ROAD TO MILFORD SOUND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 88, 12 March 1935, Page 6

ROAD TO MILFORD SOUND.

TENDERS FOR TUNNEL. THIRTY-MONTH CONTRACT. (Bv Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, March 12. Tenders are being called by the Public Works Department for the construction of a tunnel, sixty chains, or threequarters of a mile, in length, beneath tne Homer Saddle on the Eglinton Valley tourist toad. If thq Government accepts a contract, the work is to be finished within thirty months of the date of acceptance. The construction of this tunnel will give road access from the east to the sea at Mifford Sound. The new road, from its junction with the main road at Te Anau, will be 74 miles long, and the tunnel occurs at about 63 miles from the junction. The rocky nature of the country will enable the greater part of the tunnel to be constructed without concrete lining, though for the first two or three chains at either end it is intended to line the structure, because it will be passing beneath fairly loose rock. The approach road up the Hollyford River is under active construction,/but to give early access to the eastern end of the proposed tunnel a special road along the valley is being provided for the contractor’s use. The specifications disclose that, although the tunnel may be constructed with a road width of ten feet, plus small footways on both s.des, the department will obtain from the contractors their quotation for additional excavation on a yardage basis, so that if the price is satisfactory the whole tunnel may be constructed with an 18ft. roadway suitable for two-way traffic. The western approach will be on a grade of one in ten, and. immediately on entering the grade will change to a downward one of the same angle, which is to be maintained throughout the 60 chains of its length. The continuationof the road through the Hollyford will be on a somewhat easier grade. At one point the tunnel will be between 1500 and ISOO feet below the Saddle, and the whole project will bring Milford Sound within 139 miles of the Lumsden railhead .