Joanne McNeill: Our own highway to heaven

I planned to park in the post-industrial wasteland next to the derelict Port Road fertiliser works to watch Whangarei's new bascule bridge open.

Euphemistically, I call it Limeburner's Beach. Great view if you ignore the rubbish, rats and pong. Hundreds of others with the same idea held their noses last Saturday.

The turnout suggests a community clean-up (I volunteer to help) might transform this rare ribbon of west-side, water's-edge access into a public asset, especially now it's front-row viewing for a miracle of modern engineering.

Picnic-tables, loos and a spruce-up for the historic jetty hidden in barbed-wire-infested mangroves would be a bonus.

When the bridge's fishhook weights arced seamlessly backwards to allow the waterborne flotilla, led by the flashing paddles of three Maori ceremonial waka, to glide the gap, the only blot was a noisy helicopter drowning out the paddlers' primeval chants.

Elsewhere in the motu on the day, thousands demonstrated against the GCSB Bill. Here in the Rei, thousands turned out for the bridge opening while one lonely protester held the fort.

Maybe locals have more pressing concerns - such as how to get to the other side.

Maybe they relished the double opening whammy. Brass bands, festive displays of shiny road-cones, speeches, time-lords making appearances in the parade, ribbon cuttings and dignitaries waving magic wands - may be standard procedure for new infrastructure, but this time, the bridge actually opened too.

Or perhaps, like me, they just love the way this bridge forces today's motorised madness to cede right of way to traffic negotiating the oceanic tides of our planet's most ancient highway.

All credit to WDC, the designer and the builders.

After the official palaver, throngs walked in what was, until Saturday, mid-air. Part way up, I thought I felt it move. For one terrible moment, collapsing concrete overwhelmed my imagination, but, hearing distant drumbeats, I got a grip, pressed on and was relieved to find the Funky Rei Djembes, a cheery percussion group, aligning the atoms of the superstructure with rhythmic vibrations in the epicentre of the span.

Good work. Great name too.

One might wax lyrical about the bridge's long slim curvature, its elegant geometry, and the way it provides users with fresh vistas.

Of course, on a practical level, the new bridge will improve peak-hour traffic flows to and from the Heads (and speed up airport trips for south-siders running late for planes) but the pedestrian walkways are a gift too.

If the world is what can be seen, this bridge has changed it forever. Officially, it's called Te Matau o Pohe - a name I can't imagine locals actually using. Logically "the new bridge" can't last either. "Bascule bridge" is too technical, foreign and poncy to catch on. "Drawbridge" conjures castles and moats until besieging hordes and boiling oil loom over the horizon. Te Matau? The fishhook? The opening bridge?

Had purveyors of television programmes and gambling facilities not already sullied the word sky with branding, I'd call it "the sky-bridge", because, when it opens, the section of road that rises, points straight up to the clouds. Only the Funky Rei has its very own highway to heaven.