[2] It extends south for 15 kilometres (9 mi) from its mouth between the suburb of Saint Heliers and the long thin peninsula of Bucklands Beach, which reaches its end at Musick Point.

The Ōtāhuhu Creek forms the eastern shore of the narrowest point on the Auckland isthmus: here it is about 1.25 kilometres (0.75 mi) to the waters of the Manukau Harbour, an arm of the Tasman Sea.

The portages made the area of immense strategic importance in both pre-European times and during the early years of European occupation.Portage Road, Ōtāhuhu is the approximate historical location of Te Tō Waka.

[2] Karetu and went between the extreme north-east corner of the Manukau Harbour to a bay close to the site of the newest bridge across the Tāmaki, about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of the Panmure Basin.

Stones and steel had been imported from Australia,[6] possibly reflecting the still very basic nature of industrial construction in the young colony.

In the 1860s and 70s, the Tāmaki River was one of the busiest waterways in New Zealand, due to the transportation of agricultural goods such as wheat between Ōtāhuhu and the city of Auckland.

[7][8] In 1925 a 1.9-metre (6 ft 2 in) leopard that had escaped from the Auckland Zoo three weeks earlier was found dead in the Tāmaki river by a fishing party in Karaka Bay.