Said to be one of the Worlds Most Dangerous Roads.
At the beginning of the gold rush, no track or road was present in Skippers Canyon. As the gold miners travelled through the canyon with their horses, tracks were formed. They were rough and steep but established ways to Deep Creek, Māori Point and Skippers were in use in 1863. Those tracks however were unsafe and those who tried to take packhorses sometimes lost them and their supplies.
In order to make the access to Skippers safer and to be able to bring in heavy machinery for the gold miners, the demand for a proper road grew. Skippers Road was surveyed at about 1883 with the goal to make Skippers Canyon more accessible. The road was built by 4 contractors who completed their work in stages over the period of seven years. Many sections of the road remain today very much as they were in 1890.
It has been said of Skippers Road that more money has been spent on its account than all the gold could repay it. This comment, however only meant figuratively, nicely explains the enormous costs and difficulty involved not only in forming the road but also in maintaining it. The local rock is so soft that under the traffic it quickly turns into dust in dry weather and to greasy mud in wet. Under these conditions it is no surprise to learn that initially motor vehicles were banned from driving on Skippers Road at the beginning of the 1900s.
Drone operator : Jake
With John Wylie, Cayleb Clayton, De Rowe.