Mission bay Auckland

This guide to Mission Bay in Auckland goes back to nineteen fifteen, when brothers Leo and Vivian Walsh moved their flying school onto this stretch of calm water, teaching total beginners to taxi and launch seaplanes toward Rangitoto. It follows Leo's own pioneering flight in a self-built machine and the young trainees who left this bay for the First World War. You'll also hear how the beach carried an earlier name, Kohimarama, before missionaries and aviators renamed it in turn.