Haast-Hollyford road
[1] The road was originally seen as the only land access to the port of Jackson Bay from the Otago goldfields, but it has never been possible to cross the Main Divide to Lake Wakatipu.
[3] The final stretch of the current road from the Hollyford Valley to Milford Sound is also subject to many closures during winter, significantly reducing tourist numbers around Te Anau.
A Haast-Hollyford route would significantly reduce the length of road tourists would travel if they were journeying between Fiordland and the West Coast.
[1] Pyke came back with an idea for a Clyde-Haast railway that was never fulfilled but provided some basis for a road to Wānaka, which opened 100 years later.
The road's history forms a not-so-small chapter in the story of West Coast settlement in the 1870s, promoted by then Prime Minister Sir Julius Vogel.
In 1876 Duncan Macfarlane, the Government agent at Jackson Bay, and Gerhard Mueller, Westland's chief surveyor, focused on the alpine route in 1876 and 1884 respectively.
[11] By June, an announcement that the Government had decided to complete the Eglinton Valley Road through to Milford Sound was made.
The crossing of the main divide between the Hollyford River and Milford Sound basin was the most difficult and costly part of the undertaking, and necessitated the driving of a long tunnel.
Christie and T. Evans, the Town Clerk of Hokitika, made a report and assessment for the Public Works Department of the proposed Haast Pass road in 1935.
By 11 April advance workers on the Te Anau-Milford Sound Road had reached the 58-mile peg, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) from the eastern entrance to the tunnel.
Power for the work's 12 compressed air drills was supplied by a hydro-electric plant situated about six miles from the scene of operations.
Alice McKenzie's 1947 book Pioneers of Martins Bay: Life in New Zealand's Most Remote Settlement recorded the settlers' desire for a road over the Haast–Hollyford route.
An appendix to the book by Dr F. G. Hall-Jones noted that settlers suspected Otago's provincial leaders would not support the road because it would lead directly from the Wakatipu goldfields to the Jackson Bay harbour and on to Australia, leaving Dunedin merchants "far out of the picture".
Between June and October two bulldozers, a Caterpillar D8H and an International TD20 along with two support tractors, fuel sledges, a bunk-house, and cook-house traversed the country along the coast to the west end of the Pyke Gorge.
Later the same year the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department report, "Haast-Hollyford Road Reconnaissance" estimated the cost at $101.1 million.
Bellamy said that the road should be restarted as "travellers should have access to an area people have fought hard to preserve as a World Heritage Site".
Civil engineers Duffill Watts & King prepared a report on the preferred coastal route the following year, estimating a total capital cost of $85 million.
Southland and Westland District Councils, McConnell Dowell and several members of parliament suggested that a coastal route could be open by 1997.
In 1994, the Southland Times ran a series articles on the proposed road, written by Les Hutchins, a conservationist and tourism operator.
In August, the Southland and Westland District Councils gave their support to the link and began investigating its feasibility as a toll road using private funding.
In April 2001, a tabloid publication was circulated via daily newspapers in the South Island by backers of the plan for both the Haast-Hollyford and Karamea-Collingwood links.
[20] Prior to the 2002 general election, the Leader of the Opposition Don Brash and others were given a reconnaissance helicopter flight over the full length of the route; all were very receptive to the concept and proposal.
[23] Minister of Economic Development Gerry Brownlee met with the Westland and Southland district councils and with Hagaman, saying "I'm personally supportive of [a road] but it's not something that the Government is actually considering at the present time.
[25] In 2012 the property arm of the Westland District Council had signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build a toll road and is proceeding with the drafting of resource consents.
