Crossing over

WORDS: JAMIE DOUGLAS

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At first glance the stone bridge that crosses a small creek between Kohukohu School and the local bowling club green in the tiny settlement overlooking Hokianga Harbour is nondescript; passersby would be forgiven for thinking it’s a culvert. The simple arched stone footbridge, however, is thought to be the oldest surviving bridge in New Zealand. Dating from between 1843 and 1851, this Category 1 structure provided steady, dry footing across the creek and along the thenshoreline for years before it was progressively landlocked into obscurity due to reclamation.

For the small Northland community, the bridge has considerable social, historical and architectural significance. And they’re not alone. According to the Department of Conservation, (DOC) New Zealand has more bridges per capita than any other country in the world, meaning many of us have one or two personal favourites and our own associated stories to tell.

“Bridges in New Zealand and all around the world are appreciated for more than their practicality and engineering prowess,” says Heritage New Zealand Heritage Assessment Advisor Karen Astwood.

Karen presented a paper focusing on bridges listed on the New Zealand Heritage List Rārangi Kōrero at the ‘BRIDGE: The Heritage of Connecting Places and Cultures’ conference in the UK in July last year.

With New Zealand having more bridges per capita than anywhere else in the world, it’s little wonder these structures hold a special place in the hearts of many Kiwis

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1 Matapuna Bridge, just south of Taumarunui.

IMAGE: PETER ORR

2 The Bridge to Nowhere in

Whanganui National Park is actually a fine place to go.

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED

“They are symbols of safety and progress, platforms for political and social messages and ways to connect with and compete on the world stage, and can be significant landscape features in their own right,” she says.

“And some just strike a personal chord for their beauty or a particular connection they have with a person. A personal favourite is the impressive Matapuna Bridge, a Category 1 historic place just south of Taumarunui, which was one of the first bridges I researched for Heritage New Zealand.

“For over 50 years it was both a North Island Main Trunk railway and a highway bridge, so there are many great stories of cars, cyclists and pedestrians, including my grandmother, jostling for position with steam trains. Being on time for school or work depended on getting onto the bridge before the gatekeeper closed it off to road traffic. And it could be a long, frustrating wait if the train was late!”

The political and social connections with bridges are many and varied.

“In Central Otago for example, the Category 1 Daniel O’Connell Bridge conveyed its own commemorative and political message,” says Karen.

“Settlers in the area were predominantly Irish Catholics who wanted to make a pointed remark about their identity by naming the bridge after a politician and Irish nationalist leader who had died 33 years earlier.”

Bridges also feature strongly in music, albeit to extremes. George Tait’s 1981 The Bridge,

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sung by Deane Waretini, was the first song in te reo to top the charts in New Zealand. The bridge George Tait wrote about is a metaphorical one, connecting Māori and Pākehā cultures at the time of the building of Māngere Bridge. This contrasts with infamous punk group Proud Scum singing around the same time about Category 1 Grafton Bridge as a place a former band member might like to visit for career-limiting purposes.

Stories such as these give greater meaning to bridges beyond their most basic function. As Karen says in her paper, the connections people have to a place is a significant factor that Heritage New Zealand uses in determining a bridge’s recognition.

“This was illustrated with the Springvale Suspension Bridge, east of Taihape, in the early 1970s. There was plenty of public debate around the bridge’s future at the time, when it was closed in favour of a new bridge nearby,” she says.

“The suspension bridge itself is a relatively humble, singlelane bridge with concrete towers, dating from the 1920s, but it was held in high regard by locals – notably Tony Batley, who pursued saving the bridge on behalf of the local farming community. Combined with [the work of] Ministry of Works architect Geoffrey Thornton, who was a member of Heritage New Zealand [then known as the New Zealand Historic Places Trust], the bridge was not only saved, but acquired by the organisation and eventually recognised with a Category 2 listing. It was the first bridge added to Heritage New Zealand’s property portfolio.”

For Karen, the bridge’s acquisition in 1973 was important because it set a template with which to look beyond engineering features in bridge assessment. More than 100 are now listed with Heritage New Zealand, not to mention the many more included in historic areas. The Springvale Suspension Bridge was under Heritage New Zealand ownership until 2017, when both it and the Category 1 Clifden Suspension Bridge in Southland were transferred to DOC ownership.

“The beauty of identifying bridges for a range of historical, social, architectural and engineering reasons is that it allows us to recognise the importance of the Kohukohu Bridge as well as the likes of the impressive late-1980s’ Hapuawhenua Viaduct, a towering, curved concrete bridge and a significant landscape and engineering feature of the North Island Main Trunk Historic Area,” says Karen.

There are community battles today over the value and importance of bridges to local communities. One recent example was the debate over the retention or demolition of the former Kopu Bridge that straddles the Waihou River leading to the Firth of Thames. The Category 1 bridge, built in 1928, is the last operational swing bridge; it closed in 2011 when a new, wider bridge was built next to it to accommodate heavy traffic flows at peak times. The flow on the old bridge has remained only courtesy of the water beneath it.

In March the NZ Transport Agency agreed to hand over the bridge’s financial responsibility to the Kopu Bridge and Community Trust. Debate had raged in preceding years, with one detractor labelling it a “decaying, decrepit eyesore” and a supporter labelling it as “very important”. The community group now has a say on the bridge’s future, with a heritage conservation plan its first priority ahead of reopening

it to the public in 12 to 18 months following repair work.

With a bit of vision, and a leap of faith at times, there is life in old bridges. That faith has made the Kawarau Suspension Bridge in Central Otago a popular spot to leap from with a bungy cord tied around your ankles. The bridge was included as one of 12 sites of significance in the Landmarks Whenua Tohunga programme for Otago late last year.

Another bridge that enjoys a remarkable life beyond its original intent is the Mangapurua Bridge – better known as the Bridge to Nowhere – in Whanganui National Park. It was built to provide access to a government World War I soldier resettlement scheme, which failed within a decade of the bridge’s construction. Today it is popular with walkers and trampers, proving that it is a bridge offering somewhere to go after all.

“The Bridge to Nowhere serves as a reminder that a significant investment in facilities and infrastructure, like bridges, does not automatically guarantee progress,” says Karen.

“By looking at the range of the New Zealand Heritage List bridges, I found that, while engineering achievement is given its due, the significance of our historic bridges is generally based on people’s interactions with them and the associated aesthetic, historical and social values.

“They are structures people either love or have used as part of their life journeys.”

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“They are symbols of safety and progress, platforms for political and social messages and ways to connect with and compete on the world stage, and can be significant landscape features in their own right”

3 The Daniel O’Connell

Bridge in Central Otago, named after a 19th-century

Irish nationalist politician.

IMAGE: ROB SUISTED

4 This simple stone bridge at Kohukohu in Northland is now landlocked.

IMAGE: MORIORI VIA

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

5 Springvale Suspension

Bridge, east of Taihape, was saved from demolition by locals.

IMAGE: MARTIN SLIVA

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Fallen for

Nestled in the foothills of the Hawkdun Range, a stone’s throw from St Bathans, there’s a small lake called Falls Dam. The lake was created during the 1930s when a dam was built as part of the Manuherikia irrigation scheme.

It was while exploring Falls Dam for the first time that I spotted a cluster of cribs at the northern end of the lake – set a little from the shore, but close to where the upper Manuherikia feeds into the lake (and where it’s best to fish for brown trout).

I’ve always admired the number-eight-wire mentality of earlier generations of Kiwis, and the cribs of Falls Dam are lovingly built in a fashion that I feel exemplifies this. Constructed using repurposed corrugated iron, windows and doors, and often with an apparently random layout, it’s hard not to be impressed with the character of each crib. I can only imagine the amazing holiday memories they must hold.

And even on a miserable grey day with low cloud – as it was when I took this image – they are still so photogenic.

WORDS AND IMAGE: ALAN DOVE

TECHNICAL DATA:

Camera: Nikon D3 Lens: 24-70mm F2.8 Exposure: 1/180th sec at f8