The waka bridge connecting the Cook Landing Site reserve to Titirangi maunga in Gisborne. Photo / Gisborne Herald
The waka bridge connecting the Cook Landing Site reserve to Titirangi maunga in Gisborne. Photo / Gisborne Herald
I strongly object to the Gisborne Herald continuing to state the waka bridge at the Cook Landing Site is a “thousand-year bridge” (Gisborne Herald, Wednesday, page 6).
The story has a number of references to the phrase “thousand-year bridge” and says: “It offers views of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay from where navigatorsarrived by canoe, waka and ship over the past 1000 years.”
Current accepted history is that no navigator from anywhere landed here a thousand years ago.
Whether the council or anyone else refers to it that way is not the point – nor is it an excuse for going along with something that is plain wrong – the phrase clearly implies a history that does not exist.
