Deep Down

Yesterday dad, Kylie, and I went on a tour in the Manapouri Underground Hydroelectric Power Station. It was on the other side of a lake, and the only way to get to it was by boat. After an hour in a boat, we arrived at the power station. It basically looks like a dam that someone made in the side of a mountain. Just the dam. When we got closer to it we found out that the power station itself is more than a mile underground. We got on a tour bus that literally took us all the way down on a long cave road. When we finally arrived at the end there was an observation deck. We found out that water fell from the lake all the way down, which creates a lot of pressure. The water turns the the turbine and generates the power. Then the water goes in a pipe that runs ten kilometers out to the ocean. In the 90's they added another pipe that went out to the ocean from the station so it could be more efficient. They actually started building the whole power station in the 1960's. It can power more than 300,000 homes! It took the miners nine years to make the station. About 1800 people worked on the station, and and 16 people died in the job. The road that we had to take down the the power station was crazy! It looked just like an old mine shaft! Our tour bus driver said if a siren went off she would back the bus up as fast as it would go! I would rather not do that ever again!