Lake Manapouri Power Station

Kia Ora!

Our day long adventure to Doubtful Sound started with a 60 minute crossing of Lake Manapouri cruising past Pomona Island where Geoff, our former neighbor on Exmouth Street spends weekends setting traps to wipe out stoats, a type of rodent. The stoats were imported by humans destroy the rampant rabbit population, another pest imported by humans presumably for food. The stoats quickly learned that it was much easier to catch unwary native birds than chase down speedy rabbits. Then there were two exotic pests running amok. Slowly the island is being returned to its pristine state before these pests took over.

The original plans for the power station required raising the level of Lake Manapouri and the destruction of the surrounding forest and wild life habitat. There was a passionate protest by most citizens throughout the country against these plans and they were scrapped. The redesign of the power station  marked the beginning of an environmental conservation movement, a nationwide sensitivity that continues.

If you look at a road map of South Island, you will find a 21 km. road in the middle of the mountains that appears to start no where, goes no where, and connects to no other road. This is the road we traveled to get to Deep Cove on Doubtful Sound. It was built at great cost to move the heavy equipment needed to construct the Lake Manapouri Power Station.  The equipment was shipped up Doubtful Sound, loaded on trucks and nudged over the mountain to Lake Manapouri. The NZ government continues to maintain the road. The engineering required for the road building, tunneling, and construction of the power station is mind boggling.

The abundant supply of water from the heavy rainfall is captured and passes through remote-controlled turbines that churn the water through and out into races that move it into the fiord. Ironically, the power station was built to provide power to an aluminum smelting plant in Bluff. Only about 36% is available for the general grid.

The trip into a cavern that had been blasted out for the power station in the middle of a mountain, 200 metres

below the level of Lake Manapouri, was an adventure in itself. There was just room enough on the two km road for two buses to inch past each other. Even more challenging was getting the 18 metre bus turned around in an 11 metre space with nary a scratch. John Lockie, our droll driver earned applause for his handling of the bus and his wry sense of humour.

Back in Te Anau, the rain continued throughout the night. The next morning we walked the block to breakfast in what turned out to be a brief respite from the rain. On the way back we were deluged and forced to cancel a planned forest tramp and dry our clothes out. We dried out and turned up for a tour of the Glow Worm Cave only to discover the water level of Lake Te Anau had risen flooding the cave and all tours were canceled. Good reason to return to Te Anau some day, but probably not this year as our shift to Auckland was just two weeks away.

Cheers,

Kiwi Traveler