This Site is dedicated to all those families of the people that have tragically disappeared on flights in and around New Zealand. I only hope that from all the effort in building this site and from all the effort of those taking part in this venture, that it will bear fruit in bringing ‘closure’ to their memories!
Gavin Grimmer
This "cave" only went in about 10 feet before the rubble went all the way to the
roof. You can only imagine my surprise when I looked to the right and found there
was what appeared to be another opening going off to the right. Unfortunately the
gap between the top of this "opening" and the rubble was only about 4" but by maneuvering
my way closer to it, I could see that it went in another 4 to six feet before the
rubble again went to the roof. Unfortunately, I was feeling rather claustrophobic
at the time and just wanted to get out as quick as possible, so never took a photo.
Consider these eyewitness statements in "TunnelVision":
Page 177: (1983) I remember there was a large entrance at water level which was
near the wharf. This entrance had a tunnel leading from it into the hill.
Page 184: (1954 to 1962) another small entrance/exit near the old swimming pool
which was at the base of the hill near the boat sheds.
Page 188: (1967) Round by Torpedo Bay I remember going into a small entrance hole
which had a big pohutakawa tree growing next to it. There was no gate on the entrance.
I walked through this tunnel between 15 and 20 yards before coming to a large room
about 10 or 12 feet high.
A couple of weeks later, whilst researching this project, I noticed on an old Army
plan (the same as on page 243 “Tunnel Vision”) that the minefield main wiring loom
came back into a point depicted as just north of the boat shed. Although the coastline
is crudely drawn, it is very clear that this is the position:
This got me going enough to check back on older photos. Although I have at some point
of time placed the date of this photo as 1945, I’ve found that depending on the source
of which library you obtain these photos from, the dates vary enormously. This one
is more likely to have been taken sometime in the 1930’s, however this does not effect
what I am trying to portray:
