The generator room showing six of the seven generators.
The visitors gallery from the generator floor. Note the unlined rock walls.
Highlight of our South Island trip was a visit to the Manapouri underground hydro electric power station located in the wilderness fjiordland area of South West NZ. The Station is located 213 metres below ground level beneath a mountain. A launch trip takes visitors across the lake where a bus is boarded which takes you down a 2km long spiral tunnel to the power house. The station and tunnel were blasted out of solid rock and are unlined except for a protective mantle across the ceiling of the machine room itself. It was an eerie and awesome experience to be seemingly “deep inside the bowels of the earth”. Like most of New Zealand the mountain range lies on tectonic plate boundaries and is subject to continuous tectonic plate activity which uplifts the mountain range around 10mm (3/4 inch) each year. Don’t know what I would have done had I felt an earthquake down there?
The generator room showing six of the seven generators.
The visitors gallery from the generator floor. Note the unlined rock walls.