Geography
The park is in the Heathcote Valley. Being close to the sea and low-lying, it was historically subjected to frequent flooding. A major event was the "Wahine Storm" of 1968, in which a large part of the site, then in embryonic development, was under water. This is no longer a major issue due to the filling of large parts of the site. Since the active involvement of the CCC began in the mid-1990s, flood and stormwater management have been implemented in the park and surrounding lands. The major project of the Heathcote Valley Park aims to integrate these along with the development of wildlife habitat areas and native plantings.
In the days of being managed by the Heathcote County Council, prior to local government amalgamation of 1989, part of the site was used as a rubbish dump. The raised location known as "Woods Hill" was formed artificially by the large-scale compacting of refuse dumped there over a number of years. This area is rather unstable land and buildings constructed there without appropriate foundations have been damaged by subsidence. The Tamaki Brothers of Rotorua have received substantial CCC assistance to construct a tourist Māori village on the site, which opened in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Ferrymead Heritage Park
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)