Kiwis! Whimsical champions of deadpan humour! What could be more irony-laden than building tunnels as transport nodes in one of the most geologically active places on the planet? Now that’s John Clarke level humour IMO
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:33 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Well, it's definitely active geologically but (and maybe this is related) also incredibly mountainous just about everywhere.

There's a more complete list of NZ tunnels here, with descriptions if you hover over the name of each tunnel. They are not ranked, unfortunately, but there's all the tunnelly geekiness you could ask for.
posted by dg at 11:40 PM on April 22

I am really hoping we have a few kiwi mefites who've been through a few of these and can offer some personal rankings.
posted by jjderooy at 11:41 PM on April 22

Well, of the two on the way to New Plymouth from Hamilton, 1 is no longer used and was only about 10M long as is the remaining one on Mt Messenger. Are they even tunnels? I should look. 1 out of 10?
posted by Richard Upton Pickman at 12:02 AM on April 23

The Karori one really is shithouse.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:55 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]

I think giving the Hataitai bus tunnel top spot is a little hipsteresque tho
posted by Sebmojo at 12:56 AM on April 23

The Waterview Tunnel (3) is a nice experience. Mount Victoria Tunnel (25) is neat and I like the honking while people go through it.
posted by Paragon at 1:01 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

Can I just say I am one of those who hates the horn tooting in the Mt Victoria tunnel. Just awful.
posted by vac2003 at 1:10 AM on April 23 [5 favorites]

I lived in Lyttelton for a year and the Tunnel is a very signal memory, and so is Lyttelton itself (it's very different post-quake). The tunnel if very resonant (prob due to the ceramic tiling) it's really fun to drive through fast with the windows down, and it slopes down in to Lyttelton My wife got a trip through it when a B-train driver offered her a lift. We rented a house from the Port Authority and lived right in the town and just uphill from the fire station. Magic place and VERY eclectic people mix.

Homer Tunnel was (I haven't driven it since maybe '94 was a drippy, wet, cavernous experience). If you stop for pics at either end don't leave your car too long as the kea (mountain parrots) will destroy it [youtube].

But the earth moves far too often here, I think tunnels are just a hole in the ground to pour money into, especially when AF8 is well overdue (a factor 8+ earthquake series with an occurrence interval of - 27 times over the last 8000 years, the last four being - 1717, 1620, 1450, and 1100 and so on into deep time).
posted by unearthed at 1:44 AM on April 23

Tooting in the mt vic tunnel on a nice day is a holy obligation I'm sorry that's just facts
posted by Sebmojo at 1:49 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]

Well, I've been through 13 of these (as a former Wellington resident obviously I have an advantage).

The Hataitai bus tunnel is an attractive nuisance in that it seems like a great shortcut home if you're drunk at 3 am and unfortunately when both pedestrians AND drivers have that idea, very bad things happen.

My memories of the Lyttleton Tunnel are sullied by being tailgated for nearly the entire length by some drunken muppet in an oversized ute. He didn't actually nudge my rear bumper but purposefully weaved to try and suggest that was next. When he overtook and sped off as we exited, I nursed uncharitable hopes that he might crash in some non-fatal but expensive way.

Mt Messenger indeed is there to give you that bracing feeling that you're ALIVE and REALLY DRIVING (the back roads of Taranaki all do seem to have more hazardous bends and steep drops than anywhere else in the North Island except perhaps the Coromandel peninsula, yes I know that is not in fact a back road but SH3).

But as a Christchurch resident with an increased sense of danger in earthquakes, I dislike driving through all of them.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:54 AM on April 23 [4 favorites]

(and yeah ok it's fun when you're in a car to toot in the Mt Vic tunnel but when you are a pedestrian or on a bike on the walkway and already cursing the exhaust fumes and the narrow path where you can't even pass another person properly it's horrible).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:56 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

Can confirm going to school near Mt Vic tunnel that the tooting got old pretty quickly. Yet last time I was home guess what I did the first time I drove through the tunnel again....force of habit.

What was the NZ movie with the chase scene through the Mt Vic or Hataitai Bus tunnel? I don't think it was Goodbye Pork Pie, or was it? (I think that was mostly just around the train station)
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:17 AM on April 23

(and yeah ok it's fun when you're in a car to toot in the Mt Vic tunnel but when you are a pedestrian or on a bike on the walkway and already cursing the exhaust fumes and the narrow path where you can't even pass another person properly it's horrible).

I used to live in moxham ave and walk through the tunnel, so do completely agree with this, but, nonetheless
posted by Sebmojo at 1:57 PM on April 23

Disappointed to see The Spinoff confidently repeating the LIE about tooting in the Mt Vic tunnel being linked to Phyllis Symons. The Guardian article they link to even explicitly says:

The memory of Symons is supposedly what inspired the tooting tradition, although Joanna Newman, the historical society’s convenor, said there was no proof of that.

I think I've driven though most of this list. It's unfair to put Karori Tunnel at 29. It might be too small for modern traffic (the red scrapes on the roof are from trucks almost fitting), have a pedestrian walkway that enforces courtesy lest someone ends up in traffic, and is always damp, but by god it does the job of being the arterial connection between the CBD and NZs largest suburb. Also, one of the houses at the entrance has a clothesline that flies over it, and it never fails to cheer me up seeing clothes drying up there.

I wouldn't count the Whanga Road ones as drivable, because they require specialist equipment (4x4) and an amount of skill to reach. I had a chat with a farmer out there that owns a bulldozer who has done more than a few rescue operations. Here's a random video showing the condition of the track.

Honourable Mention should be added for the Wellington Cable Car tunnels. They don't accommodate cars, but they have a neat lighting show.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 3:26 PM on April 23 [4 favorites]

How the hell did I miss all the Taranaki tunnels? Hmmph.

My main memory of the Lyttleton tunnel is white-knuckling it a bit at the traffic chaos on the roundabout at the Lyttleton end.

I will admit to tooting in the Mount Victoria Tunnel. Shocking absence of a mention of the Wellington Paranormal episode about the tunnel, though.
posted by rednikki at 3:30 PM on April 23

@inflatablekiwi you're thinking of Never Say Die, Geoff Murphy's follow-up to Goodbye Pork Pie. It has a geographically accurate chase from the Ferry to Haitatai.

Here it is. They don't make chases like they used to.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 3:55 PM on April 23 [3 favorites]

I had an elderly neighbor who rarely drove, but wanted to get some practice in before her upcoming drivers exam, so I offered to sit in the passenger seat while she drove through the Northland tunnel (northeast, towards Northland). She still had her sunglasses on, and it's dark in the tunnel, so she slowed down. Oncoming traffic arrived, and she let natural instinct take over, and started keeping further and further to the left of the lane, finally to the point where she scraped the metal pedestrian blocker, damaging her side-view mirror, as well as scraping the hubcaps against the kerb. Meanwhile, I am petrified with fear. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to grab the wheel from her like a driving instructor, so instead I just whispered "I think you're a bit far to the left, you're scraping the wall." She managed to get back in the lane, and we pulled over at the Northland shops. I asked if she wanted me to drive her back home, she declined. So I sat back white-knuckled in the car as we thankfully went up-and-over the hill to Wilton rather than back through the sieve of life.

I think it was close to $1K to repair the car at a panelbeater, which she did manage to complete before she retook, and failed, her renewal exam. I offered to take her to the supermarket shopping from there on until she passed away.
posted by Metro Gnome at 5:12 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]

I like the vulva one.
posted by h00py at 8:38 PM on April 23

As a resident of Karori, yeah, the tunnel kind of sucks but I'm a non-driver so I like how it slows down traffic. And as a relatively new resident of Wellington that chase scene from Never Say Die is the greatest thing I've ever seen.
posted by smartyboots at 9:15 PM on April 23 [2 favorites]

The chase from Goodbye Pork Pie is better, and funnily enough has driving through a tunnel that's not on this list.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 7:53 PM on April 24 [1 favorite]

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