During the summer of 2010, locals have been given a demonstration of road construction through some rock bluffs between Nelson and Taghum. The exercise involved large earth–carving and earth–moving equipment. All construction workers wore safety equipment.
I thought that it would be fun to look back 75 years to the construction of another local road: the one past the Longbeach Bluffs on the North Shore. My father, Thurlow Fraser, took the picture below in the summer of 1935. The device in the centre is a (hand operated) gin pole. An elderly man stands behind it and provides the muscle power for the winch. Rocks were lifted onto a tiny flat–bed car riding a makeshift rail line with unevenly spaced round ties. Some rocks have been piled on the base of the gin pole as ballast. Hand tools (round point shovels, pry bar) lie about the site. Everyone appears to be in street clothes.
