Haas! Road Not Open Until Christmas, 1965

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30413, 11 April 1964, Page 1

Haas! Road Not Open Until Christmas, 1965

The remaining section of the Haast Pass road to link with the South Westland highway will be opened to traffic about the Christmas holiday season in 1965, members of the Travel and Holidays Association were told during their survey of tourist facilities along the route this week.

Work is being pushed ahead as fast as possible from both ends through rugged country. Ministry of Works staff are constructing the road from the south end, and Roadways (N.Z.), Ltd., of Oamaru, are working from the northern roadhead. Six miles of road between the Whakapohai river in the north and Bullock creek in the south remains to be completed but preliminary work has been done on three miles of this section. Good progress is being maintained in spite of some adverse weather. Four large arch culverts and numerous small culverts totalling about a mile in length are required. Six-Day Week The men are working six days a week. Because of the difficult nature of the terrain costs are high, for the most difficult portions, about £BO,OOO a mile. The Haast river bridge completed last year by the Ministry of Works, is almost half a mile long—one of the longest Callendery-Hamilton bridges ever built. It is a one-way structure with two passing bays. Contractors were employed to lift the spans into position. Bridge Policy It is the policy of the National Roads Board on this route to build two-way bridges only for lengths of up to 50 feet. Those of greater length are one-way bridges. The minimum widths are 12 feet and 24 feet. Approaches to one-way bridges are being sealed because where traffic converges to cross the bridge pot holes are likely. The chief engineer for the Ministry of Works in South Westland, Mr T. C. H. Mouat, accompanied the tourist pro-

motion party to the northern roadhead, flew with it from the Fox Glacier to Haast in Dominie aircraft, and then went with it to the southern roadhead. He has been in South Westland for several years. Mr W. Walker is the engineer in charge of the Haast section. On Thursday the party travelled over the Haast Pass into the Vincent County, spent the night at Lake Hawea, visited Lake Wanaka and Mount Cook before travelling to Christchurch. More Visitors The trip was a success because it brought together all persons interested in providing facilities for both overseas and New Zealand tourists, said Mr J. L. Chapman, of Wellington, the president of the Travel and Holidays Association.

There would be a great increase in visitors when the

Haast Pass road was completed and they had to be catered for; roading was the priority and it was being completed as fast as finance would allow, he said. Coast Weather There was a need to dispel the widely-held, “erroneous," idea that the weather on the West Coast was always bad, Mr Mark Wallace, a member of the Westland County Council who made the tour, told members of the association. He also asked that an endeavour be made to obtain i more money to realign, widen and seal the road north of j the Fox Glacier. | Greater efforts to keep noxious animals, such as opossums, under control were required, Mr Wallace said. In the northern area they were causing considerable damage to the bush but fortunately they had not appeared in any great numbers in the south.