Sunday 20th of December 2020.

The Whau River is an estuarial arm of the southwestern Waitemata Harbour (rather than a river) within the Auckland metropolitan area in New Zealand. It flows north for 5.7 kilometres from its origin at the confluence of the Avondale Stream and Whau Stream to its mouth between the Te Atatū peninsula and the long, thin Rosebank Peninsula in Avondale.

In earlier times, Maori used the Whau for travel between the Waitemata Harbour (on the Pacific east coast) and the Manukau Harbour (on the Tasman west coast). They paddled canoes up the Whau River and the Avondale Stream and then carried the canoes over a short stretch of land to Green Bay on the Manukau. This is remembered in the name for Portage Road, which runs alongside the Avondale Stream.