The Kaituna Bridge on the Tauranga Eastern Link highway will be open to the public for the first time next weekend.

As well as getting the chance to walk the 186 metres across the largest bridge in the Tauranga Eastern Link project, the November 17 open day, from 10am till 2pm, also offers an opportunity to get close to the earthmoving machinery being used in the construction of the 25km highway project.

TEL project manager Wayne Troughton.

There will also be helicopter rides for an aerial view of the country's major new road project.

While the four-laning of the six kilometres from Te Maunga to Domain Rd is highly visible to the thousands of commuters using the road each day, most of the 16km is across farmland away from public view.

Bell Rd now passes under the Kaituna Bridge to provide access to the boat ramp. Across the river, Pah Rd has also been changed to fit the highway project.

One of project managers, Wayne Troughton's view on the project is how the highway has had to fit in with its neighbours and their history, as well as the challenging geography.

'West of the river, the road is built over swamp; an old, deep swamp the project engineers have overcome by stacking the roadbed metres deep in sand to squeeze all the water out.”

Now the settlement process is nearing completion, with sections of roadbed being laid in gravel, says Wayne.

One of the major projects yet to get underway is paving 100 lane-kilometres, while a bitumen plant has been built at the Poplar Lane quarry, ready for the surge in demand. 'Plus, the next section of paving is unlikely to stretch capacity.”

Traffic from Domain Rd to Tara Rd is to be diverted the wrong way round the roundabout in the next week or so while earthworks on a small hill is levelled for the permanent route.

But mainly the Tauranga Eastern Link has had to fit in with existing drainage patterns, says Wayne. 'The main reason is the stretch from Te Maunga to Domain Rd is still criss-crossing itself via the drainage culverts that are being built in stages under the highway.”

Across the river, the highway has to cater for the mowing boats that cut weeds growing along the banks of the drainage ditches. Instead of the concrete used in the drainage culverts and the cattle underpass, the mowing boat culverts are being constructed with steel sheet piling.

The Maketu Bridge, over the East Coast Main Truck Railway, is considered the widest bridge in New Zealand, because the highway is going across it on the angle.

The Paengaroa roundabout at the eastern end of the new highway is expected to open in March, removing the notorious a SH2/SH33 T intersection.

It's also the site of one of the major archaeological finds; an entire ancient settlement where they grew vegetables, says Wayne.

'We found a residential area used to grow kumara, vegetables, in quite a big area with hangi pits, post holes. So that was quite a find.”

The projects relationship with its Maori history is through the Tauranga Eastern Link Tangata Whenua Advisory Group – TELTWAG – representing six iwi along the highway's route who handle all the cultural protocols, as well as providing a cultural backing for the motifs appearing on the structures, bridges and ramps.

The local legend of ‘The Three Whales', which are the high hills of Kopukairoa (the father whale), Mangatawa (the mother whale) and Hikurangi (the baby whale), is stylised in the concrete facings on the Mangatawa interchange. The Kaituna Bridge features a flax motif to celebrate the area's history, a waka and taniwha teeth.