LEISURE WALK UP NORTH HEAD
DEVONPORT
28 MARCH 2009
Today was a really fun day.
We travelled over the harbour bridge in Auckland to get to our destination, North Head, Devonport. It was beautiful looking down at the sparkling waters of the Waitemata Harbour, as well as all the yachts and sailboats out for a relaxing day in the gulf.
What better way to start our adventure than to walk through the local neighbourhood, wow, the houses were amazing, big, beautiful and neat. Many of the passing locals smiled or said a friendly hello to us. Soon we arrived at start of what was to be a MOST INTERESTING adventure, we learnt so much.
Just a few things we learnt:
v North Head was a base used to prepare the New Zealand soldiers in case the enemy attacked
v Our first stop was the MINE CONTROL CENTRE – this is where soldiers kept a look out for enemy ships and where they could detonate (to blow up) the mines they'd put down.
v The control centre was CAMOUFLAGED by all the bush around it, so the enemy could not see the soldiers hiding away.
v BUNKERS, the hidden buildings, partly underground, where soldiers could spot the enemy from.
v The RANGITOTO CHANNEL – the narrow water-way leading from the harbour out into the gulf (open sea)
v UNDERGROUND TUNNELS AND CAVES – this was where the soldiers could stay, store their ammunition, artillery, food, etc, the tunnels allowed them to move from place to place without being seen.
v DISAPPEARING GUN – this is a huge gun which could be raised and lowered back underground. It was used to blast off mortars (like bombs, but in a huge gun)
v OBSERVATION POST – these were found above the spots where the soldiers in charge of firing were located, others soldiers would look out and if they saw the enemy they would pass the message on to fire.
v The messages to fire were spoken through VOICE PIPES, which are pipes that you talk into and your voice travels through them, under the ground to the other end, where the message is received.
v VOICE PIPES were used for 7 years until telephones were installed
v TRAMS LINES were built to transport artillery and ammunition from the base of the mount to the various posts where they were needed.
v BOOM NETS – these were nets installed from one side of the channel to the other, i.e. from North Head to Bastian Point, they were used to prevent enemy submarines getting into the main harbour. If a submarine got caught it would surface and be fired on by the NZ military.
v SEARCH LIGHTS were used to spot the submarine surfacing.
As you can see we learnt so much about what our soldiers did in preparation for the enemy to attack, however, they were lucky because no-one attacked NZ and therefore there was no need to ever fire any of the guns in anger or detonate any of the mines, the only firing that took place was done was as a practise
ALL IN ALL WE HAD A GREAT DAY AND WISHED IT HAD NEVER C0ME TO AN END!
Helen, Fereni, Lupi, Vai, Diana and Grace
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