Access To West Arm?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31077, 4 June 1966, Page 21

Access To West Arm?

(N.Z. Press Association) INVERCARGILL, June 3. Several Government departments and agencies are believed to be studying proposals to provide access for the public to view the Manapouri hydro works and the country in which the project is taking shape.

Such facilities were promised in July, 1963, before the project really got under way. It was said then that when the Wilmot Pass road was completed arrangements would be made for guided tours to travel over the road from West Arm to Deep Cove, Doubtful Sound. Late in 1964 a start was made to provide access to

West Arm. A contract was let for an observation building high on the south shore of the arm, with a picnic shelter, toilet facilities and wharf at lake level. The buildings and wharf were completed last year but on the eve of the opening the picnic shelter was demolished by a landslide. Plans to rebuild it on a site nearby were announced, but it was decided that the area was landslide prone and nothing was done about them.

The project cost the tax payer about £lO,OOO.

The observation building still perches on the hillside, the toilets and the rubble of the picnic shelter are still there.

The wharf, however, has been salvaged and moved closer to the work site. It is used to load and. unload men and gear from the tourist launch, Fiordlander, which carries tourists to West Arm. The tourists are allowed

ashore on an area about 50ft by 50ft, where they can see little of the contract site. A track over the Wilmot Pass, once used by hundreds of tourists each year, was closed when the project started because of the danger of people wandering in a construction area where tons of explosive was in use.