Otira Viaduct

A few ks north of Arthurs Pass is the Otira gorge. The road through here used to be quite scary and often got wiped out by land slides. It used to cross the large scree slope on the right and then descend to the valley floor by a series of zig-zags. I first travelled along it by bus and it was like the final scene from the Italian job.

Now there is a nice new viaduct with a gradient (downhill as you look at this picture) of 1:7. The drive is one of the most spectacular in New Zealand.