Bulls Gorge work under way

Work is due to start within weeks on one of Northland's most notorious stretches of state highway.
Vegetation clearing and earthworks will start by the end of the month on the $7.5 million project to straighten State Highway 10 at Bulls Gorge, where traffic is squeezed through a series of steep S-bends.
All going well the 1.7km of new road will be ready in two years' time.
To mark the start of the project, transport bosses, councillors, Bulls Gorge residents, DoC staff and Ngati Rehia representatives met at the top of the gorge on Friday.
Among those sharing the honour of turning the first sod was Ratana minister Eruera Taurua.
About 80 years earlier, Mr Taurua's father was the foreman when an earlier road was put through the gorge with the help of six teams of draught horses.
Wayne McDonald, of the New Zealand Transport Agency, said he knew the gorge well because he had been holidaying in the Far North for the past 22 years.
It was an important route for both tourism and industry, but with its sharp corners and steep, narrow bends, it was the scene of many accidents.
"It's time we did a fix-up job on it," he said.
The new road would cut into Puketona Scenic Reserve, but DoC would receive parts of the road reserve in return so there would be no net loss of reserve.
DoC biodiversity manager Steve McManus said he had been pleasantly surprised by the number of North Island brown kiwi packed into the reserve. The birds had even been found in the gorse across the road.
Eight birds had been tagged and would be monitored to make sure they were not put in harm's way.
DoC was also working to mitigate the effects on wildlife found in the stream, such as eels, banded kokopu and koura.
Far North Mayor Wayne Brown said it was worth celebrating any time rural New Zealand got some road funding out of the "money black hole that is Auckland".
The mayor has been critical of the Government's move to end subsidies for rural road sealing while pouring billions into Auckland motorways.
Earlier in the day transport bosses were welcomed by Ngati Rehia and Ngapuhi in a ceremony at the Heliops hangar on SH10.
Students from Kerikeri High School's kapa haka group sang waiata and read Transport Minister Steven Joyce's speech.
Mr Brown quipped that he had never heard a minister sound so honest.
Contractors Transfield Services and Northern Civil will raise and re-align the road with cuts and fills of up to 20 metres and will shift 190,000cu m of earth.
The new road will be straighter and have a gentler gradient, but will more or less follow the current route. At the top of the gorge the route cuts across farmland owned by Alastair Robinson.
The new road will have two right-turning bays, an area for heavy vehicles to pull over, and a wider shoulder for cyclists.
A temporary sealed road will be built early next year so traffic can keep flowing.