Goodbye Captain Hook

As the lower Queen Street bridge upgrade moves toward the finishing line, it’s time to say goodbye to the machine that’s become a fixture on the skyline in the area – Captain Hook is to be dismantled.

The massive 250-tonne crawler crane has been doing all the heavy lifting on the site of the project to build a new, bigger, better bridge, which is designed to let water flow more freely in Borck Creek during heavy rain.

But the job of pulling the monster machine apart means we’re going to need to close the temporary bypass road for two nights, between 7.00 pm and 6.00 am, so it can be deconstructed and then trucked down south on a fleet of nine heavy transporters. During the day, the bypass will be open for traffic as usual.

The work is scheduled for the nights of Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 April when the section of road from the Arvida Waimea Plain Village entrance to the intersection of McShane Road will be closed for traffic.

Traffic management will be in place, the entrance to the village will remain open, and traffic will detour along McShane Road.

Once the big machine is off site, work can continue forming the road approaches to the new bridge. At this stage, the project is still ahead of schedule, and the staged opening of the bridge is expected to happen much earlier than the original date of August.