Viaduct reopens after 5-year wait
A push to get the Hump Ridge Track, near Tuatapere, added to New Zealand’s list of Great Walks has been boosted by the reopening of the track’s star attraction, the Percy Burn Viaduct.
The viaduct in southern Fiordland, which has been closed for the past five years, was officially reopened yesterday.
Located on the Hump Ridge Track and regarded as the world’s largest wooden mill tramway viaduct, it was shut by the Department of Conservation in 2013 due to safety concerns.
Track walkers had to bypass the viaduct during its closure but its reopening allows them to again cross the 36m high and 125m long timber structure.
The viaduct, along with the Sandhill Burn, Edwin Burn and Francis Burn viaducts, make up a quartet of giant timber viaducts built nearly a century ago on the south coast of the Fiordland National Park.
They have all now been restored at a cost of $750,000 with funders including DOC, Southland District Council and community funders.
The restoration work, led by Southland’s Port Craig Viaducts Charitable Trust, was carried out by a small team of Fulton Hogan workers over five months.
Trust chairman Tom Pryde said the reopening of the Percy Burn Viaduct had boosted the Hump Ridge Track’s chances of being added to the list of New Zealand’s Great Walks. ‘‘I think it’s a critical component of getting success for that Great Walk status.’’
With Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage among at least 40 people helicoptered into the bush for the viaduct’s reopening, Pryde took the opportunity to push the cause for the Hump Ridge Track to become a Great Walk.
‘‘We are chasing Great Walk status so I just thought I would throw that in there,’’ he said to the minister during speeches.
Sage said she was ‘‘taking away the message you really want the Great Walk [status]’’.
Three tracks were in the running to be added to the Great Walks list – The Hump Ridge Track, Te Paki Coastal Track at Cape Reinga and Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds.
‘‘DOC will consider it carefully and make its decision in the next couple of months,’’ she said.
Pryde said the restoration project was significant given the age of the viaduct structures, magnitude of the work and remoteness of the work sites in southern Fiordland.
The four tramway viaducts were the most visible relics from the indigenous logging and milling operation carried out at Port Craig, the former home to New Zealand’s largest sawmill but now a ghost town.
About 25km of tramways were built in the bush to transport logs to the mill, with the tramway viaducts built to cross gullies.
Pryde said trustees had worked for 28 years to ensure the viaducts remained icons of New Zealand engineering and industrial heritage to be enjoyed by future generations.
He was hopeful no more major restoration work, other than regular maintenance, would be required for at least 20 years.
However, given the viaducts were wooden and located in the wet Fiordland forest fixing them would be a ‘‘never ending thing’’.
The man who cut the ribbon for the official opening was Ken Sangster whose grandfather was the chief blacksmith at Port Craig when the mill was operating nearly a century ago.
‘‘He was responsible for all the steel work you see on the viaducts,’’ Sangster said.