In April 2014 we were awarded the contract to complete repairs to an earthquake damaged retaining wall between Simeon Quay and Bridal Path in Lyttelton Christchurch, through SCIRT for the Christchurch City Council.

Starting work in May; Joe, Gareth & Troy have enjoyed the technical challenges that the winter brings to these shady slopes, and the Marini rock drill has coped well with the very wet ground conditions. All the 150mm diameter soil nails are now installed and successfully tested.

The recent, finer weather has allowed us to install the Maccaferri MacMatR netting onto the face and then we’ll apply the shotcrete. Job done.

Quote of the week comes from Joe: “Definitely a better quality of coffee and groper livers on this side of the Port Hills”.

Thanks to Mark Watson (www.highlux.co.nz) for the photos, some excellent calendar shots there!

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Abseil Access was selected by Trustpower to provide a coating and corrosion survey in the 2.2km twin penstocks at Cobb powerstation Nelson.

This led to further analysis of corrosion pitting along side Quest Integrity NZL. Many days were spent crawling along these hazardous, dark ,slimy and constricted pipes taking critical measurements.

The results prompted Trustpower to investigate corrosion prevention systems.

Abseil Access were then engaged to install 35 magnesium sacrificial anodes along a trial section of penstock within a tight shutdown period.

Several months of trials and careful planning resulted in a successful installation of these anodes as well as reference and resistance probes to analyse the corrosion protection.

Abseil Access have constructed two new bridges at Stern Hut on the Old Ghost road. A 37m bridge across the Stern river and a 35m bridge across a tributary further upstream. Both were design and build projects.

These are the last two bridges to be built on the Old Ghost Road, we have built 9 altogether starting in 2011.
The two bridges were built together with our 4 man team. Helicopters were used for all the materials, tools and wet concrete.

Thanks to Wayne at Helicopter Charter Karamea for another great effort and to MLBT for support.

The Old Ghost Road is not far from completion, it will be one of the best multiday bike rides in New Zealand.