DARKY'S SPUR ROUTE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 4 May 1938, Page 8

DARKY'S SPUR ROUTE

NAPIER-WAIROA ROAD CONSIDERED HOPELESS PROBLEMS OF BRIDGES "Hopeless!" was the comment of a Napier official of the Public Works Department when questioned regarding a report that by opening the Darkie's Spur route acccess between Napier and Wairoa could be provided within a week. The only thing for the department to do was to push ahead with the clearing of the main road, he added.

Several weeks will elapse before even a track is prepared through the mass of debris and washouts which abound on the Wairoa main highway. Public Works officials who have inspected the route during the past day or two returned to Napier during the week-end with vivid stories of the almost staggering extent of the damage which the storm created a week ago. Many Bridges Lost Of the main bridges on the route only the Matahoura bridge remains, and even in the case of this structure the approaches have disappeared. The Mohaka, Waikari, Waikoau and Esk bridges have gone, and work has now been commenced on the construction of a temporary structure over the Esk River. Later, when the road is opened, use will be made of the viaducts at Waikare and Mohaka, and a ford will probably "be prepared at Waikoau.

"The weather factor is all-impor-tant," it was stated in Napier. "On the state of the weather depends not only the progress of the reconstruction work, but also the possibility of further trouble." Men Travel By Sea Sixteen men have been sent to Wairoa by sea, and will be conveyed by service car to Waikari, where they will go .into the No. 3 camp. These men (will work towards the Napier end. There are about 60 men working from the Napier end, but this number will be increased immediately. A considerable distance of new road will require to be constructed on the Devil's Elbow. "We cannot get at" it yet," said an ollicial when questioned, "but when we do it will be necessary to cut into the hillside and form a new road. As far as the clearing is concerned, it should take about three weeks to reach Whirinaki Hill."