As a property comprising live firing ranges, the 158ha military base at Whangaparaoa, now called the Tamaki Leadership Centre, rightly remains off-limits to the public. I would describe the vast staircases in the Whangaparaoa tunnels as resembling Mines of Moria, from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. The Whangaparaoa military base also housed New Zealand's only "secret weapons programme". A dam was set up on the military land at the Whangaparaoa base where this method was tried out with hundreds of experimental charges being let off. In the last 20 years the historic weatherboard buildings of the former Whangaparaoa Military camp, comprising barracks and mess rooms, were quietly demolished and replaced with modern facilities.

Source: New Zealand Herald November 04, 2016 01:45 UTC