Category : Heritage Trails

ContractorHeritage Trails

Building a winter diversion route

Contractor Magazine
The stark prospect of the timber on which the town was founded running out was what drove the construction of the Ohakune Mountain Road. Hugh...
ArchivesHeritage Trails

Heritage Trails: Building the Backbone

Contrafed PUblishing
From military beginnings to tourist day-trip, the Napier-Taupo Road cuts across the backbone of the North Island. Hugh de Lacy checks out its colourful history....
ArchivesHeritage Trails

Heritage Trails: Through mist and mystery

Contrafed PUblishing
To the 19th century Tuhoe, a road through their beloved Urewera country spelt capitulation, which is why it was never completed until 1929. Hugh de...
Heritage Trails

The Auckland-to-Waikato Great South Road

Contrafed PUblishing
This article first appeared in Contractor‘s December 2016 issue. The Auckland-to-Waikato Great South Road is arguably the most important in 
New Zealand history. HUGH DE...
Heritage Trails

Saving Paekakariki Hill Road

Contrafed PUblishing
An almost forgotten group of World War One tunnellers saved the Paekakariki Hill Road from closure, as HUGH DE LACY discovers. THOSE CANTANKEROUS heroes of...
ContractorHeritage Trails

Takaka Hill: The Marble Obstacle

Contrafed PUblishing
To the arriving colonists at the top of the South Island, Takaka Hill represented a major obstacle between the cramped and land-hungry settlement of Nelson,...
Heritage Trails

The canal that wouldn’t die- Corinth

Contrafed PUblishing
The Suez and Panama canals are celebrated as two of history’s most inspirational feats of engineering. But you could argue that for sheer dogged belief...
Heritage Trails

The Rimutaka Heritage Trail- starting with an abduction

Contrafed PUblishing
Wellington’s land-locked harbour made a road over the Remutaka Hill vital for the young colony’s development.  HUGH DE LACY tells how it got there. A...