Newton Central School

Ngā wai o Tamaki: Auckland's rivers

Wai-a-te-ao

Wai-a-te-ao is named after a person called Te Ao, and is now called Motion's Creek. It starts at Te Uru Karaka (Basque Park) ...

...and flows under the motorway, goes behind Motat...

...where it's connected to Western Springs, and then comes out beside Meola Reef. It flows through the zoo and once, when it flooded, some of the hippos escaped into Motion's Creek.

A local person remembered catching eels in the Wai-a-te-ao and the water was clean enough to swim in.

Western Springs had clean, clear spring water, and eels lived in the river. After the Pākehā people came the area was part of a piece of land owned by a Scottish person called William Motion, which is why the creek is called Motion's Creek. As Auckland City grew they bought William Motion's flour mill and 120 acres including the creek because Auckland needed fresh water.