The next marker was probably this hilltop on Okura Ridge. About a decade ago we detected yet another raised hump at the same elevation further northwards on another ridge, but recent deforestation has mangled the landscape to such an extent that the former mound position is now unrecognisable.
Although heavy construction and road-works goes on around it for a new subdivision, the hill-top where the alignment crosses remains intact for the moment.
The line scoots down the seaward coast past Mairangi Bay where the ancient people set up a solar observatory, in such a position that at the summer solstice the sun is seen to rise out of the crater of Rangitoto, an extinct volcanic island out to sea. The skirting-past line misses the solar observatory obelisks on the shore by about 700-feet.
The summer solstice sunrise from a still in situ surviving obelisk set on a cliff at the north end of Mairangi Bay beach. From this vantage point the sun’s first glint is slightly to the left of the main crater.
A surviving obelisk, lying recumbent in position at Mairangi Bay solar observatory beneath the glow of the rising summer solstice sun, which has just emerged from Rangitoto Island volcano. Nearby are a few other large obelisks, one of which seems to have been pressed into service as a gate ornament. That this observatory survived is a miracle in consideration of the major housing developments on the coastal cliffs. There would obviously have been other solar observatories in the vicinity, where the sun was seen to rise centrally from the main crater of Rangitoto.
The line skirts to the side of North Head volcanic Hill, which, with its commanding views of the harbour, was a military installation for about 100-years. One would expect that an alignment marker would have been in evidence here, but years of military terrain modifications and infill housing have probably obscured all traces of a marker. The line crosses the harbour and makes landfall at Bastion Point.
The line from Okura Ridge runs down the coast, skirting the Mairangi Bay solar observatory obelisks and then runs past the western side of North Head, a former military base.