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
Update 10 June 2014
21st February saw Clive, Michelle, Nathan, Jonathan, Alec, and myself, being flown
in again to the Jacobs River area by James Scott, this time in the Greer Creek area.
Fortunately, Alec had the foresight to bring strops and tarpaulins along to cover
our tent sites as it rained for the first three days, at times very heavily. We were
able get a fire going that was covered by the tarpaulin also, so by the time we returned
home most of our clothing was smoke damaged from drying them over the fire! But at
least we were dry and warm for most of the time.
“Tent City”
I had got James to drop us off on the northern side of the river as I had found an
unusual shaped punga plantation on Google Earth and the same area was also apparent
on the 1965 NZAM aerial photo, only that the area looked to be free of any large
growth in 1965... as though whatever had caused the “land clearing” had happened
not that long before 1965. I surmised that maybe spilt fuel had caused the trees
to die in that area, particularly as the area was just below a spot that Colin Tuck
had given me as the second possibility of where ‘Doris Stokes’ had got all excited
in, and the area was almost flat ground. After all these years, Colin was unsure
of exactly where this spot was, and so had given me two possibilities.
On both Google Earth and the aerial photo, the spot was in shade, so I was unable
to observe what was in that area. Incidentally, I discovered that where we camped
was virtually just across the River from where we first camped on our first failed
attempt at walking in.
