NEAR COMPLETION

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1935, Page 8

NEAR COMPLETION

MOKI SADDLE TUNNEL. BETTER ACCESS TO THE OHURA. At the end of three months, providing no unlooked for contingency arises, the Moki Saddle, for years the bugbear of all motorists wishing to reach the Ohura from the eastern districts of Stratford, will be pierced by a road tunnel that will give practically all-weather access to Taranaki’s hinterland.

For long the Moki Saddle, situated at the end of the metal ,at Tahora, together with wet weather, has effectively barricaded the Ohura district from access and egress via Stratford’s eastern districts and, while its completion will not entirely remove the bar of clay road between Tahora and the Paparata Saddle, which approximately marks the finish of the metal from, the Ohura end, the tunnel plus the metalled approaches to it, will reduce the clay portion of road from 11 miles to a little over nine.

Till recently the unmetalled break between Tahora and the Paparata Saddle was 13 miles, but the metalling of two and a-half miles of road on the Paparata Saddle and on the Tahora side of it reduced the gap to 10| miles and as the Moki tunnel and its approaches will total nearly a mile of metalled road, the balance unsurfaced through the Tangarakau Gorge, will be only nine and a-half miles. What is more the tunnel will reduce the Moki climb by 90 feet so that the west tortuous portion of it will be only a stock route. The tunnel will be eight and a-half chains long and there are two' chains yet to be pierced. After that the roof will have to be timbered, as the formation is papa and cannot be relied on to stand on its own. The approach roads will be completed by the time the tunnel is through.. Wet weather cannot greatly affect the work now as most of the 22 men on the job are engaged in or in connection with the tunnel.

The remaining unmetalled length of nine and a-half miles runs mainly through the Tangarakau Gorge which, even in wet weather, has never presented any difficulty to a cai* with chains, while very often after only light rain the bead is passable without chains.