Sport colour squares off Swamp path

Wairepo Swamp Walk is the first project for Auckland's public art team. Photo / Jason Dorday

Forget roads paved with gold, Auckland now has a road paved in our national sporting colours.

Auckland mayor Len Brown yesterday afternoon officially opened the new Wairepo Swamp Walk linking Kingsland and Eden Park.

The shared traffic and pedestrian road is paved with huge squares of black and white made from a combination of North Island basalt and South Island silica.

Auckland conceptual artist Billy Apple, famous for his pop art collaborations with Andy Warhol in New York in the 1960s, created the surface.

"Billy Apple has done us more than proud capturing our Kiwi spirit in the way he's used our sporting colours of black and white," said Brown.

The $3 million Wairepo Swamp Walk, for fans walking from Eden Park to Kingsland, Ponsonby and the city on match days, is the first project of Auckland Council's public art team.

Like many art works, this one has not been without controversy. Residents opposed both traffic and pedestrians using the road and debated the name.

Suggestions included Mandela Lane, after Nelson Mandela and Minto Lane, after protester John Minto, to commemorate the Springbok protests.

The Eden-Albert Community Board decided on Wairepo Swamp Walk.