RESOURCES OF WESTLAND

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22112, 7 June 1937, Page 10

RESOURCES OF WESTLAND

DEVELOPING THE FAR SOUTH BARRIERS OF ISOLATION DISAPPEARING PROGRESS OF GREAT HIGHWAY PROJECT [From Our Own Reporter.! HOKITIKA, June 6. The Government is undertaking an extensive development programme on the West Coast, through the construction of roads, bridges, aerodromes, and possibly a deepwater harbour which should make practicable for the first time the exploiting of the vast resources of one of the potentially richest areas in the South Island. The investigation into proposals for a harbour at Jacksons Bay, mentioned in "The Press" recently, is only one of a number of works now being accelerated up and down the 200 miles or so of the far south. On roads alone the Government is spending many thousands of pounds this year. Several hundred men are scattered in big roading camps along the route of the great main highway being cpnstructed over the Haast Pass to link east and west for the first time in this part of the island. In fact, the last Public Works Estimates provided a bigger sum for roading in this county than in any other province in the Dominion. This roading work is being pushed ahead rapidly, along the 33-mile section between Weheka and Bruce Bay, from where it will turn inland along {he route into the mountains and over the Haast Pass. Weheka Is the present southern terminus of the main road south, and for a long time lack of road access further down the coast has prevented the working of great forests of white pine and rimu. One milling company has opened a big plant at Bruce Bay, now the most isolated sawmilling camp in the island, with an irregular service by sea for heavy transport and the machines of Air Travel (New Zealand), Ltd., providing the only regular access for the big staff needed. To get the timber from this mill small vessels have to anchor in the sheltered part of a bay and be loaded by slings from a huge rock jutting out near the cliffs. The road to Bruce Bay will greatly facilitate working the seemingly inexhaustible timber stands of this area. Big Bridges The Weheka-Bruce Bay section, going through virgin countrv for most of the route, necessita + he construction of three huge s, jnsion bridges, probably the biggest , of their type in the Dominion and of several smaller ones. Work on most of these jobs has already been started and one of them, the suspension bridge over the river flowing from the Fox glacier, is rapidly . nearing completion. It will not be long before it can be used to take •- regular motor traffic -down into parts of the country where children have never yet seen a motor-car. From Bruce Bay the road will ultimately swing into 1 -the fine farming flats about the Haast settlement, where packhorses are still used for travel and where before the air service mail often took three weeks to reach. There is some of the "fattest country on the Coast, grazed by Hereford cattle in prime condition and flocks of sheep, the wool from which has had to be packed out orloaded by lighters on to small coastal vessels on the rare occasions sea conditions will admit. Seen xrom the air, this belt of country many miles wide and long, seems only to be waiting for access for development into a second Taranaki. From Bruce Bay this main road will probably in the near future branch off the Haast Pass highway and strike down further into what is known as the far south, to Jacksons Bay, ultimately to go even further down and crossing the boundary into Otago, link *£.J Milford Sound and the Hollyford Valley road. The Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) has voiced an extremely favourable opinion about continuing this road, and although work on it has not been authorised, Public Works Department men are carrying out a survey. Actually parts of this road to Jacksons Bay are already roughly formed as access roads between settlements and farms. Its route runs through magnificent scenic country, studded with dozens of lovely lakes and tarns, intersected every score or so miles by rivers and with coastal lagoons amply stocked with wild game. Search for minerals There are other schemes which in- - dicate the growing importance of the district In the Paringa river region a Government gold prospecting party is carrying out the most comprehensive survey for gold ever undertaken in South Westland. Supplies are now being packed in for a big gang of men, and already a good deal of preliminary prospecting work has been started. The survey is being conducted on scientific lines by experts, and is intended to be a check and correlation of data secured by scores of individual prospectors and small parties whose reports, made over a number of years, have filled many of the files of the Mines Department. The party has already discovered or rediscovered a seam of coal, but its possibilties have yet to be explored further. There are other projects for South Westland which are still being investigated, but which, if realised, will greatly accelerate the advance of the whole area towards increased prosperity. The Government is completing its inquiries into a proposal to extend the railway south from Ross for many miles to tap the timber forests between there and Bruce Bay. There is millable timber in the area "which the Government has been advised should return royalties amounting to nearly £1,000,000. A great deal of interest, too, «s being taken in efforts to establish a harbour at OkaJito; while everyone in the district is watching with the keenest interest k ***? progress of investigations for the ■ establishment of an aerial railway ■ from the Waiho Hostel up into the ■ fine ski-lng grounds whose snow feeds | the Franz Josef glacier.