Why is there a street in the country?

BY BILL DEED

Off Misa Road on the way to Otaua from Waiuku is a road called Bridge Street. Why is it called a street when in the rural areas most are called roads? Well, the answer goes back a long way, if fact to the early 1850s when the settlement of Purapura was surveyed and established. Today many of original surveys still exist, were small property boundaries were created.

But Bridge Street was not the only street in Purapura, there were also Clay, Village, Mill, Water, River and Monk Streets. The main street was called Codlin Street. But today only Bridge Street survives. Purapura, was established at the head of the Awaroa River, on an old Maori settlement and trail between the Manukau Harbour and the Waikato River.

After Governor Hobson declared Auckland to be the national capital this route carried a brisk trade for both Maori and European traders who brought their goods by canoe up the Awaroa River, unloaded them at the head of the river, then carried the goods and pulled the canoes over the portage using round poles under the vessel to the upper reaches of the Waiuku River and proceeded across the Manukau Harbour to Onehunga.

The route was a laborious one. In 1850 the Government put a cutter called the Maori which plied the Onehunga to Waiuku route carrying passengers and produce. After European settlement began at Waiuku, a bullock track was was put through to Purapura.