PIERCING HOMER TUNNEL

Southland Times, Issue 24056, 21 February 1940, Page 6

PIERCING HOMER TUNNEL

WEEKS OF WORK IN SCREE MILFORD PORTAL NOW UNDER BOULDERS VALLEY REVERBERATES WITH EXPLOSIONS (Special to The Times) MILFORD, February 20. Before the Homer tunnel can be pierced at the Milford Sound end scree to a depth of 57 feet will have to be shifted. The bottom heading of the tunnel has been pierced and the drill has come out into the scree but several week’s work has to be done before the portal of the tunnel, connecting the Cleddau Valley with the Hollyford Valley, is cleared. Fifty-seven feet below where a gang of nearly 50 men is now working clearing away huge boulders, lies the hidden portal. The drive of three-quarters of a mile has been made through the rocky mountain with an error of less than half an inch. Daily the Cleddau Valley reverberates as explosives shatter the immense granite-like builders now lying above the tunnel exit. On the summit of the Homer Saddle; a worker from the Hollyford side fires gelignite to warn the Public Works Department employees working on the immense face of rocks down to the portal that charges are to be fired within the tunnel itself. The indefinite character of the foundation hidden deep down under the scree, —the sheddings of a mountain — has mqde impossible the fixing of the date when the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) will fire the final charge. Much depends on the weather, a very uncertain factor in that grandly rugged country. Probably the opening will not be made for at least a month or - six weeks. WINTER STORMS IN SUMMER Summer storms of more than winter severity have been experienced recently on the slopes of the Homer Saddle. On Tuesday of last week, snow was lying two feet deep in the rocky basin and continuous avalanches from the precipitous mountains surrounding the headwaters of the Cleddau river made work impossible. Now the full staff of 48 men, all that remain of the large gangs employed in the Cleddau Valley for years, is concentrated on clearing that tremendous pile of scree above the level of the tunnel exit, more than a mile above the point considered to be safe for winter working. The country is so rough that the fullest use of the bulldozer cannot be made on the scree directly above the tunnel portal and whether the road to the tunnel will be on firm ground will be determined only when the scree is shifted. Few visitors to Milford Sound have been the whole length of the nine miles of reading so far completed. It can be said that when the road from the Homer Tunnel to the sound is opened for traffic motorists will in the 11-mile stretch be presented with panoramas of mountain, river and fiord scenery unique in their diversity and character.

From the end of the partially made road to the upper reaches of the Cleddau Valley, only the route of the highway has been hewn through the sub-alpine shrub. No major construction jobs are ahead and only one more bridge has to be built. It will be over the Cleddau river at the point where the road begins to run along the rocky face to the tunnel. Three suspension bridges cross the Tutoko, Don and Gulliver rivers, at the latter of which the Graves-Talbot Pass track joins the highway, and numerous smaller concrete bridges and culverts are finished or nearing completion. DIVERTING TORRENTS To make this road safe, a vast amount of work which will not be seen by the tourists has been done. Over the surveyed route of the road, countless mountain torrents and rills poured their swift way. To divert those waters and to concentrate them in man-made channels through the bush and to ensure their ordered discharge into the Cleddau river, many miles of ditches have had to be cut through the rock. None of the water can now spill across the road, which has been built round rocky bluffs and over marshes. On one stretch over a bog, the roadway built to a width of 12 feet spread out to 20 feet before consolidation was obtained. The longest straight section of the road is of three-quarters of a mile along the banks of the Cleddau with Mount Bell towering high above. At every one of the innumerable turns on the other sections of the road a new vista opens out. The scenery is magnificent. Not till the motorist is within three miles of the hostel is the first view of the overpowering grandeur of the Milford scene obtained. It is of Mitre Peak from an angle entirely new after that now almost too familiarly picturized view of the mountain exploited on picture cards, bank notes and postage stamps. On the descent from . the Homer tunnel, the motorist will have a succession of enthralling scenes of turbulent mountain streams, snow-cap-ped peaks and precipices. No panorama is finer than that from the bridge over the Tutoko river with Mount Tutoko as the background and at journey’s end, at the Milford Hostel, the superb panorama of world-celebrated Milford Sound is suddenly presented. DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED Through the dense birch forests ana rocky bluffs, over rivers and bogs, bushmen, bridge builders and an army of labourers have built New Zealand’s most picturesque and most difficult road. They have had to overcome not only the topographical difficulties of the hardest country in the Dominion but the difficulties of a severe climate. In winter time, the camps of the men are for four months without sun and the ground is frozen to a depth of 18 inches. The Milford district measures its annual rainfall in yards. For 19 days recently, the rain was continuous and after a break of one fine day rain fell for 19 days more. Less than a year ago 20 inches of rain was recorded in 24 hours and the yearly fall ranges from 220 to 260 inches. To make a road over heavy country under such conditions has been a mammoth task. Although he opening of the tunnel is now within sight, the opening of the road for traffic is distantly indefinite. A great deal of widening has to be done yet on the completed part, which has gradients varying from one in 12 to one in nine. The experience of last week suggests that the danger from avalanches will permit the road to be used only in the summer months.