North Head tunnels?

[westie]

This is definately a great thread.
When do we start digging? I got a 12 ton digger!!!!

[R6_kid:Me]

We gonna sneak that in under cover darkness or just go up there about midday?

[Motu]

I believe it started right here. The mod's are lazy these days.

Now the thread is out of the funny pages and into R&R - who is shifting it around?

I guess there are a couple of generations or more who have no idea of the defense efforts during both World Wars....and other wars.The gun emplacements around the Tamaki Drive water front were a fixture right into the '70's,but I must of blinked and they disappeared - but there are Aucklander's in their late 20's who have no idea they were there.A friend of mine blew the door off one with a pipe bomb.

The Yanks did a lot of things in Auckland in WWII,camps Bun and Sylvia Parks are obvious,there are also big drainage ditches from Aranui Rd into Sylvia Park,and out into the Tamaki River.There is another mystery I never found out much about - the Van Dam's.We spent a lot of time there as kids,a real hidden space to have adventures.We got to it though a pipe in Ireland Rd,that drains into the Panmure Basin,or though the Back of Alex Harvies where you crossed the rail lines to get to Panmure Station.

The Van Dams was a small lake with a big pipe going over top...lots of frogs and eals and french letters.And there were tunnels!.Several tunnels cut into the bank by a path that went around the lake....they were dark,and we didn't have torches,scary shit.The tunnels went in maybe 30 ft,say 20metres or more and had short side tunnels off them.I have no idea who made them or why,but we were told the Yanks did it.Access could be hard these days,the culvert is grated and access blocked from Mt Wellington Highway.

Ixion,does your Mrs remember them?

[R6_kid:Me]

Thankfully I studied hard in Social Studies through 3rd and 4th form. I'm 21yo now, went to a school on the Shore and had teachers that were really into local history. We covered the Maori Land Wars, but i was far more interested in the WW1 and WW2 stuff. We visited many sites, including gun batteries up towards torbay (from memory) that were dressed up as houses... These were all along the north shore, and im sure more still exist. Funnily enough some of the sites used to be Maori Pa fortifications carved into the cliff edges and were simply 'modernised' for use at the time.

We visited both North Head and Mt Vic, as well as Fort Takapuna at Cheltenham etc. Went relatively in depth (for 14/15yo's) into the fortification of Auckland/Wellington/Dunedin, but mainly focussed on Auckland and in particular Devonport.

Auckland was a staging and refuelling base for the USN iirc. Northcote/Birkenhead was had a number of large fuel tanks up on the hills with a pipeline running out into the middle of the harbour for the ships to hook up to for refuelling. All gone now of course. Kauri Point is still in use for storing munitions among other things - might be worth checking out on google earth. All i know is that the hill down to the wharf is a steep mother fucker, wouldn't be surprised if there is some underground stuff there too.

I am genuinely interested in checking out the tunnels at Nth Head/Mt Vic good and proper. Also interested to hear more about this stuff out Mangere ways?

[SixPackBack]

Now the thread is out of the funny pages and into R&R - who is shifting it around?

I guess there are a couple of generations or more who have no idea of the defense efforts during both World Wars....and other wars.The gun emplacements around the Tamaki Drive water front were a fixture right into the '70's,but I must of blinked and they disappeared - but there are Aucklander's in their late 20's who have no idea they were there.A friend of mine blew the door off one with a pipe bomb.

The Yanks did a lot of things in Auckland in WWII,camps Bun and Sylvia Parks are obvious,there are also big drainage ditches from Aranui Rd into Sylvia Park,and out into the Tamaki River.There is another mystery I never found out much about - the Van Dam's.We spent a lot of time there as kids,a real hidden space to have adventures.We got to it though a pipe in Ireland Rd,that drains into the Panmure Basin,or though the Back of Alex Harvies where you crossed the rail lines to get to Panmure Station.

The Van Dams was a small lake with a big pipe going over top...lots of frogs and eals and french letters.And there were tunnels!.Several tunnels cut into the bank by a path that went around the lake....they were dark,and we didn't have torches,scary shit.The tunnels went in maybe 30 ft,say 20metres or more and had short side tunnels off them.I have no idea who made them or why,but we were told the Yanks did it.Access could be hard these days,the culvert is grated and access blocked from Mt Wellington Highway.

Ixion,does your Mrs remember them?

Interesting.
Weiti station [nestled between Okura and Stillwater] was another spot that allegedly has an area of interest. The story goes that after WW2 the troops stationed there dumped/buried vehicles.
I lived in Stillwater for many years and spent some time on Weiti station. The only interesting feature I could find is on a headland at the Stillwater end, what appears to be ditches and crude attempts at fortification still exists, however its just as likely this feature is Maori. I tried contacting local Iwi in search of history but did not get very far.

[Swoop]

Kauri Point is still in use for storing munitions among other things - might be worth checking out on google earth. All i know is that the hill down to the wharf is a steep mother fucker, wouldn't be surprised if there is some underground stuff there too.

Boundary Rd is possibly the steepest Rd in Auckland.
There are no (repeat NO) tunnels on KP.
The only thing resembling a tunnel there is the area between A & C laboratory. That area was "semi-underground" at best.

A far better tunnel system is at Whangaparaoa...

[El Dopa]

They didn't have the Navy on the job ! Or an unlimited supply of noddies.

Got to admit it sounds a bit ambitious though. None the less, I wouldn't put anything past the Senior Service, silly buggers just don't know when something's impossible, and just go and do it.

Yes, but Occams razor is frightful sharp.

The more people involved in a big engineering project, the likelier it is that one will be a talkative soul, another might be an amateur photographer, etc etc.

I suspect if there was a tunnel from North Head to Rangitoto, it would be something that somebody somewhere knew about and was happy to talk about.

Having said that, there's a lot of interesting stuff around North head and its well worth spending a couple of hours exploring it. I've also seen WW2-era photos showing anti-sub netting streching from the shore, over to Mechanics bay (or somewhere around there), so there was a lot of hadcore fortification stuff going on around there.

[El Dopa]

That there are, or once were, tunnel complexes there is , IMHO, quite certain. I have the knowledge of what I saw, and reports of numerous other.....

[snip]

.....would have been guilty of gross negligence if they had NOT prepared extensive fortifications to support the Dominion's largest city and chief naval base.
.

Well, yes, that's the sensible way to go about things. But even a fairly lightweight scholar of military history is frequently left gobsmacked at how often the sensible approach is apparently wilfully ignored.

If you told me the tunnels provided stabling for hundreds of horses, because charging the enemy was still considered to be the pinnacle of military strategy, I would only be mildly surprised.

[barty5]

got a mate who lives out Clarks beach way the US had an airfeild out that way and as others have said at the end large hole dug push it all in planes and all from memory a lot of that stuff has been dug up. As for north head im only 36 but i remember the tunnels being a lot longer and more connected than they are today. Makes no sence to not have them joined up. What you going to do once the shelling starts oh Jimmy would you just run round the shore line then up the hill and bring us back some more amo, Yeh right there a tui's add if ever you saw one.

[westie]

We gonna sneak that in under cover darkness or just go up there about midday?

Bah just go up at midday and tell em we're gonna dig up mount vic. They'll never beleive us... well till......

[The Stranger:Me]

got a mate who lives out Clarks beach way the US had an airfeild out that way and as others have said at the end large hole dug push it all in planes and all from memory a lot of that stuff has been dug up. As for north head im only 36 but i remember the tunnels being a lot longer and more connected than they are today. Makes no sence to not have them joined up. What you going to do once the shelling starts oh Jimmy would you just run round the shore line then up the hill and bring us back some more amo, Yeh right there a tui's add if ever you saw one.

As a matter of interest, why would you burry all your shit. Ok, taking it away may be too much of a logistical nightmare when all you want to do is get your tired troupes home, but why not just give or sell it to the locals cheap and save yourself time and money?

[westie]

As a matter of interest, why would you burry all your shit. Ok, taking it away may be too much of a logistical nightmare when all you want to do is get your tired troupes home, but why not just give or sell it to the locals cheap and save yourself time and money?

Spose it could've been used against them or for no good (eg chris gets hold of an indian and wheelies it around pissing off the "sensible" ones, not very clever)

[The Stranger:Me]

Spose it could've been used against them or for no good (eg chris gets hold of an indian and wheelies it around pissing off the "sensible" ones, not very clever)

Yeah, you got a point, would have been a good time for NZ to invade America.




Lets face it, we would have been better armed than we are now.

[arj127]

i went through some of the tunnels in karori in wellington about 20 years ago, and that place is huge. Its friggin cold down there, you need heaps of clothing, and you need good quality torches with spare batteries because its incredibly dark. We went a long ways in, down huge flights of stairs and i remember entering large rooms that were bricked off, obvious there was something behind them. Maybe they were bricked off because that part of the room had collapsed i'm not sure. But i know i would sure like to go back in there for a better look. Opening North head up would make an awesome tourist attraction for sure.

[RT527]

Yes, but Occams razor is frightful sharp.



I suspect if there was a tunnel from North Head to Rangitoto, it would be something that somebody somewhere knew about and was happy to talk about.

The only thing resembling a tunnel was the base for the mines across the harbour to Bastion point...it was more of a pipe that housed the power cable that was used to detonate the mines....