The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1939. Motoring To Wellington

Northern Advocate, 18 July 1939, Page 4

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1939. Motoring To Wellington

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

BEFORE the opening of the Centennial Exhibition in November it is hoped to complete the sea-level road eliminating Paekakariki Hill, some 30 miles north of Wellington. As the new Ngahauranga Gorge Road will also be open for use by that time (it is practically completed now, except for surfacing), northern motorists who decide to travel to the exhibition will undoubtedly be impressed by the new approaches to the Capital City. The Ngahauranga Gorge road, a monument to the energy and driving force of Mr. Semple, is probably the most spectacular road construction job ever done in New Zealand. There has been no work so ambitious, for it involved transforming a narrow and tortuous road, following a defile in the rocky hills, into a smooth, wide, well-graded highway sweeping like a ribbon round gentle curves created by enormous cuttings and fillings all the way between the foreshore and the suburb of Johnsonville. Only those with a knowledge of the road as it was can have any real idea of the transformation that has been wrought. < _ _ The sea-level road from Plimmerton to Paekakariki is another bold and imaginative undertaking, cutting out the longclimb up the face of Paekakariki Hill, with its zig-zags and hairpin bends. Something will be lost, of course, by those who take the sea-level route, for the view from the top of Paekakariki Hill is a sublime spectacle on a clear day, but the greater safety, comfort and speed will be provided by the alternative route, which will be practically a marine highway for a few miles, as the road skirts the beach, and a specially designed sea wall has been built to prevent waves from breaking over on to the road. Some 50 miles north of Paekakariki is another imposing piece of road engineering. It is the Whirokino Viaduct, opened not many months ago, and designed to obviate delays caused by floods in the Manawatu river. With all these improvements, the travelling time between Wanganui and Wellington, once a day’s journey, has been reduced to a comfortable thiee houis. It is a broad, straight highway through some of the finest country in New Zealand. . . , . e At Wanganui the northward-bound motorist has a choice of two routes. He may follow the main highway north through Taranaki or elect to take the road through the centre of the North Island, via the Parapara Road, leading from Wanganui to Raetihi. The latter road, not so many years ago a mere bush track impassable in wet weather, is becoming increasingly important in the North Island highway system,“as it reduces the distance between Auckland and Wellington by about 40 miles. To those who wish to make the journey in one day this is a consideration of some moment. , Vast improvements have been effected to the Parapara Road in the past year or two, and a considerable length of it is now undergoing reconstruction. As it passes through very high ana rugged country, following the picturesque valley of the Mangawhero River, it cannot be widened or straightened to any notable extent without very heavy expenditure, but in the meantime much of it has been given a bitumen surface. Ihe advantage of this route is that it takes the holiday motorist through the National Park area and makes a call at the Chateau quite feasible There is still much to be done between Te Kuiti and Taumarunui, but no doubt, in due course, Mr. Semple will put his bulldozers to work on this section, too, and so there will be a first-class modern road straight through the heart of the North Island, and alternative routes to Wellington by way of either Hawke’s Bay or Taranaki.