NEW MOTOR ROAD.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18366, 27 April 1925, Page 16

NEW MOTOR ROAD.

RANGIRIRI DEVIATION.

NOTORIOUS STRETCH IMPROVED

(spxcm. TO "THE PE*SB.")

AUCKLAND, April 26

The official opening of the Rangiriri deviation next Saturday will mark the closing of the most serious gap in the main metalled highway between Auckland and Wellington, and will see the passing of the notorious mud track, in favour of on© of the finest pieces of macadamised road in the Llominion. This important public work is now all UUL Liie exception uuing ** nalf-mne sueicii or way road, wmcb nai sua lo be liietaiieu, near ivangmri Lownsuip. \\ lien tne yard oi inetai ji uepfMted just soutn of tne village, on Amy nuu, tne i'ubne VorKs Department will have laid clown a total length oi IT nnles in waLerbound macauam. hen the work at iianginri was comirenced in 1922, it was little dreanu that so many obstacles would be met as were actually encountered. The iirst thing done was to cut a deviation right through an old Maori graveyard. 'ihe site is exactly wheie the new road biancbes from the .old, about one and a> half miles, and although bones were exhumed some years ago, and removed with great pomp and ceremony to Taupiri, the old cemetery evidently preserved its reputed power of witchcraft. At any rate the men on the job speak mysteriously of "makutu." Sometimes it" is with bated breath, sometimes a twinkle may be detected in the eye, but the purport is the same. The Rangiriri job has been under a potent spell, First of all there was an invasion of Rangiriri by relief gangs of unemployed in the winter of 1922. Men arrived with no outfit and insufficient clothes to withstand the wet and cold. Enfeebled, and in some , cases hungry, men contracted chills and had to be sent back. From this discouraging beginning things seemed to grow even worse. All manner of unexpected obstacles were met -with and accidents to vital parts of the "road machinery were not infrequent occurrences. Finally, there was an encounter with a peat swamp half a mile long, about' three miles from the -Mercer end of the deviation. This was composed of powdery material in which a man would sink to his waist and only after a tremendous quantity of filling had been dumped into it was the rate of subsidence so lowered' as to be imperceptible. As it was, it took a human toll, one man losing liis life at the spot by a fall of earth. To-day the swamp bears the finest.pieee of road in the entire de j viation. Since the work of metalling commenced, fifteen months ago, no less' than 45.000 tons of stone and shingle have been deposited on 17 miles of road.