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
When you look at how much this area had become overgrown by 1958, then it is easier
to understand why they made a decision to level it:
29-01-57 - Only the gun pit area is overgrown... 7-07-58 - The whole area has been
cleared of buildings and is becoming completely overgrown. The next photo was also
originally dated 1958, and it turned out someone had dated it wrong! After much time
checking over what photos I have, I have now been able to more correctly date it
as somewhere between Jan 1960 and Nov 1961. 
Interestingly, the painted tennis court
lines had disappeared by 1-1-1963.
Now the point of this is that if we now go back and revisit Joan Dighton/Robinson’s
recollection of a tunnel on the NE corner of the tennis court, the entrance she could
have been talking about may have been this large steeply inclined
tunnel as they
were living on the hill during that period when the area was leveled, and although
I have suggested the dark area is possibly where an entrance is - if you look to
the right a bit, out in front of the Observation Post building (above the Telephone
Exchange), you will see an overgrown area with a dark shape in it. This is most likely
the area where the old 7” gun was, and with overgrowth still being evident, then
it shows it is possible that it was not entirely covered in at this point of time.
This scrub outside the fence was allowed to grow until sometime before April 1977
where it appears that this whole area was cleared of scrub possibly by bulldozer,
and this of course would have filled in what was left.
To finish off this portion of this article, I will continue with a photo collage
of this summit area (on the next page).
