MILFORD SOUND

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18367, 9 April 1934, Page 9

MILFORD SOUND

PROPOSED MOTOR ROAD W ELLINGTON COMMENT The Dominion, commenting on the proposal to construct a motor road to Milford Souud, says:— “No one with imagination and practical faith in the future of New Zealand’s tourist trade can fail to be Tinpressed by Mr. Adam Hamilton’s wordpicture of the Milford "Sound road projSct: ‘A highway encircling the Soutli Island, with Milford Sound as a port of call for overseas tourist vessels.’ This is an attractive way of looking at a proposal which, at first sight, is concerned simply with making it possibles to visit the famous sound in a motor car, as an alternative to an ocean trip ob ‘the finest walk in the world.’ It is possible now to motor, say, from Picton to the southern lakes and back again to Bicton without using the same road or passing through the same districts twice; nevertheless the traveller who makes sneb a journey misses country of wondrous beauty. “If a road be made to Milford Sound and' later continued to join the main ■West Coast highway from the north it will be possible, as the - Minister says, practically to encircle the South Island —to travel down the east coast to Invercargill, through the lakes district, and up the West Coast, or vice versa. Undoubtedly this would prove alluring alike to New' Zealanders and tourists from overseas. Embracing as ituvould almost every; type of scenery, including the world-famous Milford,. the round trip might well ..become the South Island’s major attraction'.

“For the -present, however, the fate of the; proposal hangs upon the report of the survey party', that .is working on the line'of the road and tunnel to Milford. The surveyors have already discovered that both the tunnel and the road are practical possibilities and. according to Mr. Hamilton, the results of the survey so far have been ‘entirely satisfactory.’ So far so- good; but the all-important question of cost has yet to be determined, and here the'Government may. find .itself up; against-a. problem irreater than any disclosed by the theodolite. . . . The taxpayer cannot afford to provide the tourist with motor trips to Milford Sound unless it can be shown that th’Cre is profit in the investment.”