The road links the suburbs Ōrākei, Mission Bay, and Kohimarama ending in Saint Heliers providing easy access to the local beaches.

[citation needed] Tamaki Drive was completed in 1932 and incorporates The Strand, Bice Esplanade and, what was once part of the old Kohimarama Road.

[1] Tamaki Drive is a flat road around 8 km (5 miles) long and popular with walkers, runners and roller skaters, and includes a dedicated cycle lane.

Those travelling along Tamaki Drive can find scenic highlights and peaceful views across the harbour to the volcanic island Rangitoto.

Though initially few European settlers lived on this part of the Harbour, the colonial government sited their first infrastructure for the defence of Auckland here.

Fort Bastion was built in 1886, to serve as a parallel installation to the establishment of batteries and submarine mining stations at North Head on the Harbour's northern entrance.

The village was considered "a dreadful eyesore and potential disease centre" by the Auckland City Council,[5] who forcibly evicted the inhabitants in 1952 under the Public Works Act,[6] prior to the Queen Elizabeth II's Royal Tour of 1952-53.

[11] His vision was to create an underwater facility where visitors could admire marine life by travelling on a moving platform around various tunnels.

Its commanding view over the entrance to the Waitematā Harbour made it a key site for the defence of Māori settlements and later of Auckland City.

Initially the Battery defending the Harbour entrance had two 'disappearing guns', supplemented by two 6 pounders, with a magazine linked to covered passages and a search light mounted on Bastion Rock.

A boom linking Torpedo Bay with Bastion Point across the Harbour was designed to prevent enemy submarines reaching Auckland.

Mission Bay and its neighbour, Ōrākei, achieved national attention in 1977 when Māori protestors occupied vacant land at Bastion Point.

[14] This Art Deco ensemble designed by Tibor Donner and Anthony Bartlett was officially opened in March 1943, and the whole memorial stands on consecrated ground.

Trevor Moss Davis was director of the Auckland liquor firm Hancock and Company and died of a sudden heart attack in 1947 at the age of 45.

The memorial is a landmark on the city's waterfront, regularly, sending dancing jets of water as high as 12 m (40 ft) in the air and at night it features a spectacular light show.

[20] St. Heliers Bay was named by Major Walmsley in the late 1870s, who owned and managed Auckland's first stud farm at Glen Orchard in 1879.