Kauaeranga Gorge

In 1921 the KTC uses blasting to widen the narrowest sections of the 6km long Kauaeranga Gorge to enable some big log drives to succeed. A main dam has been built to boost the water flow from dams upstream into something even more substantial. Despite this preparation some log jams occur. This jam is being loosened by using brute force devices and blasting. The economics of log drives were offset by the cost of log jams, dependence on high water flows, damaged logs, and damage wrought on property downstream.