TAITA GORGE ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 89, 11 October 1941, Page 10

TAITA GORGE ROAD

ANOTHER SLIP

GOOD WORK BY P.W.D.

Considering the small machine power now available, so mucii having been sent overseas for military use, the. Public Works and the local body men working at the seemingly endless job of clearing slips and slides from highways and roads have done wonderful work since yesterday morning, but Taita Gorge, the most consistent trouble-maker of all the Wellington district roads, beat them again this morning, when still another slip came down, clear across the road. The Taita Gorge road has been open and closed off and on for months, ever since a heavy flood in the river ate back into the bank so badly that it was decided to cut the roadway back I 12 to 15 feet to solid rock. Because the hillside above is steep, this meant that a very high batter had to be cut, I and once the weathered crust had been j removed the wet winter and the wetter spring went properly to work. Tens of thousands of tons have been cut down to form the batter, and tens of thousands of tons have fallen. The slip this morning, at about 8.30, was a few chains to the south of the last big slip. The first run covered the full width and more, sliding over the bank. Only two bulldozers were available, one of them a "pup," but with- j in an hour some sort of a track had j been cut. More loose rock trickled down from an overhang, and the indi- | cations this morning were that a lot more must fall before there will be any sort of stability. Taita Gorge is No. 1 headache for Wellington road engineers. The A.A. road signs will indicate as far as possible the state of the Gorge road, but however much work the men and plant on the job can do today motorists should avoid this route. The Western Hutt Road is open. At Pukerua Bay the job is well in hand and the full roadway is cleared, but there still a likelihood that an overhang will give trouble. The lake behind the railway embankment has been very much reduced, but the E.F.S. fire pump was still running this morning.

Care should be taken at night on all roads out of Wellington.