It was a morning of checking out lakes and dams and travelling over bridges today. First up was the 5km trip off SH83 to Benmore Dam, which holds back a 7900ha lake, the largest in the country, bigger than Wellington harbour. Commissioned in 1965, the Benmore Hydro-Electric Power Scheme has the country’s largest earth dam and was the first to use pre-stressed concrete for the penstocks between the dam and power station.
The road took us up the hill and right across the dam. It was most impressive driving over with the high dam holding the massive amount of water on one side of the road, while the earth dropped away steeply on the other side.
The lakes and dams in this region are all part of the hydro scheme and are all interconnected. Next Stop was at Aviemore Dam. Construction of this dam started in 1962 and it is constructed of partly earth and partly concrete.
The plan was to cross over the Waitaki River at Kurow but the question was, would the bridge be open? It had been damaged some time ago and we were unsure of the condition. There are in fact two bridges to cross at this point and it was the second bridge which we were concerned about. There it was in front of us, looking rather dilapidated and worse for wear, with some sort of netting nailed on to the sides. It certainly didn’t inspire us with confidence, but we knew the other two rigs travelling with us had crossed without mishap, so on we went, albeit a little slowly.
It was then just a short drive onto Waimate where we planned to say for the next couple of nights. The Waimate Pop is a NZMCA property for members to use and in the middle of a new housing development. Wonder what the neighbours think about all these gypsy types coming and going in their street?
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