We have now completed all the maps around Gisborne and posted a proof set for Westshore-Gisborne. However we have just discovered that 0.1 metre 2017 aerial photography exists for Gisborne (a considerable update on 2012) despite it having been available on LDS for more than 12 months. This will be added into the maps and the 2012 images supplemented by 2017 for all areas which already have a 2012 view. Using it will not slow things down materially.

We have also decided at the last minute to add historical pictures of Beach Loop to the maps and these should be ready tomorrow. These will use the older 2012 0.4 metre Linz aerials as a base rather than the 2017 0.3 metre aerials because in 2012 the railway had only recently closed and the tracks were still visible, in the latest imagery the railway is practically invisible because of undergrowth.

We still have to get a set of maps generated for the Ngatapa Branch and the Matawai-Waioeka survey to complete everything around Gisborne. This will probably happen tomorrow as well.

Apart from that then we should be moving rapidly south to Napier, tomorrow, to tidy up around there, then pushing back towards Palmerston North.

So the timetable looks good at the moment, but it will be a busy few days, and the deadline is going to be missed by a day or two, but that is OK.

The Kopuawhara disaster memorial seen from above (1986).

The siding built to deal with this washout at c.365.5 km is shown in the 1968 S&I diagram (No. 1276) as a switchlocked service siding (22478). This aerial photo was taken in 1962 as part of a highway survey.

We believe this is the as-constructed Tunnel 24, seen in 1942. The hillside around it kept slipping with the result  the tunnel had to be abandoned in 1956 after only 14 years of operation.