Further Contract For Work On Haast Highway

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28298, 8 June 1957, Page 8

Further Contract For Work On Haast Highway

“The Press” Special Service

DUNEDIN, June 27. A further important stage in the completion of Otago’s first road link with Westland over the Haast Pass through the Southern Alps will begin in the next few weeks. Tenders for forming the road for a further two miles from the Otago side close next week. At the end of this stage only about five miles of heavily timbered hillside will separate the Otago forces from road construction gangs working eastward from the West Coast. Working westwards from the provincial boundary at the pass proper, Otago contractors’ gangs are now deep into Westland. The road slopes relatively steeply down the south side of the gorge formed in its upper reaches by the fast-flowing Haast River. Gates of Haast After a few miles of edging

round the mountainside the road reaches the Gates of Haast—sheer rock cliffs through which the river tumbles. At this point a bridge carries the road on to the north side of the river. A mile and a-half ahead is the furthest west the road has been formed.

From this point the new contract will take the road through a further quarter-mile of heavy rock bluffs before it reaches the gently sloping river flats below. A Ministry of Works spokesman in Dunedin said excavation of a total of 47,000 cubic yards of material was entailed in the new contract.

Financially it would cost a little more than half the last contract let, which involved heavy rock work. In the first mile of river flat the road would pass the Burke Hut. It would provide relatively easy going for the contractor and the road should progress quickly. In the final mile the road gangs would return again to heavier work in rock country. The contract would end, the spokesman said, at the site of the Pleasant Valley bridge—a structure 500 feet long which would carry the road back to the southern side of the river. Completion of the contract was expected to fall about January of next year. Not a great distance below the bridge site was the Clark Bluff, which the Westland construction gangs had already passed. It was estimated that they were now no more than five miles from the bridge. Jackson’s Bay Area The Jacksons Bay area, from which the Westlanders were working, was still landbound, the spokesman said. For this reason the over-all policy was for the two converging gangs to meet as quickly as possible and provide the western section of the road with access. To this end the Westland road builders had bypassed the more difficult obstacles and pushed ahead. About 20 small bridges: had yet to be built to bridge in the road that had been formed, and a good deal of work would be required on the Clark Bluff. If the bridges were to be built before the roads were linked, all materials that could not be produced locally would have to be landed from ships at Jacksons Bay. As soon as the link was established components could be brought from Otago by road.

Provided the necessary funds were made available, the Pleasant Valley bridge would be started—and possibly completed—in the financial year beginning in March, 1958.

The bridge was mucn larger than any yet built over the Haast, and its construction would take some time. In the meatime, the Westland road gangs would continue towards it