MAKIRIKIRI CREEK

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 94, 7 May 1937, Page 45 (Supplement)

MAKIRIKIRI CREEK

Waterway That Might Have Become an Avon Altliough it is difficult to blame tjie pioneer legislatoTS, who cannot have foreseen such possibilities, the filling-in of a creek that ran through the site of the Municipal Buildings deprived the town of a waterway which in these days might bave been developed much as Cbr-stchurch has developed its Avon. When Mr Thomas Tanner conveyed ihe site of the Municipal Buildings to the first Borough Council he made it a condition that the council ehould fill up four adjoining sections to the level of the road where a creek — the Makirikiri — ran through them. The creek was part of a waterway which had its source beyond the racecourse. A fastrunning stream crossed Southland road, joining the racecourse, and then flowed behind the Central School, where the present Mayor, Mr G. A. Maddison, and others used to bathe. At that point it was 60 yarde wide. From there it traversed the Municipal Buildings section and passed on fo a point near Apsey 's fruit shed, where it was quite 60 or 70 yards wide, and from where it turned in a north-westerly direetion through Windsor Park. The lliling-an meant that Hastings was deprived of what might have been made a beautiful watercourse, and also of an important drainage factor for stormwater.