Field party makes own entertainment on Saturday night

摘要

As recalled, it was a Saturday back in the late 1960s, following a week of very heavy rain in the Tararuas and Eastern Wairarapa ranges, and the Ruamahanga River was in full flood, testing the performance of the newly formed Diversion Channel on the partially completed Lower Wairarapa Barrage Flood Control Scheme. The Diversion Channel cut had shortened the overall channel considerably and the river bed was progressively adjusting upstream, causing some concern about the integrity of the Tuhitarata Road Bridge (then the only river crossing downstream of Waihenga, near Martinborough), as the resulting degradation and lower water levels had caused the pile caps and significant lengths of the piles to be exposed.