Walking through The Tunnel in our Backyard

Today we were lucky to join the crowds for a public walkthrough of the new Waterview Tunnel, opening soon in the Auckland suburbs of Waterview and Mount Albert. 

This amazing piece of engineering completes the Western Ring Route Motorway through Auckland's west in a 5-kilometre-long stretch of road, half of it underground. 

The tunnel was part of the inspiration for Malcolm Paterson's The Tunnel in our Backyard, and it is mentioned at the start of the book. 

The kids in the book mention the giant digging machine, nicknamed Alice, that created the tunnel - before going on to explore the natural lava tunnels under Mt Albert and its vicinity.

The Tunnel in our Backyard was launched a year ago in a lava tunnel in Mount Eden.  

Keeping this connection in mind, it seemed appropriate to take the book on the stroll into the Waterview Tunnel. The road connection is due to open very soon.

Entering the new man-made tunnel at Waterview - in a part of Auckland full of natural lava tunnels

For more about the book, click here

A busy road ahead for the Waterview Tunnel

New picture book vividly celebrates Māori gods

Publishing today, Ngā Atua: Māori Gods is a gorgeous hardback edition of artwork and simple explanations of the major Māori gods.

Author Robyn Kahukiwa is widely recognised as one of the leading artists of her generation, and a pioneer among Māori women in her multiple activities in painting, writing and publishing.

In Ngā Atua, Robyn introduces the pantheon of Māori gods, and explains the arena of life for which each deity is responsible.

“I created for this work for my mokopuna, Kahu, to encourage him and others to relate to their whakapapa and know that we of Maori descent have a genealogy that comes from ngā atua,” Robyn comments.

Tāne, Hine-te-iwaiwa, Tangaroa, Mahuika and Māui are some of the spiritual beings who leap off the pages of this four-colour book.

Publication Date: 22 June 2017  |  ISBN: 978-0-947506-26-1 |  RRP $24.99

Hardback, 270 x 210 mm, 32 pages colour

Putting the map back into Māori Maps

We're happy to share the news of improvements to the Māori Maps website, a charitable venture supported by Oratia.  

After completing a redevelopment of www.maorimaps.com in January to enable it to be viewed effectively on mobile devices, the team has just reinstated the full map search function to the site.

Now www.maorimaps.com features a navigable map of all of Aotearoa, and has a tab on the menu bar that allows you to go to this overall map at any point. Click here to view.

Thanks to the users who requested that we reproduce this core function from the old site into the new, responsive site - and to the team at Zest IT for implementation.

Here's the post from Māori Maps on Facebook.