Percy Burn Viaduct is located in the far south of the South Island of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It is reputedly the largest surviving wooden viaduct in the world. A former logging tramway, it is now a footbridge and the most popular feature of the

Tuatapere Tuatapere is a small rural town in Southland, New Zealand. It is the self declared "Sausage Capital of New Zealand". Tuatapere is located eight kilometres from the southern coast. The Waiau River flows through the town before reaching Te Waew ...

Hump Ridge Track The Hump Ridge Track, also called the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Track, is a 61 km walking track that is partly in Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. The track was opened in 2001 and is run privately on behalf of the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Tr ...

. During the early years of the twentieth century,

logging companies Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

exploited much of the native timber of New Zealand. The Marlborough Timber Company, one of the country's largest forestry companies, was looking for new areas of forest to mill, and managed to secure the logging rights to an inhospitable and difficult to access area of timber close to

Te Waewae Bay Te Waewae Bay is the westernmost of three large bays lying on the Foveaux Strait coast of Southland, New Zealand, the others being Oreti Beach and Toetoes Bay. Twenty-seven kilometres in length, the western end of the bay is mountainous, with ...

in the island's southwestern corner. The main timber milled was

rimu ''Dacrydium cupressinum'', commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand. It is a member of the southern conifer group, the podocarps. The Māori name ''rimu'' comes from the Polynesian ...

. Access was originally only available by ship, and a wharf and settlement were built at

Port Craig Port Craig is located along the south coast ( Te Waewae Bay) of the South Island New Zealand near Tuatapere. It was a small logging town born in 1916, with 200+ men women and children living there in its prime. Like other New Zealand bush towns, ...

, but 25 kilometres of

bush tramway A bush tram and line-side log hauler owned by the Tamaki Sawmill Co., Raurimu. Photographed by Albert Percy Godber circa 1917. In New Zealand railway terminology a bush tramway is an industrial tramway, most commonly used for logging. They ar ...

were still needed to transport logs to the wharf. These had to cross four large, deep

burns Burns may refer to: * Burn, an injury (plural) People: * Burns (surname), includes list of people and characters Business: * Burns London, a British guitar maker Places: ;In the United States * Burns, Colorado, unincorporated community in Eagle ...

, and four large wood-trestle viaducts were built to accomplish this. The largest of these crossed the Percy Burn. Built in 1923, it was 125 metres in length and 36 metres high. Unfortunately for the company, the timber was not of high quality and proved costly to log. Coupled with falling timber prices (due to the improvement of access between the South Island's cities and the heavily forested West Coast with the completion of the

Otira Tunnel The Otira Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Midland Line in the South Island of New Zealand, between Otira and Arthur's Pass. It runs under the Southern Alps from Arthur's Pass to Otira – a length of over . The gradient is mainly 1 in 33, a ...

), the Port Craig operation was quickly in trouble and was abandoned in 1928, just as maximum timber production had been achieved. Restoration of the viaduct took place during the 1990s, as part of work on the new Hump Ridge walking track. Further restoration work was undertaken jointly by the Department of Conservation, Southland District Council and the Port Craig Viaducts Trust in the mid-2010s.

Closure and Restoration

The viaduct, which formed part of the Hump Ridge Track and South Coast Track, was closed to public access in May 2013 due to rotting timber and other safety concerns. An alternate route bypassing the viaduct was constructed by the

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

. Its fate was unknown until February 2014 when the Department of Conservation and

Environment Southland The Southland Regional Council is the southernmost Regions of New Zealand, regional council in New Zealand, administering the Southland Region, including Stewart Island. In 2006, it had an operating revenue of NZ$19.6 million, NZ$7.1 million of t ...

pledged

NZ$ The New Zealand dollar ( mi, tāra o Aotearoa; sign: $, NZ$; code: NZD) is the official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Ross Dependency, Tokelau, and a British territory, the Pitcairn Islands. Within New ...

480,000 to restore it and the other three viaducts on the former logging rail line. the bridge was closed and restoration work had not begun. Reopening was expected in 2018. The viaduct reopened in late 2018.

References

External links

New Zealand Department of Conservation Hump Ridge pageTuatapere Information Centre
*{{cite web , url=https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/percy-burn-viaduct , title=History of New Zealand in 100 Places list: Percy Burn Viaduct (1925) , work= NZHistory , publisher=Ministry for Culture and Heritage , accessdate=January 21, 2018
1 to 50,000 map
Heritage New Zealand Category 1 historic places in Southland, New Zealand Bridges in Southland, New Zealand Wooden bridges in New Zealand Viaducts in New Zealand Railway bridges in New Zealand Bridges completed in 1923 Rail transport in Southland, New Zealand Rail trail bridges 1920s architecture in New Zealand Fiordland 1923 establishments in New Zealand