Fly Past (Northland) Traditional Geocache
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An easy log only magnteic key holder cache to bring you to an historical RNZAF site that many people are unaware of. Please bring your own pencil.
A slice of both the Far North and New Zealand’s military history, once in danger of being lost, will now be perpetuated in a memorial to be unveiled in a public ceremony on 23 April 2005 at Waipapakauri, just north of Kaitaia.
The memorial commemorates the era during World War II when an airfield at Waipapakauri was New Zealand’s first line of defense against invasion from the north.
The airfield was host to a Royal New Zealand Air Force reconnaissance squadron, and because of its military significance, many of the residents and businesses in the area were relocated as a security measure.
In 1942 the airfield was host to 26 officers, 250 airmen and 110 personnel from the Women’s Auxiliary. A further 200 soldiers from the Home Guard and an artillery anti-aircraft battery were also stationed nearby.
Waipapakauri boasted two 700-metre runways and 18 operational aircraft at its peak. The operation was phased out following the war.
Today little remains visible of this once strategic facility, other than remnants of an underground operations bunker and the Waipapakauri Hotel which during hostilities had been used as a hospital and officers’ mess.
The cache is a log only magnetic key holder. Please bring your own pencil to sign log.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Thneq envy 9 zrgref sebz zrzbevny