Waihorotiu Stream

Originally this was an open stream that was one of the tributaries of the Waitemata River, now submerged by rising sea levels in the Waitematā Harbour.

A side tributary (occupying the gully between Wellesley and Airedale Streets) possibly provided drinking water for both Māori villages and the first European colonists of Auckland, although the still existing Spring just to the north of Waterloo Quadrant (later utilised by the Grey & Menzies Mineral Water Company) may have been preferred as more reliable.

[1] In Māori mythology, the stream is the home of Horotiu, a taniwha (roughly speaking, a local nature spirit).

The sides of the stream crumbled in wet weather and there were only a few place to cross (sometimes just plank walkways), resulting in people and carriages periodically tumbling into the river.

[7] This proved inadequate (being called "an abomination, a pestiferous ditch, and the receptacle of every imaginable filth")[4] and eventually the stream was bricked over in the form of a sewer – water percolating through the soil under Myers Park still runs into the old drain under Queen Street to the sea, discharging under the Ferry Building.