Mangere Inlet

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Mangere Inlet is an arm of the Manukau Harbour, the southwestern of the two harbours of Auckland, New Zealand and itself an arm of the Tasman Sea. The inlet lies between the two cities of Auckland City and Manukau, two of the four cities which make up the Auckland conurbation, and extends east for 4 km. It is 1800 m wide at its widest point.

It is surrounded by the suburbs of Te Papapa, Southdown, Westfield, Otahuhu, Mangere East, Favona, and Mangere Bridge. The narrowest point on the Auckland isthmus is at Otahuhu, where the coast of the Mangere Inlet is a mere 1200 m from the Otahuhu Creek, which ultimately feeds into the Hauraki Gulf.

The Mangere Bridge crosses the western end of the inlet where it joins the main body of the Manukau Harbour. At this point the inlet is about 750 m wide.

For many years the abattoirs located here were discharging large amounts of untreated waste into the Manukau Harbour. This had a detrimential effect on the ecology of the harbour which at the turn of the 20th century had been a popular and attractive place to swim, sail, fish and gather shellfish. For most of the middle of the 20th century it was a health hazard and its shell-fish a probable source of food poisoning. Since the freezing works disappeared the water quality has improved greatly.

Portage Road is the location of one of the overland routes between the two harbours (and thus the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea), where the Maori would beach their waka (canoes) and drag them overland to the other coast, thus avoiding having to paddle around Cape Reinga. This made the area of immense strategic importance in both pre-european times and during the early years of european occupation.