Tunnels and firewalks
The northernmost railway in Southland was a short stretch of rail laid for the tunnelling work on the Homer Tunnel.
The tunnel was begun in 1935 from both ends and broken through in 1940, but work ceased during the war, to be resumed in 1951.
There was a rumour that a wagon load of scrap iron was stationed there so that if the Japanese invaded, via the west coast, then the tunnel could be blocked. Improbable as invasion here seems, the tunnel would have been the only access to the hinterland eastwards of the West Coast, between Jackson Bay and Te Waewae Bay.
Southland’s first firewalk was held in the Gala Street Reserve in Invercargill in August 1996 when 275 people crossed the glowing embers barefoot.
In 1997, 229 people walked through the fire pit. When there are claims that firewalking involves the supernatural, good old physics comes to the rescue. Although the charcoal is hot, it is a poor conductor of heat, unlike metal. The short time that a bare foot is in contact with the ember is insufficient for the skin to be burnt. The rules are simple – don’t run and don’t panic. Still, it’s not something to try at home. Quicksand occurs frequently on the Southland coast or on bends in rivers. It is caused by water flowing through the sand and buoying up the grains which sink when weight is applied. Several deaths have resulted from vehicles suddenly striking quicksand and flipping but no Southlanders have been ‘swallowed up’. There is good quicksand in the Jacobs River Estuary, Porpoise Bay, Waipati Estuary and on Waipapa Beach.
The first base-jumping in Southland was achieved in February 2008 by Chuck Berry, Miles Daisher, Shane McConkey and Sol Vallis who leapt off Terror Peak in Fiordland. In February 2011 New Zealand jumpers Alan McCandlish and Benny MacPherson, and Aussie Jason Cyran, jumped off the Kaipo Wall in Fiordland which is the highest vertical drop in New Zealand – 1300m straight down. Base-jumpers wear a wing-suit to manoeuvre as they fall, then deploy a parachute for a soft landing.