regarded with derisive affection as a symbol of the failed former East Germany and of the fall of communism (in former West Germany, as many East Germans streamed into West Berlin and West Germany in their Trabants after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989)"

Another view of the wee car.

So -- political comment, or just decoration on a piece of masonry? Considering I got it for a dollar, and it gave friends of mine a chuckle when I showed them down at the market this morning -- I'll go with the former. On the card that went inside the little display case was the Berlin bear (top of post), and an image of part of the mural on the wall before it came down.

Artists caught in the act on Auckland-West blog

Paul commented on the bullocks post today and let me know about this cool one from his blog -- always fantastic seeing the people behind the art. Take a look.

Bullocks in Henderson

A wonderful example of what to do with rusted rubbish removed from our streams stands in Henderson beside a busy road, Vitasovich Avenue. In 1997, the rusted equivalent of this ...

was transformed to this ...

From the Waitakere City Council site:

"Local Waitakere artist and blacksmith Stuart Slater was presented with the challenge of creating "something great out of a load of old rubbish." The result is a pair of 3 metre long 1.8 metre high Bullocks formed from the skeletons of discarded shopping trolleys recovered from the Oratia stream ...

"Beginning in January 1997, after drawing the outlines of the bullocks on large pieces of paper, Stuart and his daughter Shelley used reinforcing steel to shape the profile and armature of each beast. They cut up the metal shopping trolleys and beat the mesh into shape with hammers before welding them into position. Five trolley bottoms were used for each head and eight bottoms for the bullocks' backs. The sides of the trolleys became the ribs.


"Fine black mesh was laid over the structures under a layer of chicken mesh, to shape the muscles and the haunches. Fibrous cement was then applied to build up the main body and to shape the fetlocks, hooves and horns, and to give the bullocks character. 

"The Council's parks department donated a railway sleeper for the yoke, which is placed at "dragging distance" behind the Bullocks.

"Community involvement with the project was. The local community became involved of the project and was genuinely proud and excited by what was achieved (evidenced by comments made in the on-site visitor's book). The Bullocks were completed in March 1997, with an official unveiling held on April 30, 1997."

The result is a sudden and wonderful find while walking up the road.

I told Trevor Pollard, President of the West Auckland Historical Society, that I was going to put the bullocks up on this blog today, and he gave me permission to include this image (below) of the bullocks, superimposed on a scene showing Mill Cottage (he had an idea to have something like the bullocks there, but the price was prohibitive). It would have been nice -- but instead, West Auckland went for their car park mural.

Mystery trade mark

I'll put this out there to any readers passing by. At the Huia Settlers Museum, there is a case with heaps of items picked up from the Manukau Harbour coastline over the years, from Onehunga to Whatipu. Included is the above -- what looks like a three-funnel liner, with radio mast (?), and underneath "TRADE MARK REGISTERED".

Any help pin-pointing what this might be from or to do with, just out of interest, would be appreciated.

West Auckland whimsy

Spotted and shot quickly while in a moving tour bus along Atkinson Ave in West Auckland. A much better shot can be viewed at the Auckland-West blog.

Moana the eel

There are attractive wetlands and stream views at the Corban Estate in Henderson (note shadow of blog photographer below...)

I've wanted to take a photo or two of Moana  the eel for quite some time. Yesterday, down there on the Estate during the 2010 NZ Federation of Historical Societies Conference, held at West Auckland, I got the opportunity in the morning, before the jam and scones were rolled out for the punters.

From the plaque (which, by the way for those who did the installation -- the plaque is VERY difficult to read if you're not down on one knee on the grass ...):

"Moana the eel sculpture was unveiled to the world on 28th November 2007. Her metal skeleton was first made by local artists Dave McCracken and Al Green some years ago. Project Twin Streams Opanuku Stream, the Pacifica Mamas, Waitakere Pacific Art and Cultural Trust and Waitakere City Council worked with artists Janet Holt, Bruce Courtney, Norbryn Eyre and young people from Henderson High School, Liston College, Mother of Divine Mercy and Beautiful Daughters to create Moana as she now stands.

"A corner stone from the original Henderson Town Hall and an old local piece of tramline have also been incorporated.

"May these wonderful creatures, born many miles away in the Pacific Ocean and ttravelling great distances to reach Aotearoa live in peace in our beautiful Opanuku Stream."

You can see the piece of tramline just to the right of the sculpture above. This was from a bus tramline, the kind which conveyed logs down from the timberlands in the Waitakeres. Together with the piece from the old local town hall (probably the block they used to put the plaque against, see below to the right of Moana) -- this installation is a nice marriage of heritage with the environment.

The inscription made out in ceramic letters: "Look after our streams, and they'll look after you."

Friends of the Auckland Suffrage Memorial on Facebook

Further to this post.

Just received an invite from Cr. Cathy Casey, so I've dipped my toes in the water and joined the Facebook group: Friends of the Auckland Suffrage Memorial. It's time, although I'm wary of all things Facebook and such, to take a stand. Heritage can't just be brushed aside for someone's opinion on aesthetics.

Western Springs Speedway history

I've just received an email advising that Western Springs Speedway have an online petition running, apparently against Auckland City Council moves to shut the speedway down (at the moment, I'm not aware of any immediate moves, although who knows what will happen with the Super City thing. Note the last entry on the page dates from 2008). I don't have strong opinions either way, but I'll include the link to their heritage page (with some interesting archival photos).

A fading mural in Silverdale

Perhaps I'm just imagining it -- but I'm sure Silverdale up in Rodney District was once noted for having quite a few heritage murals in its town centre. Today, I was there on business, and took time while waiting for the bus back to the Big Smoke to look around the township. This was the only mural I spotted -- and it has seen better days. The artist, according to a name and phone number at the bottom left of the mural, was John Fisher, in 1994.

Well, at least here's the digital version. Click to enlarge images.

Latest St Matthews billboard

Seen this morning, while I was on the way through the city -- the latest St Matthews-in-the-city billboard, from the folks who brought you this and this. As usual, click to enlarge (and see the caption at the bottom).