Auckland's giant motorway tunnelling machine has been fired up for its two-year underground journey from Mt Albert to Waterview and back.
Ten-year-old Manukau boy Branden Hall, who won a schools competition to name the 2800-tonne ground-eater Alice, joined Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee in a deep trench in Alan Wood Reserve today to push the ignition button on the machine's 14.46m cutting head.
But after a few ceremonial turns, each taking about 30 seconds, the machine was shut down again for final checks before it can push off against a heavy steel "shove frame" for tunnelling to start next week.
It will spend a year travelling at up to 8cm a minute - about as fast as a snail - to Waterview where it will be dismantled, turned around, and re-assembled to dig the second tunnel in the opposite direction.
