Ashburton’s Black Heart
28th July 2007


The Waiau was a well-muscled river. Conceived in the diluvian depths of Fiordland, nurtured by the great reservoirs of TeAnau and Manapouri, sustained by a thousand streams and creeks, it was a wild beast, an express train and the All Blacks front row all rolled into one.

Even in a dry February it ran two hundred metres wide past my back fence in Tuatapere and deeper, much deeper, than the big kids’ end of the town pool.

In an August storm, when the mountains had vanished for a week behind a veil of nor’west rain, the river was terrifying. It boiled and raged. It conjured whirlpools and vast upwellings driven by forces so great they surged several inches higher than the level of the surrounding waters. Giant tree trunks spun helplessly in the river’s grip, crashed together, flailed at the banks and were swept on.

The Waiau bisected Tuatapere and was the town’s sole attraction; a source of wonder to the child and solace to the angler; a great gulp of water, air and light in the heart of our small lives. It was flanked by native bush, protected in reserves on each bank, the western side broadening to a genuine forest through which a narrow, winding road, umbrella’d by totara and rimu, led to the domain and sports ground.

The bridge across the Waiau bespoke the raw energy of the river. Massive timbers fastened with iron railway spikes tangled together in a fantastic superstructure that soared high above the stream. To us kids it seemed as ancient as the river itself, built by giants. It compressed the traffic into a single lane like a bear hug.

A narrow walkway had been appendixed to the bridge. As a young child I approached that walkway with the same trepidation I felt with my first escalator. The planks had been laid with gaps between so the rushing water was clearly visible. I was both repelled and mesmerised by the sight of the river rushing past a few metres beneath my feet.

The walkway was bounded on the outside by a chain link fence with a wooden rail on which I could rest my chin when I was eight. On the inside I don’t remember any sort of formal fence or rail, just the great pile of the bridge’s timbers. The bridge shook and trembled when log lorries, piled with trunks from the Rowallan forests, forced their way across.

The Waiau was too unruly to suffer a waterfront. Its banks were not lined with promenades and buildings. But although the town had withdrawn to the safety of higher ground the river and its bridge nevertheless formed the centre and fulcrum of the place. We were proud of the river - proud of its beauty and energy.

We called it ‘swift’ – ‘the swiftest river in New Zealand’ - and we honoured it by guarding the forest reserves and beautifying the approaches to the bridge.

The river shaped the town’s fortunes. While it flowed swift and strong the town prospered.

Later, when the waters were diverted through the Manapouri power station and the river dwindled so did Tuatapere. The old bridge was replaced with a functional concrete structure, sawmills closed, people moved away.

I often think of the Waiau and its place in my early life now that I find myself living once again in a town bisected by a river. The comparison isn’t flattering because, even allowing for romantic exaggerations, the Ashburton is a scungy little river compared to the Waiau, and our bridge and its surroundings are shameful.

It is unfortunate that the Ashburton river’s occasional ruptures sufficiently inconvenienced early travellers that Mr Turton was inspired to build his wayside hostelry on its bank. While the town grew around the river it has always defied our small attempts at beautification.

The character of a river can shape the character of a town: think of New York, London and Paris. Even in tiny Tuatapere the Waiau river’s sinuous energy lent us a bit of self-belief.

The Ashburton river has the opposite effect. It depresses, dulls and flattens the character of our town. Recognising this, we have turned our backs on it. Our denial is most evident in the bridge and its approaches which are the black heart of the town - dirty, ugly and bereft of civic pride.

And yet it remains the one part of our community that most of us see daily and which all who pass through Ashburton must endure.

We were ill-served by our founders, who should have built away from the river. They didn’t and we’re stuck with that. We can do little to change the character of the river but we must recognise that the bridge and its approaches are our centrepiece and shopfront. Are we happy to look like a dump?