Also like a spider’s web, our highways have a certain toughness about them. To a point, anyway. Load them up with too much force or energy and their fragility is easily revealed.
State Highway 6 is something of a masterpiece of highway engineering. According to Waka Kotahi, it is the longest single highway in the country, running for 1162km from the centre of Blenheim through Marlborough and Nelson, winding all the way down the West Coast, through the Haast Pass, on through Central Otago, past Lake Wakatipu, across Southland and finishing (or starting, depending on your point of view) on Dee St in Invercargill.
On the way, the road twists and turns through stunning country, alpine areas and pristine rainforest. It goes through perhaps the most hazardous parts of New Zealand, crossing the slumbering Alpine Fault several times and over frequently raging rivers, and will become ever more difficult to maintain as the climate continues to change and coastal erosion worsens.
The highway is essential for connecting many small isolated settlements, especially on the West Coast, and plays a key role in the biggest money-spinner for communities along much of its length — tourism.
One of the most precipitous sections of the highway is between Lake Moeraki and Haast, specifically the part around the rocky bluffs at Knights Point.
A large slip at Epitaph Cutting, below the road near the Knights Point lookout, has had locals’ hearts in mouths since it first gave way in 2012. There are fears that further instability could well undermine the highway, cutting off the West Coast from Wānaka and Queenstown, and significantly damaging the local tourism industry.
Now, electioneering candidates are proposing the old inland Haast-Paringa Cattle Track may provide the answer. Independent candidate Patrick Phelps says the track is surveyed, of manageable gradient, and is only 4km longer than the coastal highway.
National Party list MP Maureen Pugh says she has written to Waka Kotahi suggesting it look at the track as an alternative, while Labour’s West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O’Connor said he would make a site visit with officials.
The transport agency is well aware of the vicissitudes of this part of SH6. It recently identified three sections of the highway, from Kingston to Frankton, Frankton to Cromwell, and Hawea to Haast, as in need of multimillion dollars of resilience work to cope with increasingly extreme weather. As part of this, Waka Kotahi estimates it would cost $15.2 million to mitigate extreme landslip risk around Epitaph Cutting. Other potential projects include stabilising hillsides near the Devil’s Staircase section of SH6 along Lake Wakatipu, and remediating slips along the margins of Lake Wānaka and Lake Hawea.
Those who have spent time driving on highways and motorways in Australia, North America, Europe and the United Kingdom often come home and complain, unfairly, about what they consider to be the poor state of New Zealand’s major roads. It’s worth remembering, however, that as soon as you pull off the main road in those countries, things aren’t necessarily all that rosy there either. Try a rutted dust track in the outback which turns to slippery mud after any shower, or hedge-lined country roads in the UK with blind corners and barely enough room for one lane of traffic.
The freeways of the United States and the autobahns of Germany might be smooth and gently curving, and built for speed, but step down a level or two and check out some of those jammed A and B roads of Britain. Many are in shocking condition, full of potholes and cracks. None of those countries have anywhere near the level of geographic challenges the road-builder in New Zealand faces, be they due to topography, frequent severe weather, rock type or fault line.
Overcoming those highway hurdles — for as long as nature allows, anyway — is what keeps our communities in touch with one another.
It also provides New Zealand’s thrilling road journeys, with their breathtaking views, which visitors from overseas and elsewhere in the country will never forget.
