Southland’s westernmost and most expensive road meanders 21.6 kilometres from Lake Manapouri to Doubtful Sound, crossing the 671m Wilmot Pass. Southland has plenty of passes crossable by trampers but we don’t seem to have the fondness that Otago and Canterbury have for using the term ‘‘pass’’ for a road. Wilmot Pass affords the first view of the fiords to thousands of travellers and schoolchildren making for Deep Cove. “On the Deep Cove side the road had been pushed three-quarters of a mile into difficult country. A Hughes 369HS helicopter which took off from Howden Hut bound for Milford Sound on 3 January 2004 with two aboard disappeared.
Source: Stuff August 10, 2021 00:01 UTC