The Sumner Road was the first important undertaking completed in Canterbury. Captain Thomas chose the line as the most practicable route for communication between the Port and the Plains, but the work he started before the arrival of the pilgrims suffered many interruptions, and was not finished till August, 1857. During the first session of the Provincial Council in 1858, a committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. W. B. Bray, C.E., was set up to consider the completion of the road, and reported favourably, but suggested tunnelling under Evans’ Pass to avoid the rocks near the Zig-zag. Even at that early period railway communication between Port and Plains was being discussed, the alternative routes proposed including the one eventually adapted, and another starting from Gollan’s Bay via Evans’ Pass. But the time was premature for railway communication, and on December 27, 1854, the Provincial Council committed itself to the Sumner Road at an estimated cost of £12,000.
The Bridle Track route had also its supporters, and Mr. H. J. Gouland, the Provincial Secretary, made the quaint suggestion of a windlass at the top of the track, to be worked by bullocks, till circumstances permitted the construction of a tunnel. Another attempt (in 1856) to substitute the Bridle Track for the Sumner Road has already been referred to.
Eventually the road was constructed via Evans’ Pass without tunnelling, but in order to avoid the expense of considerable rock cutting, a wide deviation was made from the plans of Captain Thomas necessitating the steep Zig-zag on the Lyttelton side. Captain Thomas’
