In 1963 the construction of Manapouri power station began in order to provide electricity to metall-melting factory in Bluff. It was an epic endeavour for several reasons: the site where it is located (between Lake Manapouri and Doubtful Sound) is only accessible by boat. Moroever, this is not a power station like the others. In this case, it is located in a cave dug into the fiord's hard granite, 200m underneath Lake Manaporui. Two 10km long tunnels channel water from the lake to the sea in which after a 25m drop, the water passes thorough the turbines. As you can imagine, it is a costly and dangerous masterpiece of engineering. The pictures show one of the blast that workers used to make to open the tunnels, but looks like they put too much dynamite...also it is quite interesting to drive through the tunnels leading to the station, since this is the only place in New Zealand where you drive on the right side of the road (the american company in charge of the project wanted to feel like home).
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