Construction timelapse September 2024
Here’s a great timelapse of enabling work for excavation of the project's 235-metre tunnel. At the future tunnel’s southern entrance, we're building up the valley floor so a 120-tonne road header machine can get into the site and start excavating. The video shows works from late April to late September 2024.
Voices of Te Ara o Te Ata – Jeff Gatchell
Meet drone operator Jeff Gatchell, an Engineering Surveyor in the Mt Messenger Alliance survey team working alongside designers and constructors to ensure the new six-kilometre bypass is built as effectively as possible in some of the most steep and challenging terrain.
Drone flyover September 2024
Te Ara o Te Ata – Mt Messenger Bypass update: Here's the latest flyover of work happening on Te Ara o Te Ata – you can see the great progress the team has made so far as they prepare for the upcoming construction season.
Voices of Te Ara o Te Ata – Andy Searancke
As we move closer to a third construction season on Te Ara o Te Ata – Mt Messenger Bypass, meet the man we call the Dirt Boss: Project Superintendent Andy Searancke.
Andy has been in the earth-moving industry for 43 years. In this video he discusses the project's challenging earthworks programme. He also talks about how the new road will be a safer and more resilient and reliable section of State Highway 3 connecting Taranaki and Waikato.
We're regularly featuring people working on the new bypass here and on our social media channels – they're all vital to the Mt Messenger Alliance's work in delivering this important project.
Voices of Te Ara o Te Ata – Caleb Perry
Building Te Ara o Te Ata requires the skills and commitment of a wide range of people and roles, such as engineers, designers, and ecologists. In this video, project manager Caleb Perry talks about some challenges and complexities on the project, and why the bypass is so important for Taranaki.
We'll be regularly featuring people working on the bypass on this page and on Facebook – they're all vital to the Mt Messenger Alliance's work building a safer and more resilient and reliable section of State Highway 3 connecting Taranaki and Waikato.
NZTA – Manawatū-Whanganui & Taranaki Facebook(external link)
Driving the Mt Messenger Bypass – April 2024
Experience how it will feel to drive Te Ara o Te Ata – Mt Messenger Bypass with this new simulation. The bypass is a new 6km route from Uruti to Ahititi that will avoid the existing steep, narrow and winding route over Mt Messenger on State Highway 3 in Taranaki. It includes two bridges of approximately 125m and 30m in length, and a 235m tunnel. As you can see from the simulation, the route will be lower, smoother and much less steep than the existing road.
Work in progress below the tower
This timelapse video looks south towards the entrance portal of the future 235-metre tunnel, which will run underneath the former Mt Messenger rest area—where the tall central tower of the project's groundbreaking 1.1-kilometre cableway is currently sited.
Taken over a three-week period from January to February, the timelapse showcases a range of activities including a decanting earth bund (bottom right of shot)—an engineered control that treats dirty water to protect the downstream environment from the effects of water quality degradation and sedimentation.
The excavators in the imagery are working in both directions to divert 950 metres of stream through temporary culverts.
Going where no digger has gone before – May 2023
At the site of the future Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass on SH3 in Taranaki, the project’s innovative cableway is completed, certified and ready to roll.
It's an impressive sight - the 1.1 kilometre cableway will transport workers, machinery and materials safely north into the remote heart of the project area.
Completing the cableway means we can make a quick start to works in the next construction season, beginning in September. As we move towards the end of the current season we’ll be using the cableway in the establishment of areas for storage and the delivery of large machinery like excavators.
Take a look at the cableway system designed to help build the bypass – March 2023
Sitting off State Highway 3 north of Taranaki, and spanning more than a kilometre, you can find our Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger cableway—the first of its kind for a New Zealand roading project. The cableway is almost finished and we’re expecting it to be operational by April.
With areas of the project not accessible by road, the cableway will carry workers, machinery and material into remote areas of the project that will create a safer and more resilient SH3 route in and out of north Taranaki.
Velvet worm discovery – February 2023
Check out this unusual chap – found recently by our project ecologists before being relocated to a safe habitat beyond the construction zone. Peripatus, also known as velvet worms, are unusual animals of the forest floor, sometimes referred to as ‘living fossils’ as they are remarkably unchanged from 500 million years ago. They are also a 'missing link' for their similarity to both worms and insects. For this reason they attract much scientific interest - yet they are cryptic, reclusive and not well understood. These special critters are part of the native fauna and a key species we’re committed to protecting during construction of the new 6km section of State Highway 3 in north Taranaki.
Cableway tower takes shape – November 2022
Watch how the first two 28-metre legs of the Mt Messenger Cableway tower were lifted into place on 23 November. The 1.1km cableway will be used to transport workers, machinery and equipment into the heart of the project area for the future 6km bypass. It’s set to be operational in the first quarter of next year and will be able to carry up to 20 tonnes per trip.
Mt Messenger Cableway tower poster [PDF, 5.5 MB]
Project launch event – October 2022
Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass project will deliver numerous benefits for Taranaki—not least to the surrounding forest and native species, as well as to road safety, resilience, and reliability. Associate Transport Minister Kieran McAnulty outlined some of these great outcomes at the project’s official launch event in October 2022.
Starting construction on Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass – October 2022
Exciting progress is being made on Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass, with concrete being poured for the cableway tower! With progress now underway, this is the critical first step towards a safer, more resilient route in and out of north Taranaki. Take a look at how we're building the 28-metre-tall tower.
The Mt Messenger Cableway
A first for New Zealand roading, the 1.1km Mt Messenger Cableway will allow Waka Kotahi and its partners to start construction of Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass in spring 2022.
Planting on Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass
We’re looking forward to starting physical works on Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass following the High Court decision confirming consents for the project. Te Ara o Te Ata will increase safety for everyone traveling into and out of North Taranaki, delivering resilience and a better journey—and it'll also bring many environmental benefits.
An extensive and enduring environmental programme is part of our plan, including pest management across 3650ha of forest on either side of the bypass, restoration planting comprising 120,000 native seedlings across 32 hectares, and a further 100,000 native plants along roadsides and embankments.
This component of the project will help us achieve our goal of leaving a lasting legacy in Taranaki, ensuring the project area is left in a better condition than before construction.
Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass – much more than a roading project
Te Ara o Te Ata has been described as an environmental project as much, perhaps more than, a roading project. We’re excited about the major environmental benefits this project will deliver. And we’re grateful for this opportunity to breathe new life into the Mt Messenger bush.
Conceptual flyover of Te Ara o Te Ata: Mt Messenger Bypass
The bypass is a new 6km route from Uruti to Ahititi that avoids the existing steep, narrow and winding route over Mt Messenger on State Highway 3 in Taranaki. It includes two bridges of approximately 125m and 30m in length, and a 235m tunnel. The route will be lower and less steep than the existing road. A substantial environmental restoration programme is also a key feature of the project.
Mt Messenger Bypass - an introduction
Finding long-tailed bats in North Taranaki
Over the summer of 2018/19 our ecology team searched for long-tailed bats, a critically endangered species, in the Mt Messenger area to locate their maternity roosts (places where mother bats and their young stay). With the help of bat experts, they successfully found over 14 maternity roosts.
Monitoring long-tailed bats is being done to confirm the project’s 3,650ha Pest Management Area (PMA) and its suitability for the habitat of long-tailed bats. The PMA is part of a broader ecological restoration package to mitigate and offset environmental impacts of the project.
Restoring natural diversity – an enduring legacy for Mt Messenger
An extensive and enduring environmental programme is part of the plan to build a bypass of Mt Messenger in North Taranaki. Central to the programme is managing pests over 3,650 hectares of Ngāti Tama rohe.
