Saturday, 13 July 2013

Auckland Harbour Bridge

Auckland Harbour Bridge by Carole's Chatter


Here is a glimpse of one of the icons of Auckland – the largest city in New Zealand – the Harbour Bridge.

I took this pic on a still cool winter morning.  It is taken from outside the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron Yacht Club at Westhaven Marina.

The Harbour Bridge connects the Auckland Isthmus (where the central business district is) to the North Shore.  It was built in 1959 and extended by adding 2 extra lanes onto each side in 1969 – these were known in those less pc days as the "Nippon clip-ons" since they were constructed by a large Japanese company.

It used to be a toll bridge and I can remember a capping stunt one year where we all went over it on motorbikes and offered to pay the toll with 5c pieces.  A bit of silly fun.

Auckland Harbour Bridge Barrier Transfer Machine in operation


There are no tolls now but it does have an interesting machine that changes the direction of the lanes in the middle to suit the direction of traffic flow.  A piece of Kiwi ingenuity.
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1 comment:

  1. A very nice bridge Carole! Is that a travel trailer wrecked in the bottom pic?

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